JumpStart Adventures 4th Grade: Haunted Island

JumpStart Adventures 4th Grade: Haunted Island is a JumpStart game that was made in 1996 for fourth graders. It was later replaced by JumpStart Adventures 4th Grade: Sapphire Falls in 2000.

Opening
thumb|300px|right A peaceful schoolhouse with white picket fences are shown in the beginning with pleasant music. Suddenly, lightning flashes, and the schoolhouse and the fences take on a twisted shape. Inside, the substitute teacher named Ms. Grunkle,who is really a witch casts a spell on a frightened girl named Zev Cosmo. Although Zev's face is blacked out when the effects take place, we can see her turning into a monster. The same thing happens to Wolfgang, then Albert Brayne. Then a half-dozen of frightened students named Violet, Jane Plain, Penny Scilin, James, Tiffany, and Joe are all turned into monsters one-by-one. Ms. Grunkle flies on her broomstick to her house. Along the way, she drops the skeleton keys to her house and her magic wand by Madame Pomreeda's carriage. After that, the words "Haunted Island" appear on the screen. (The other four students not shown in the introduction are: Calvin, Laura, Stanley ZeBlucky, and Debbie.)

Ending
thumb|300px|right Once the user enters the attic, Ms. Grunkle attempts to transform all the students back into monsters, along with the user. However, the user produces Ms. Grunkle's magic wand, which protects the kids from the spell. Ms. Grunkle is temporarily shocked that the user has acquired her wand, but then realizes that Madame Pomreeda must be responsible. (The game's opening sequence depicts Ms. Grunkle accidentally dropping her wand next to Pomreeda's carriage.) With that, Ms. Grunkle acknowledges defeat and flies out the window on her broom. A piece of paper she leaves behind on the floor reveals the schoolhouse being restored to its original state.

Characters

 * Ms. Grunkle - The game's villainess and the fourth-grade substitute teacher who turned the kids into monsters and brought them to Haunted Island, which she apparently rules over. Her appearance fits the popular depiction of a witch to a tee, with her having gray skin (although it's blue on the icon), black clothing and a pointed hat. Ms. Grunkle appears at the beginning and ending of the game as well as whenever the user enters a new room in her house. Sometime after you finish playing one of the minigames she flies by on her broomstick to taunt the user with typical villainous comments ("So, you think you're pretty good at my little games? Well, you haven't seen anything yet!") before flying off. Curiously, she is sometimes referred to as "Mrs. Grunkle," prompting one to wonder whatever became of husband (she has a skeleton in her living room watching TV and holding a remote, which could have been her husband at one point). She does not have an explained motivation for her actions in the game.
 * Flap - A large, purple bat (based on Peter Lorre) who provides help to the user, most often by explaining how the game's activities are played. He is commonly seen as the mascot for this version of JumpStart 4th Grade.
 * Madame Pomreeda - She gives the player the challenges needed to save each kid. Each time she is visited, Madame Pomreeda gives the user one of four cards, each containing three challenges. After the user finishes with four cards, Madame Pomreeda will use the collected objects to determine what the child's true personality is and say a poem aloud to change the kid back. These poems, the spells she uses to activate her crystal ball and the cards she gives the user all make great use of rhyming couplets. Madame Pomreeda's apparently lives in a circus carriage at the end of the island opposite Ms. Grunkle's house. Although she, her carriage and her magic seem to be very reminiscent of popular depictions of Gypsies, she is blonde-haired and blue-eyed and therefore does not have the physical appearance typically associated with the Roma people. According to Flap, Pomreeda has a "rotten sense of humor," considering the bugs in the Spider's Web activity cute. Her name is an obvious play on palm reading.
 * Repsac - Also referred to as Random Threat by the bugs in the spider web, Repsac is a menacing ghost who serves Ms. Grunkle. He occasionally springs upon the user to ask multiple choice questions that will deplete the user's health if answered incorrectly. Most of his questions seem to involve science and grammar, as well as sentence structure. This is presumably due to the fact that the game does not have activities which specifically address these topics. Repsac is "Casper" spelled backwards, which is quite fitting considering that Repsac's personality is the complete opposite of Casper's.