Computer games, what grade??

The Friends of the Library organization thanks it's volunteers for their efforts by offering them free books and CDs, DVDs, videos, software, etc, depending on how many hours they work. I was there for DAYS. As part of my recompense I picked up a handful of computer games for the kiddos. Reader Rabbit and JumpStart stuff. Brought them home to make sure they weren't among the games we already had and returned a couple that were.

Friday, Sayer spent some time playing the JumpStart Deluxe Kindergarten disc. It was way easy. She played it a bit more yesterday after our history lessons. When she had triumphed again she found the JumpStart 3rd Grade Mystery Mountain CD and insisted that I put it in. Parts of the game were difficult for her because of her cast impeding her dexterity when trying to control the movement of a probe with arrow keys, but as far as answering the questions went, she was doing pretty darn well. If I drove (ie, manned the keyboard) and she answered the questions she managed better than 65% without help. The questions she didn't know we were able to reason out together.

Then today she found the JumpStart Deluxe 2nd Grade set of discs and decided she wanted to try those instead of playing the next level of the 3rd grade game. She's having some of the same issues with not controlling the pieces well with key commands, but she's doing okay with the questions. I had to show her how the Roman Numeral system worked, and explain the differences between compound words and contractions. And I'm sure there will be more explaining to come.

Still. Though I don't rely on these games to let me know what grade level she is, it's interesting to note that kindergarten stuff is too easy and 2nd and 3rd grade can be managed with some assistance.