"What Shall We Do Today?" Feedback thread

[AnnMumsnet]

Dear "What Shall We Do Today?" Tester

Many thanks for being a tester for the Playhouse Disney 'What Shall We Do Today?' web based interactive tool with your child aged 2-5. We hope you are enjoying the website.

Please use this thread to record which activities you've done, your thoughts on the website in general and on the activities.

Playhouse Disney would also love to see any pictures or artwork which resulted from any activities undertaken - you can upload the images onto your MN profile or if you have online storage (ie Photobox/Flickr etc) please post a link so other Mumsnetters can see what you and your child have been doing!

Thanks

MNHQ

We had a play last night again.

DD2 enjoyed the Bear in the Big Blue House games. She liked the balancing scales.

A couple of feedback items:

this is the .co.uk site and therefore spellings really should be the English ones, e.g. it higglytown heros they change a tire not a tyre.

Its a bit slow to load which means DD2 gets impatient.

When you click on a new activity it opens in a new window meaning that we ended up with hundreds of windows open as DD2 does close them before moving on!

The other thing i would suggest is that on the character select menu i would have a picture, DD2 is nearly 5 and is left to play on her own but as she can only read a few words doesn't know which word equals the character she wants.

Been getting accustomed to all the features on this.

We started off with DD1's (she's 3) choice of character, which was Little Einsteins. We decided on My Masterpiece . Great choice, DD was completely absorbed in in it, only took a matter of minutes for her to navigate around the page and know what she was doing. It was lovely to see her all creative!!
DD adores the music too, she was la, la, laa la-ing all the way through.

This was great for solo activity, seeing as we have 4 children, this can be tricky. We decided they could each have a 10 minute go on a solo activity they choose.

DS2 (he's 4) chose Special Agent Oso. Now this wasn't the best tbh. It was complicated and DS couldn't figure out what he needed to do at all, he tried all sorts but got particularly bored and gave up. I had a go myself and tried to suss out what he needed to do but I couldn't make head nor tail of it so passed on to hubby and even he was flummoxed. Not a great all rounder, needs to be somewhere to demo maybe, so we can see what we need to do

I felt that DS3 was too young for any of the solo activities (being only 2), so I chose his favourite show, Mickey Mouse, and we all decided on a story. Donald & The Beanstalk.
This proved a hit,they all loved this, it was engaging and my 4 year old DS loved watching the words and joining in with any he knew. My 3 year old DD liked learning the words, seeing them in time with the story was really exciting for her, she's a very keen learner. My 2 year DS loved watching the animation & I liked the way the words may not mean much, but helps in his learning skills.
The only thing I didn't particulary like on this, or thought could have been changed was that I think reading the story in an english accent would have been better, so that the children learn to pronounciate words correctly for this country IYSWIM?
Also, if you clicked to try and read the sentence again, it often missed the first 2 or so seconds off.

All in all my impressions of this is above average so far, but I realise that we have only experimented with a few of the activities out of a vast amount, so this can be subject to change

Tigger and Pooh Hint n Hunt is really good, DD couldn't catch what the girl was saying but understood if I said it a bit slower, we just played it 3 times in a row

I liked the Lumpy and Roo story as well, I think the guessing games are good and quite easy for little kids. I'm also finding it better at loading now, once the main screen is up they all seem quite fast now.

Ok,

So dd (5) and dd(3) really enjoyed goofy's slide and spent about 20 minutes playing around with that. Was great for dd(she wa only 3 last week) to mamage even

Ds (6) I know he's not in the age bracket but has really enjoyed it too, and spent about half hour playing bowling

be back in few moinutes

I'm I too late to join - I never get selected for anything like this so didn't check my e-mails!

DS (4) had a quick go on it this afternoon and loved it. He adores Imagination Movers, so had fun trying out those activities. Particularly the interactive story.

Agree that the screen size isn't quite right, we had to scroll down a bit to get it to fit. (Although that could be a problem with my screen)

It would be helpful to have pictures of the characters on the choice screen, if only to stop me having to read out the options each time (knowing full well he was going to pick Imagination Movers again)

We'll have another go with it tomorrow when we have more time. I think DD (nearly 6) would like some of the games on her too.

We've just had our fist look at the sight and there is so much to do!
I think it'll take a long time to get used to it, just for me, to learn my way around the different options available. DS is only three, so I'm not sure how able he'd be to use the site on his own, but he had always surprised me with his computer capabilities, so who knows

I was a bit disappointed to find that a lot of the activities need a printer to print of worksheets, but that's because we haven't got a printer

I was really pleased to see an option to choose an activity to match a time scale. What a good idea.

My two DS (just turned 4) and DD (5 nearly 6) spent too much time on the site this morning. They enjoyed the using the lucky dip button. It gave them the chance to play games and print out activities they usually wouldn't try. For example, they seemed to spend a fair bit of time playing 'ooh and ahh' and 'bear in the bluehouse' games which they wouldn't generally choose.

After a while we had a large number of windows open. Although it didn't take long for me to close them down, it was (very mildly!) annoying.

A agree with Buzz, I like the duration option. Its something I haven't seen before, and anticipate that it would be very useful.

I can see that I would get a lot of use out of 'What shall we do today' when I want to give my DC printouts on rainy days.

We have a forest worth of printouts to play with this afternoon so will report back on the success of those.

OK, dd2 (3) is having a go just now. Very first impressions are that it did take aaaaaages to load so dd2 thought it wasn't working .

Liked the song on the first page but the layout seems a bit wordy for a website aimed at pre-schoolers. DD2 had to ask what everything said on the drop-down menus so I prefer the old pictures for choosing characters etc. I tend to let DD2 use the computer by herself so I can lie around get on with other stuff.

Will see what she's up to now and report back some more in a while

Hi again, well I'm desperate for my dd to try more games on this site but she's just addicted to the bunny games.
I think we need to try the print out activities.
Will update tomorrow

ds2 did the mickey game tonight; cant remember the name, but its the one where you have to match the correct picture basd on 3 constituent elements. He really enjoyed it, although the mickey voiceover did start to grate on my nerves after not very long!

hello again - well DD (5) has spent far too long on the site and has tried loads
she can read all the words and her mouse/computer skills are very good, at the moment none of the games are too difficult for her.

on Special Agent Oso she enjoyed the popup assignments and the scene maker.

the bubble room on Imagination Movers was good and on Jungle Junction she did beetle bugs nature trip.
these kept her busy for ages. the slow loading gets on my nerves but she doesnt seem to mind it!

the great big book of everything on stanley is a winner too.

of course she loves Mickey mouse and really enjoyed Donald and the beanstalk story and Mickeys animal parade.

as others have already said i too like the fact that the colours are bright and not blue/pink only.

the theme song is already being sung too much ...... arrghhhhhh
it is catchy though

Been back to Agent Oso make a scene and have unlocked some medals so we now have more items to select for our pitures. There were only a couple of items to choose from the first time I looked which I did initially find disappointing. DS insisted on selecting every single item so the picture was nicely full up.

Printed off the Mickey Mouse electricity project which DS 3 and DD just 6 enjoyed thoroughly. Ideal for a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Also enjoyed the Jo Jo Tater story but couldn't quite make out what some of the small icons to choose were. Could you put the word under the icon?

DH had a go with the kids yesterday and he said it was a good site in terms of teaching computer skills but that it would be useful to have some info for parents as to what skills would be used in each game. Eg drag and drop.

Hello

We had another go at the weekend. This time DD (3) went to the 'Stanley' section and wanted a story. She enjoyed controlling the pace once I showed her how to click 'next' to advance the story. She responded to it - answering questions and so on.

Again, it was all useful to entertain her while I dealt with her baby brother.

We then did the animal music bit (sorry, didn't make a note of which section this was in - still Stanley) where you click on the animals to start them off. This was brilliant and DD really enjoyed it.

We've not done any activities offline yet, but will do some this week and report back.

I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of Outdoor activities.
I was looking forward to getting more suggestions for games and activities that could be played outdoors

Also bit disappointed that there aren't that many outdoor activities.

Played Handy Manny with dd(3) today, she got impatient half way through the story and wanted to switch activities, We stuck it out though bit would hold her interest more if there was a bit more interactive stuff to do throughout the story.

She also struggles with mouse control, ie holding the click down to move something, I have to hold her finger down and she gets a bit stressed when I do that.

DD(%) and Ds(6) played and printed Ooh and Aah, spostcard maker at the weekend and they enjoyed that, they printed them and cut out, then did some for their friends, (can see me using alot of ink at this test)

None of my children use the drop down menu to choose an activity or charcter, all preffering to choose from the top, the age range is such that the children won't necessarily be confident readers to I guess that might get more use later, or if older dc's are playing helping

Still enjoying it so far.

Goofy Gooey fishing- Ds loved this game, easy to play with new levels picking up pace. Ds was a little frustrated that you couldn't move the net left or right.

Beetle bugs Nature trip- Ds loved it although he just kept doing swirly patterns to make them travel further.

Goofy silly slide- Again went down well but became board after a couple of go's.

Mystery picture count up- this one is great, he loved it and I like the mathematical value.

Overall Ds and I think it a great site only thing is getting my PC back as ds wants to do his work all the time!

Have had a few goes on it over the last few days, couldn't post on here at the time though so here are my notes...

Age thing is definitely an issue, my DD is only 2 and quite a few of the activities have been inappropriate for her.

The website, she loves, especially the Mickey Mouse related things. She bullied me into the Disney Store on Sat as she is so taken with him and is often pointing to my laptop saying "Mickey game" which must be to an extent what you want to happen. Although I suspect the pull of Mumsnet will win that one

Print and Colour is great, lots of variety. We did some of the role play stuff, shopping and building a den which she really enjoyed. What would also be a good thing to have is an activity sheet that could apply to when doing them in real life, i.e. when we go shopping, tick off or colour in certain pieces of fruit when you see them etc. You could even have them for things like going to the doctor, dentist and other not so nice tasks.

The constant opening of new windows is frustrating and it can take a while to load - and I have a brand new mac and v fast internet connection so sure as I can be that it isn't me.

Also because I am on a Mac laptop it's not very easy for DD to be involved as it's not easy for her to click or control the mouse so for clips, songs, print outs etc are great but games not very interesting as she can't do anything. She really likes Special Agent Oso but might as well watch an episode as opposed to watching me click around a game!

I do have some pics, where do we need to upload them?

Ahhh see in OP it says Photobox/Flickr or profile. Perfect!

we just did the hot and cold game which she loved. we also did the 'make a den' and she pretended to be an indian princess i will upload the photos when i find my lead...

we just did special agent oso and won some digi medals and made some scenes (we just had stars everywhere!) we are now off to play some 'mickey mouse games' according to dd

Marking my place for when dd gets home from nursery.

Thanks Disney!

well we just did all the mickey mouse games possible! she liked the fishing one with donald and goofys musical maze.
she wanted to do the electricity one but it froze our laptop? not sure why, is it a pdf? will have to try that again when i'm feeling brave
she is beginning to find her way around the site but pictures would be better, rather than the writing i.e character selection, as i have to read the names out for her whereas if it was pictures she would be able to do this by herself and choose what she wanted

Just had an email from MNHQ, the original email hadn't come through - am really pleased to be selected so am completely new - just wanted to bookmark!