A fun workbook and CD combination for parents and young children.

School Zone Interactive has designed another series of combo CD/workbook sets entitled Pencil Pal Software. This series is comprised of four titles: Preschool, Kindergarten, First Grade, and Phonics. Each CD comes with a workbook, but unlike School Zone's other similar software/workbook series, On Track Software, there are no additional workbook pages to print out from the CD.

Each CD offers five activities: Jokes, Connect the Dots, Movie Theater, Art Studio, and a Learning Game. Jokes is, you guessed it, jokes! Kids will get a kick out of these classic, yet still funny, jokes. Connect the Dots is a basic connect the dots game, but numbers, small case and large case can be designated. Also, the picture is animated after completion. Movie Theater is an utterly charming hodgepodge of video clips of real people or animated figures that demonstrate something of interest to children, or sometimes educational. They have a distinct flavor of old Sesame Street clips, but there's no information offered on the origin of them. The Art Studio is an art area where either existing pictures can be colored, or can be freely drawn in an open-ended fashion. These masterpieces can be printed out. There are lots of colors to choose from, as well as patterns and stamps. The Learning Game is an educational activity that focuses on the theme of its particular specific title.

The workbooks are a collection of different skills for each grade and reading skills for the phonics title. These are meant to be for review purposes, rather than for teaching, especially Phonics, which is more for your established reader, than for a beginning reader. The pages are atypical for this type of workbook, and will be familiar to most children who attend formal schooling. These books are not meant to be rushed through, but to be used one page at a time, leisurely. Each workbook also features ideas for additional activities for parents and children to do together to reinforce the concepts. The activities on the CD are a great way of reinforcing concepts, and also to play just for fun!

Broken down, each title reviews these basic skills and more:

• Phonics: For intermediate readers, a review of short and long vowels, blends, digraphs, silent "e", rhyming families and different letters that have the same sounds. This title more than the others will probably require a parent's help for directions and completing the activities.

• Preschool: Fine motor skills, numbers 1-25, alphabet, does it belong, same or different, story order, following directions and shapes. After parents read the directions, children can easily complete the activities.

• Kindergarten: Classifying, fine motor skills, following directions, opposites, colors, numbers, counting, patterns, money, time, shapes, measurement, beginning phonics, story order, continuing a story, inferences, rhyming, science and social activities.

• First Grade: ABC order, grammar, phonics, punctuation, synonyms/antonyms, comprehension, analogies, science and social studies, addition/subtraction, calendar, counting, fractions, graphing, greater/lesser than, measurement, number order, time, money, skip counting, place value, and patterns.

These are excellent values for parents, and will provide fun for the kids. Just as in most workbooks, though, parents need to use them more as a review, rather than a teaching device.

Gameplay: 7
The activities, while basic, are well-done and fun to play.

Graphics: 7 
The graphics are very nice, especially the videos, which are reminiscent of the best of Sesame Street in the 70's/80's.

Sound: 7
The music is nice and pleasing.

Difficulty: Easy
The activities and workbook pages for the most part are easy, except for the Phonics workbook, which can be difficult depending on the reading level of the child.

Concept: 7 
A nice concept of having games tied to the workbook activities.

Overall: 7.5
Each workbook/CD is nicely designed and will offer good practice and motivation. While not super snazzy like many edutainment titles, these will still be fun to play for most kids and will help in reviewing those important skills. The videos are particularly charming, and will engross young kids.