YOUNG LEARNERS HAVE GOBS OF FUN WITH THE BLOBS

East Dorset, Vermont.  June 11, 2004—It’s impossible not to smile in Paintbox Land, the vibrant world where droplets, spotlets, and splashes called The Blobs live to delight children.  A software program designed especially for three to five year-olds, The Blobs introduces children to colors, numbers, and letters while thrilling and inspiring them with games and surprises.   

First-time computer users will have no trouble splashing around in this simply-designed yet richly textured program.  A helpful rainbow blob in the lower left corner tells children how to play each game, and points out the few buttons needed to print or move from screen to screen.  There’s no chance of getting lost or overwhelmed in Paintbox Land, so children may focus on coloring and playing with numbers and the alphabet.   From the main menu screen, simply clicking on one of four objects in the colorful picture will bring users to a game. 

To play Everyone’s Gone Ghostly White! click on the large rainbow arching across the screen.  In this game, the wicked witch Inky Black flies overhead and steals colors from each character.  Poppy Red, Gloomy Royal Blue, Canary Yellow, and Grumbly Green are robbed of their colors, and you must repaint them!  Try to remember which color each character was, and then click on a color in the rainbow to hear the name of that color and add it to your magic brush.  Click again on the character to paint him or her, and then sit back and watch your character come to life and sing in a fun animated sequence. The print button allows you to print out the ghostly characters, so that children may also bring them back to life with crayons and markers.

Inky Black’s Magic Numbers demystifies learning numbers without taking away the magic for young learners.  The colorful screen shows Inky Black stirring her cauldron, with the numbers one through ten hovering around her.  Children simply move their mouse over each number to hear them spoken in a cheerful voice.  Clicking on a number will place it in the bubbling cauldron, where children can get an even closer look at them.  As catchy music plays, a new screen shows a collection of objects matching the number chosen.  Ten apples, nine ants, eight flowers, seven bees, six butterflies, five inkpots, four cats, three umbrellas, two trees, and one boat animate the screens, bringing numbers to life for children.  Teachers may want to create impressive bulletin boards by printing out the colorful screens in this game. 

In Poppy Red’s Paintpot Alphabet, budding readers discover letters and their sounds.  Piles of paint buckets labeled with letters invite children to drag their mouse around the screen to hear the sound each letter makes.  Clicking on a letter lets children hear a word and see a picture of an object beginning with that letter, so that the sound of “S” is associated with “sun”, “L” with “lighthouse” and so on.  Letters are moved into a row of empty ovals at the bottom of the screen when they are clicked, so that children may begin to assemble words which can also be printed out.  The paint bucket with a mouth will read the string of sounds created by each new word, and the bucket with an eraser lets children clear the word and begin the process all over again.

Enter Royal Blue’s Picture Puzzle by clicking on the sun in the main screen, and get ready for another fun activity.  Secret pictures hide behind each patterned screen, and children practice their mouse skills as they click to clear each tile, enjoying as they do the musical notes that play with every click.  A colorful scene begins to emerge as the tiles are removed, and when the whole screen is clear, a surprise awaits! Children are rewarded with silly animations, such as a purple puppy chasing its tail, a hot air balloon sailing through a blue sky, or two pairs of legs running with an umbrella under a rain cloud.

Children, teachers, and parents alike will be tickled pink by the fun opportunities for learning to be found with The Blobs in the colorful corners of Paintbox Land!

Minimum System Requirements

Windows 95 or better, Pentium, 16 MB RAM, sound card, CD-ROM drive

To Order

The single unit price for The Blobs is $39.95

Multi-pack and site license pricing available. 

Order online using our secure ecommerce engine from this link:

http://www.toolfactory.com/dynprod/new.mv?fns=DPRD&page=product&id=2503&nest=0
To order toll free from the US or Canada call (800) 220-8386
Fax your order to (802) 375-6860
Email your order to orders@toolfactory.com

Mail purchase orders to Tool Factory, 3336 Sunderland Hill Road, Sunderland, VT 05250

Printable order forms are available at www.toolfactory.com

About Tool Factory

Tool Factory conducted an exhaustive search for unique educational software in various markets around the globe. Their flagship product line consists of 26 educational software tools, which were hand-picked for their innovative contribution to computer-based learning. To complement the tools and applications, Tool Factory is also distributing an extensive range of curriculum titles throughout North America. Their second catalog launches with 127 CD-ROM products, many of which are new releases in North America. They’ve also just released a full line of special education software and assistive devices.

For press inquiries, please call Kendra Ericson at (802) 375-6549 or email kendra@toolfactory.com.