ItzaBitza

The kids had the opportunity to review a computer game last week.

"Who sent us this, Mama?"

"Someone on the dot com and they want you to be honest and tell people if you like it. Let's play it together."

And played, they did. All three of them! ItzaBitza is a drawing game in which children use a mouse to draw pictures that come alive and create stories. Children can scroll over words and they are read out loud for them, the feature that I loved most.

"Look at my sun!" Lola screamed. "I draw beautiful suns. Look at it sparkle... it's moving, Mama!"

"I see one of my star words from school, Mama. Look the boy read one of my star words." Jay observed.

USA Today wrote:

What makes this game so revolutionary is that it introduces the concept of "Living Ink," which means kids draw a requested object and when they do, that drawing comes alive through animation and it is incorporated into a story. Because it is so cool to watch their drawing come to life, kids are motivated to read the next part of the story so that they can find out what they get to draw next.

And to help new readers, all words in the game can be read aloud in a child's voice by moving the cursor over a word. When you do, the world turns red, gets bigger, and then is spoken aloud so that it is easy to follow along.

Not only did all three of my children take turns drawing and reading and anticipating their next moves... they were QUIET. For a very long time. This game was perfect for their age groups 2 to 7, even the baby played around with the mouse scrolling over words and giggling.

We have lots computer games at home. Some educational and some fun. I can honestly say that this is a game that is both. It is well worth the $20.

I have TWO ITZABITZA game codes to give out to you guys so you can try the game. (You need a mouse) Please leave me ONE COMMENT before Wednesday Jan 28th, 2009.