Ni Hao, Kai-lan: New Year's Celebration Nintendo DS Game
Chinese New Year is coming up soon, and 2K Play has a new Nintendo DS game for preschoolers called “Ni Hao, Kai-lan: New Year’s Celebration.” Asianmommy.com received this product from 2K Play for free.
Fans of the show “Ni Hao, Kai-lan” will love this game. It’s designed specifically for preschoolers—easy enough for them to play on their own, and provides encouraging hints when they need help. It’s just right for kids ages 3 to 5. In order to do the activities, they’ll need to be able to tap, scribble, drag, and trace with the stylus and blow or speak into the microphone. To prepare for Chinese New Year, the players will wake everyone up, clean up the house, go shopping for clothes, pick up ingredients to make Chinese dumplings, bake almond cookies, serve food for dinner, and then wash the dishes--all with Kai-lan and her friends. They’ll identify colors and shapes in the lantern parade, make gift envelopes, color a dragon mask, make a lantern, and play musical instruments. Finally, they’ll trace shapes and create a beautiful fireworks display.
What I liked: Overall, this is a fun game for little ones, especially for those who are already familiar with the TV show "Ni Hao, Kai-lan." The graphics are cute, the activities review colors and shapes, and the kids get to learn a little bit about Chinese culture. My daughter is 5, and her favorite activities were coloring the dragon mask & the gift envelope, lighting the lanterns, and making almond cookies. She really enjoyed the entire game.
What could be improved: I wish that more Chinese words and phrases were incorporated into the game. Ideally, this game would be bilingual, and offer kids the opportunity to learn their colors and shapes in Mandarin Chinese, as well as in English.
Comments
That is so exciting! My
That is so exciting! My husband makes DS games, so we have the handhelds everywhere. We'll have to give this a try! We love Kai Lan here.
So little Chinese?
I am surprised, to read in your "what could be improved", that they didn't take the opportunity to introduce Chinese words for colors and shapes etc. One would think that was a lot of the point of the series and offshoot games. Thanks for the review!
Common problem in Kai-Lan
I totally do not want to run down Ni Hao, Kai-Lan at all, because I love the show and appreciate the quality of the spin-off books and such, but I notice that it could use a little more Mandarin vocabulary. My 2-yr-old calls her colors hong-se, lui-se, and "not hong-se, yellow." (Sorry if these are spelled wrong; I'm doing this from memory, and any Chinese I know, I know from Kai-Lan.) I keep waiting for the show they'll do where Kai-Lan learns the rainbow or something. I think I'll have to break down and get some Mandy and Pandy books.
Post new comment