Winnie the Pooh and the other denizens of the 100 Acre Wood are ideal companions for guiding your baby through his or her first software experience. Their gentle silliness and not particularly linear behavior provide a perfect match for the vagaries of baby reasoning. Babies can help Pooh pull everything from bubbles to birds out of his honey pots. Use spoons to bang out rhythms on pans with Baby Roo. Point to body parts with Piglet. Paint with Eeyore, who glumly uses his tail as a brush ("Green. Like the grass. Except when it's brown. Sigh. "). [+]

There are high-pitched voices galore exclaiming "Yoho" "Ahoy" in various combinations on this delightful CD-ROM. Aboard the pirate ship Rubber Duck, the seven seafaring friends have seven games to play and young fans won't be disappointed as the activities are stimulating and the characters are all adorable. Choose from the seven different games on offer, each takes only a couple of seconds to load and are more about enjoyment than competitive scoring. The Help screens are very useful and include the option to make each of the games hard or easy so that the challenge can be kept fresh as children get better at the game. The simple games and puzzles include "Toot with Swab" where players can make harmonious noises and direct the characters to blow over the top of bottles to play scales or form a tune. Another favourite is "Mop with Poop" where the player can direct Poop to clean up the dirty water Cat has spilt before Bilge makes his deck inspection. "Chairs with Grog" is a virtual game of musical chairs and is great fun. Swab will play some music. When Grog clangs his pot, the music stops and you have to dash to a chair! To do so click repeatedly as fast as you can on the nearest chair. The quality of the graphics here is very high, the animation looks absolutely charming and the faces of the characters when they lose at musical chairs are especially heartbreaking! (Ages 2-6) -Rachel Ediss.

Spot, Rolie Polie Olie's dog, needs a bath, but he has run off and hidden somewhere. It's your job to help Rolie find him. Disney Early Learning Rolie Polie Olie CD-ROM is based on Disney's pre-school show, and is a fun, interactive way to get two to five-year-olds comfortable with a PC. The package contains four games, each of which can be accessed by visiting a different room. The Canister Can-Can Game is probably one of the highlights of the package-eight kitchen canisters create an octave for budding musicians, while taps, kettles and even a musical toaster add variety. A playback facility also allows youngsters to record their compositions and play them back at the click of a mouse. Logically, the "Telly Game" takes place in the living room, the "Crayon Criss-Cross Game" in Rolie's bedroom and the "Can-Can Canister Game" in the kitchen. The Telly Game tests matching, as youngsters have to drag and drop items of furniture into their corresponding shapes. The colouring game promotes hand-to-eye co-ordination and cause-and-effect relationships, as players grab a passing crayon, then fill in the corresponding polka dot. Level one deals with primary colours, while levels two and three develop the idea of mixing two colours to create another-use the blue then the red crayons to colour in the purple one, and so on. [+]