Each of the 50 stories has 3 to 5 interactive 'pages' that the children flip through to see, hear and play with the story. (some other programs of this kind only give you one picture per story).

Kids pick a story and the program asks them if they want a narrator to read it for them, or they can read it themselves. After a brief narration on each page, kids can hunt for fun animations hidden in each screen. When they rollover the animation funspots, their cursor changes and the kids can click to play them. The kids LOVE this feature. See the video demo for examples. They can also click the Bible icon to search for interesting narrated study notes (such as the one about shepherds seen on this page below).

Each page has kid-friendly text and vocabulary spoken by a pleasant voice. The vocabulary used to tell the stories is at about age 4 to 6. Each story ends with an age appropriate question about the story's meaning for young children.

Play & Learn's 50 stories were written by popular children's Christian author Gilbert Beers. Each Bible story is paraphrased and shortened in an easy to understand version for pre-and early reader, just like you'd expect for a Bible story book for children.

See a list of the 50 stories on this CD

Print a handout of the 50 Stories
to give to your teachers or post in your classroom

View a 2 minute VIDEO DEMO
of Play & Learn Childrens Bible in action

Print our Teaching Tips for Play and Learn

IN THE GAMEROOM:
Click on the Jesus & Animals icon and you launch the gameroom menu. This is definitely a favorite area for the kids!  It includes....

• Bible songs sing-a-long ...16 songs to choose from. Lyrics are presented onscreen and cute animations of kids singing and playing instruments. He's got the whole world in his hands, This little light of mine, Father Abraham, ...16 classics!
   
• Bible picture puzzles for 25 of the stories (onscreen).  Children pick the puzzle, then scramble it. They can play it in easy or hard mode, then they drag the pieces into the right puzzle locations.
   
• Bible Paint coloring activity for the other 25 stories (onscreen). Kids have an onscreen crayon they can use to select colors and paint/fill-in the picture any way they want.
   
• Mazes to play onscreen. Just a fun doo-dad game where kids use their mouse to help a mouse get out of a maze.
   
• ABC and 123 activities to play onscreen. Kids use their mouse to unscramble the numbers.
   

I have used this CD dozens of times in my own classes and the little dudes never seem to tire of it. My kids like to take turns 'running' the story and clicking the cute animations on each screen, and we often end up viewing the same story at least twice, which helps them remember it. When they're THIS interested and captivated, they don't ask to go to the bathroom or get so easily distracted. And because happy and focused, it is easy to talk with them about the story

This CD continues to be a popular item that gets good reviews. And it runs on new as well as older computers. Unfortunately, however, it will not run in Vista.

Most other preschooler Bible CDs have serious flaws or are just plain bad (poor graphics, difficult Bible versions, only one illustration per story, poor sound, etc., etc.). We love Play and Learn so much, that after many years we bought it from the developer to keep it in print.  <>< Neil

To order, go to our online order form.

Play & Learn is $18 for one CD
$15 each for 2-4 copies
$13 each for 5+; 
$12 each for 8+ copies

Over the years, several churches have purchased large quantities of this program to give to each of their preschoolers. So we've made our low 8+ price a permanent feature for this program.
 

System Requirements:

Windows 95/98/Me/XP/Vista* (100mhz or higher).
**Runs in Vista if you do the right things. See our Vista Tweaks.

The upper age limit for this CD is about mid-way through the second grade year. This program displays 640x480 in size, so we recommend you set your monitor to that or 800x600 to fill out the screen.

Printing Note: The people who pay for the color inkjet cartridges at your home or church will appreciate the fact that the kids cannot print the painted picture pages from within the program. You can, however, screencapture them and paste them into any document and print them that way if your child insists.

 
Stories are organized by theme. When you click on one of the themes, the page opens up to a menu of Bible stories to choose from.

 

The pages are warmly drawn and easy to navigate for young children. Each story is narrated and has multiple pages with clickable animated funspots.

 

 
The game room is a lot of fun for preschoolers, and easy to navigate. Kids especially love the Music Box sing-a-long Bible songs, and the Coloring Book.

25 of the 50 Stories are turned into puzzles.

25 of the 50 stories have coloring pages

Clicking the Bible icon on each story page activates a question mark that the kids can move around the screen to look for Bible study notes or find fun animations.

Play & Learn is $18 for one CD.
$15 each for 2-4 copies
$13 each for 5+ copies 
$12 each for 8+ copies

Order it using our online order form.
Look for it about half way down our order form in the preschool section of software.

System Spec: Windows 95/98/Me/XP/Vista (133 mhz or higher). The upper age limit for this CD is about mid-way through the second grade year. See Vista note above.

Special Large Quantity Pricing:  Need 20+ copies? They're just $8 each! Some churches and schools give this CD to every one of their preschoolers to use at home. Contact us for this special pricing.

I'm often asked why we don't carry "Heavenword" CD for the little guys. It has been on our "No Shelf" of not-recommended software for many years. Here are two of many reasons: 1) It only has one picture per story. Only the text changes. ...and... 2) Its written content isn't as age appropriate as Play and Learn's.

Here's some great feedback on Play & Learn:

Dear Neil,

My oldest teacher was tickled to death with this program. She said she had finally found a reason to become computer literate! She is about 65-70 years old and does a great job teaching our K-1st grade class but I think she is thrilled to find something new to do with the kids that is really worthwhile.

--Anita Shoemaker, Fleming Road UCC, Cincinnati.