GCompris is a package of educational activities mainly presented in game form. It is intended for children aged from 2 to 10. Consequently, its graphical user interface is specifically adapted to be used by kids. This is easily noticeable from the size of the various elements as well as the variety of attractive colors. Moreover, most of the times, it does not require using the keyboard; instead, the child should use a pointing device, like a mouse, a touchscreen or a trackpad.
The package contains a large number of activities, which have been arranged into such categories as Computer Discovery, Reading, Arithmetic, Science, Geography, Logic, Memory, Fine Arts and Games. Moreover, there is a system of stars to filter activities with the appropriate age group. What is more, it is fully customizable, for instance, you can set the self-service kiosk mode, which disables some options to make it suitable for very small children. Regrettably, it does not allow creating separate identities for users. So, if you have kids with different ages, you need to set the app every time. Likewise, it does not seem to keep a record.
To conclude, the activities and games contained in GCompris are amazing and the children love them. The graphics and the background music are beautiful. But above all, the activities are based on sound pedagogical principles that seamlessly combine fun with learning. The package is opensource and new activities are continuously being added. It is also good that it is available in more than 50 languages. It is completely free at the moment, but donations are encouraged.
v0.9 [Sep 14, 2020]
We are pleased to announce the release of GCompris version 0.97.
This new version contains 2 new activities:
A programming maze: to learn the basics of programming with a few instructions
Baby tangram: to learn the basics of tangram (this activity corresponds to the lowest levels of previous tangram activity)
And a lot of new features:
new sub-categories to organize activities
new background music feature and audio tracks
new volume settings for audio effects
new speed setting in several activities (gletters, algebra, readingh, note_names)
new feature in chess activities to display captured pieces
new option to go to next level manually in drawletters and drawnumbers
new voices for en_US
new images for colors activity
new images for advanced_colors activity
new images for target activity
improve settings layout
improve share activity layout
improve categorisation activity layout
resource files are now stored in KDE server (https://cdn.kde.org/)
add a tutorial to even/odd numbers
add intro to piano_composition
add malayalam dataset to gletters
add breton dataset to wordsgame
fix voices not playing in geography
fix sounds not playing in mining
fix portrait mode in binary_bulb
fix high cpu load in menu
fix hint image size in photo_hunter
fix layout in color_mix
and lots of other small fixes...
An exciting game that gives you access to the story of Red Riding Hood.
Grimm's Rapunzel is a 3D storybook about the famously long-braided princess.
