January 25th, 2010

Barney Fun Games

Barney & Friends is a famous children’s television show that was originally produced in the United States of America. It aims very young children from ages 1 to 8, and it had become famous all over the world. The series was first aired in 1992, and the main character of the TV series is a purple dinosaur (Tyrannosaurus Rex) which is always happy and tries to learn the kids all sort of things through songs and dance routines. He is a stuffed animal likeness and his theme song is “Barney is a dinosaur” (which is sung to the tune of “Yankee Doodle”). Even though the Tyrannosaurus Rex was a carnivore dinosaur, Barney likes to eat many kinds of food, such as fruits and vegetables ( probably to learn the kids that it is good to eat fruits and vegetables) but his favorite food is the peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a glass of milk.

Among his dinosaur friends you will find Baby Bop, which is a three year old green protoceratops. She carries with her a yellow blanket and sings the song called “My yellow blankey” to show that this thing is very important to her. Her favorite food is macaroni with cheese and pizza. The bigger brother of Baby Bop is B.J., which is also a protoceratops dinosaur, but an yellow one. He is also older and he has 7 years. His theme song is the “B.J’s Song” and he wears a red baseball cap and red sneakers. His favorite food are the pickles.

And the last friend of Barney is Riff, which is the cousin of Baby Bop and BJ, and he is a six year old orange hadrosaur. He wears green sneakers and his song is “I hear music everywhere”. And this is because he really loves music. He also likes to invent things and is a fan of marching bands and parades, just like Barney is. So here are all the four dinosaurs in the next image:

As you can see they look really cute and harmless, and this is just one of the reasons kids really love them. But they are just the main characters, and in each episodes there are also many other people appearing. Some appear like real humans while others are disguised. Since the TV show became so popular, the official site which is barney.com is also offering other fun stuff for the kids. Here on the site you will find games, videos, music and other fun things. Today we are going to talk about some of the Barney fun games found on the site. When going in the “Jungle friends” category you will find three games: catch the monkeys, every animal talks and jungle friends music jam.

Let’s begin with the “Catch the monkeys” game. Whenever you will browse the site you will hear the voice of Barney saying to you what each button does, and learning you different things. Whenever you will enter a game, the voice of Barney will tell you exactly what you have to do. In this game there will be monkeys appearing behind tress, behind bushes or from the grass, and you will have to catch them before they disappear. Just use the mouse to move your hand, and click on a monkey to catch it. At each monkey that you will catch, the voice of Barney will congratulate you. The monkeys will stay quite a lot on the screen, allowing your child to easily catch them. To make a perfect score and complete the game he will have to catch 10 monkeys.

Now let’s play the “Every animal talks game”. Every animal talks in a different way and in this game your child will learn these sounds. You will first here a sound, and you will have in front of you many images with different animals. Whenever you place your mouse above an animal, he will make its specific sound, and you just have to click on the one that is matching the sound from the question. After clicking on the correct animal, Barney will repeat to you the name of the animal, and its specific sound. For example “Correct! The lion says…”. After completing all the 8 animals, you can move on to the next game. After each completed game you will earn a free printing image with a game character. Just click on the green “Print” button to print that specific image.

And now let’s play the final game which is “Jungle friends jam”. This one is pretty close to the game before, only that here you can make some kind of music with the animal’s sounds. You will have two background noises to choose from, and when clicking on an animal, it will make its specific sound. You can move fast, and click on all the animals to make them “sing” in the same time.

Now let’s go to the “Celebrating around the world” category of games. Here you can visit 5 countries, each one with it’s specific festival. Ireland has the St. Patrick’s Day, Brazil has the famous carnival, Kenya has the Music Festival, India has the Festival of Lights and Japan has the Cherry Blossom Festival. Now let’s go in each one and see what’s happening. Let’s go first in Ireland…here you will have to help BJ find the four leaf clovers. You will have three clovers in front of you and you will have to click on the one with four leaves. Then the leaves will be more and more mixed together, making the finding of the right one more difficult.

In Japan, at the Cherry Blossom festival you will have to click the buds on the branches and the cherry blossoms will bloom. The mouse cursor will have the aspect of a big glow, making the clicking a little more difficult. But of course the game is not difficult at all, and your child will easily be able to click on the buds and make the blossoms to bloom. In Brazil at the Carnival, you will have to help Barney to dress up for the parade. Just click on the arrows from the left and right side of the screen to change the clothes of Barney. The arrows in the upper side of the screen will change his hat, the middle arrows will change his body clothes, and the arrows from the bottom of the screen will change his shoes. When you made an image that you like, you can print it with the “Print” button.

Now let’s go to Kenya, at the Music Festival. Here you will have to click on the instruments to make them play, and click the beat buttons to hear background music. You will have five instruments to choose from, that are specific to the African music. And finally let’s go to India at the Festival of Lights. First watch the candles as they light up. The click on them in the same order. Can you remember the order? There will be more and more candles lighting in each level, and they are also accompanied by a musical sound, to make you remember the order better. Good luck!

And finally let’s play some of the Birthday Games. The first one is “Decorate a cake”. Here you have to drag and drop different items and place them on the cake, such as little teddy bears, candles, lollipops, strawberries and others. You can also color the cake, and all of the items, by using the color palette. After you are ready you can print the cake image. If you press the “Hurray” button Barney and his friends will appear making you a surprise. Have fun! And now the last game from the site, that is called “It fits”. Here you will have a few objects of different sizes, and also gift packs of different sizes. And you will have to take each object and place it in the correct package. When you place the object right, the package will be sealed and ready to be given to the celebrated person. So here were the Barney fun games from the site…we hope you enjoyed all of them.