Why I love Sing Star

We bought the kids a play station for Christmas and, to my surprise, it’s been quite educational! We bought buzzers and microphones as well as the normal controllers; and a few games including a couple of the singstars.

The singstar games get a good bashing, and I am impressed that Milo is actually learning from them. Initially, he was the expert at getting a score in the “tone deaf” range. Partially because he thought the line accompanying the song was indicating the volume he should sing at, and not the pitch. Once realised, his pitch has improved dramatically, and he is listening to what is happening. Over the past month, he has become very tuneful. I realise it is not teaching him to “sing”, but it is teaching him to listen.

Singstar is also forcing him to read. As he learns the songs, I’m sure a lot of words are being repeated from memory – but the prompts are being read. Milo reading is zooming ahead this year. Now I’m not suggesting that the improvement is because of singstar (there has been some intense focus) – however it certainly isn’t making things worse!

And, of course, the other reason I love singstar, is that I can pretend I can sing It is fun.

The kids get passionately involved in this game. Here are some photo’s of them in action:

more photos on flickr. Click on the photos above to get to them.