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An ambitious program that might be too difficult for children of the target age group - up to eight - as it helps them to understand the passing of time, the reading of digital and analogue clocks and the 24-hour clock. Mr. Mac is involved in seven activities requiring a lot of cueing from parents.

The first explores the working day with a large ringing alarm clock and scenes from the day. This is followed by cueing times to those scenes, and then a large alarm clock can be set to any time desired.

After this, the activities become harder - although simple to follow, even without the pages in the review booklet - so I found it difficult to stop the train running around the track at the stations at set times shown by a central, analogue clock. 12pm would be better referred to as 12 noon - confusing for children. Correct arrivals makes a large train move half a carriage across the screen bottom.

A similar scenario is used to understand the digital watch with the child keying in the correct time - pity there is no facility to go backwards. Part of The Learning Box series.

T.W.