The teaching of logic is becoming more and more important and this course (First Maths Programme) tries to place such teaching separately alongside numeracy, equal in importance and time.

This pack, numbered two of five, beings the teaching of sets and the operations which can be performed upon the members of a set. There are five games, all involving the mental (unfortunately not physical) manipulation of the colour, shape, size and thickness of logic blocks.

The first two (Hunt The Block and Seek The Block) involve defining a set and deciding of which set a particular block is a member. The third (No, Not There) involves set definition and the concept of negation. The final two (Colour Out and Shape Out) cover operations performed on sets to change their features between input and output. Good grounding for future programmers, you know.

I don't feel these programs are ideal for the home. They are obviously aimed at schools and are meant to be used by someone very familiar with the concepts acting as supervisor. The documentation, though very good indeed in every other respect, does presume some prior knowledge.

D.C.