Disclaimer: This article contains affiliate links for ABC Mouse. You get a free trial or a discounted rate, and I get a little commission to help support my site!
If you have access to Disney Junior, you’ve likely seen the commercials for ABC Mouse. It’s an online learning environment for kids ages 2 to 8. I kept seeing advertisements for a free month trial, but never got around to trying it.
Last week ABC Mouse reached out to me and wanted to make me an affiliate of their program, and naturally if I’m promoting something I need to try it first. I signed up for their free 30 day trial, and started poking around.
Sometimes it is hard to know what is involved with a program until you sign up, so I wanted to give you an overview of ABC Mouse so you can see what it includes before you even sign up!
Let’s get started.
So What is ABC Mouse Exactly?
There are tons of games, art activities, puzzles, ebooks, and animal facts. You can purchase pets with in-game tickets (not actual money), play with your hamster, move farther on your learning path, and listen to educational songs! There are music video, places to visit, and more!
It’s hard to explain everything that is included with your ABC Mouse subscription, so I will try and break it down in the following sections.
Signing Up For An ABC Mouse Free Trial
Signing up was easy.
I signed up through the ABC Mouse iPhone App Store App. I assume that the computer is much the same.
You start by giving your parent information. Since I am doing this for the blog, I used Mommy Bear as a name, and it let me. The same goes when you fill out information on the next screen for your child. You don’t have to add your real name if you are iffy on internet security issues. I named mine Little Cub, as I refer to her on the blog.
You can add up to 3 kids on 1 account, so it is pretty cool that you can get 3 profiles for different learning levels all on one account.
The fun part about signing up was creating an avatar for Little Cub. You get to choose hair color and style, eye color and shape, clothes, nose, and more! It’s kind of like creating a Sim, but for learning.
Once you are signed up, you hit the dashboard.
The Dashboard
The dashboard is the central hub for your little one’s ABC Mouse learning experience. From here you can get anywhere you need to go in the program.
The different sections include My Learning Path, the Classroom, the Zoo, the Map, the Farm, Featured Activities, and also sections for What’s New and Things to Do. We will go through most of these sections later in this article.
The dashboard is also where you can access the options for your account and change users if you have more than one child on the account.
Now I want to get down into what to expect from each section.
My Learning Path
The learning path shows your child’s progress on their level of ABC Mouse. Little Cub is only 20 months old, so she is on Toddler Time, which is the introductory difficulty setting for lessons.
As you can see there are 5 activities per space on the map (at least so far that I see). These activities include Songs, Jigsaw Puzzle, Cutout Puzzle, Songs (again) and printables).
Lesson 1 for Toddler Time is “A is for Apple”.
I’ll give a brief overview of what each lesson looks like.
Songs
Little Cub absolutely loved this song. She grabbed my phone and ran around the room dancing. There are other songs to choose from on this screen, but you only have to listen to the first song on the list to complete the activity and get your tickets.
Jigsaw Puzzle
The jigsaw puzzle on this level was 4 pieces, but we’re obviously on the easiest level. I completed this for her, but explained that apple starts with “a” as we completed it.
Cutout Puzzle
This alphabet puzzle is a little harder. It goes over the entire alphabet, and in a random order. match all the letters with it’s place on the puzzle and you’re done! Since Little Cub is younger than even the lowest recommended age we just sang through the alphabet as I completed this section. She’s getting some letters in the song!
Songs (again)
This song kinda seems like the ABC Mouse theme song. If you didn’t watch the video above, this song should tell you what ABC Mouse is all about!
Printables
The printables that they have on this site are really cool. If you are learning about different things around the site, there is usually a button to click to get printables that fit the theme of what you are learning about at that time. In this case we get the printable for “A is for Apple”.
That is about it for the learning path. We have only begun on the journey, and it looks like there is an INSANE amount of content to be explored along the path, especially since we are only on the first level of 10 total levels (up through 2nd Grade).
With each section completed there are bonus prizes (items for your child’s avatar to wear, items for their bedroom, and a bonus lump of tickets so they can choose other purchases in the store).
Now it’s time to check out the classroom.
The ABC Mouse Classroom
All of the activities within the program are housed within the classroom.
Each category of activity is displayed across the top of the screen in the classroom, but you can also click different object around the room and get directed towards activities that relate to that subject.
There are WAY too many options here since ABC Mouse houses over 9,000 different activities, but I can give you a few examples.
- Such as clicking the letter train on the wall takes you to that particular letter with words that start with that letter.
- The globe takes you to a United States map where you can see different regions, states, and their capitals.
- The piano takes you to a music hub where you can watch the different music videos, hear the different songs and chants, participate in music activities, or even access a keyboard that teaches you different simple songs to play.
As I stated, there are WAY too many activities here to go into complete detail. Just know that you are getting a good bang for your buck with your subscription because your kid will be playing and learning for years.
There is even an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT classroom for 1st and 2nd graders.
Now that we’ve ventured into the classroom, it’s time for a trip to the zoo!
Fun and Learning at the Zoo
It was cool that I downloaded the ABC Mouse App on the same day that we went to the real zoo near our house. After our trip to the zoo I was able to show Little Cub giraffes on the app since she had loved seeing them so much. She held her stuffed giraffe as we learned different facts about the animals. We are currently saving tickets to buy that giraffe for the pet park!
From the zoo map there are 16 different animals to choose from to learn about. By clicking on one you are taken to that animals display at the zoo. The animals are animated, moving like the real animals would in their habitat. A voice over guide tells you facts about the animals, and you can either have these facts shown on the screen to help kids with reading, or you can turn the words off and just let the guide talk to you. There are a lot of facts for different animals.
The cool part?
If you hit on an animal your little cub especially loves, there are buttons that take you to books, games, puzzles, printables, and art for that particular animal. No need to go back to the main screen and search for it. It’s easily accessible straight from the animals page!
After being at the zoo, it was time to check out the ABC Mouse Town from the Map.
The Map: Your Central Hub
The map is your central hub for anywhere you want to go in ABC Mouse. It gets you anywhere that the main menu screen can, and even a few extra places like basic skills, shopping, Toddler Time, and the pet park.
Let’s go into a few of these sections to see what they have to offer.
Basic Skills
Here your toddler can learn some basic skills that they will need for kindergarten. This section houses games and activities I haven’t seen anywhere else in the game, but may be a part of the learning path eventually.
There are activities like counting from 1 to 10, 1 to 100, learning shapes, sight words, the alphabet, and books that ABC Mouse has written in Spanish.
Toddler Time
Toddler Time has specific games, stories, activities and more set out for toddlers. It is a grouping of other activities and songs I have seen on Little Cub’s learning path, but all in one place where they can explore and learn things that are most interesting to them, instead of on a set learning path.
Library
The library houses all of the books that are in ABC Mouse. Some books just contain words, and others contain simple animations and read the story to you. The animations are mostly still shots that are zooming in or out, so nothing too fancy, but adds a little interest for younger viewers.
Pet Park
I haven’t been able to explore the pet park yet, since you need to buy a pet to be able to play with them and learn about them here. We can afford some of the smaller pets like chicks, rabbits, and prairie dogs. We recently got enough tickets to get a dog, but we are saving up for that giraffe!
Shopping
The shopping center is where you can spend your tickets on pets, toys, clothing, and furniture for the pet park and your ABC Mouse bedroom. This section also houses the theater where you can see all videos ABC Mouse has for your little ones to watch.
Now that we have seen the map, let’s head over to the Farm!
Down on The Farm
The farm is very much like the zoo, but there are obviously farm animals and there are only 5 animals to learn about. You still get to learn facts about each animal, and each animal page offers links to printables, art, puzzles and more that involve that particular animal. Again this is great for when kids get really interested in a particular animal and want to explore more about them.
We’ve touched on a bunch of areas within the program, but have also barely scratched the surface in terms of what content is offered with ABC Mouse.
The last area I want to touch on before I sign off is the Parent Portal.
The Parent Portal
The last section of ABC Mouse I wanted to cover today was the parent portal.
This is your hub for being the account administrator. You can do the expected account management by changing your billing and personal information, but you also have access to a lot more.
To start, you get a newsfeed that allows you to see what your child has completed recently on ABC Mouse and when. You get an option to share these accomplishments on Facebook.
Next to your newsfeed you have options to explore the curriculum for each level of the ABC Mouse program, see what your kids will be learning at each stage. Here is a breakdown of the scope that ABC Mouse covers with your child at what stages of learning.
This image and its rights belong to abcmouse.com.
The last screen I wanted to talk about was the Progress Tracker. This is free within the ABC Mouse Parent Portal. At a glance you can see where your child’s progress is at within their chosen level, what subjects they have the most completed in, what types of activities they are doing most, and how many tickets they have earned and spent.
My Overall Reaction to abcmouse.com
The amount of content to explore in ABC Mouse is almost overwhelming. That is probably just because I was trying to cover it all in one article. I could see that if I were a kid, it would be a vast world to explore and learn new skills in a fun way.
So far Little Cub has liked working with the program. The suggested age range is 2 – 8 and Little Cub is only 20 months, but she loves the songs and repeats letters and sounds back to me. Obviously she can’t run the mouse or the computer, but I can get her to pay attention for short periods of time. Enough to listen to a few songs or complete a whole space on the learning path, which is usually 3-5 activities.
I love that there are printables and other easy ways to access more content on a subject if a child is really interested, such as at the zoo where they have coloring pages, games, and puzzles related to that animal with just a single click so you don’t have to go find them.
I also like that there are no in-game purchases necessary. True, you have to pay for the subscription, but not having to buy things in-game is really nice.
We are on the month trial right now, and are considering upgrading to a full account so we can keep providing Little Cub with a great learning resource throughout her pre-k to second grade learning experience.
The website is offering a 49% off deal, which is 12 months for $59.95.
As an affiliate member, I can offer you a better deal. Click any of the banners below and get 12 months for $45, 2 years for $99, or start your free trial!
I am an instructional assistant / paraeducator. May I apply for the abcmouse.com for teachers? Also, I have a code of SCHOOL7771, but have been unable to find the correct area on the form while aookying to put it. Thanks so much, Mandy
I am a teacher for VIPKID, which is ESL online, and they let me sign up for free.
https://www.abcmouse.com/teachers