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9 jbop Activity Packs
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How to use jbop

The recommended use of these detailed instructions is to read the explanation for each activity area as you are trying that activity.

GETTING STARTED: INSTALL THE CD-ROM ADAM'S ANIMATED STORYTELLER (blue button)
GETTING STARTED: REGISTER ONLINE CARA'S QUESTIONATOR (red button)
HOME SCREEN
BETH'S BRAINFOREST (orange button)
TALI'S SECRET MESSAGE (green button)
DJ MAX'S MUSIC MAKER (yellow button)
MATT'S MAGIC STORY (purple button) POT OF STUFF

GETTING STARTED: INSTALL THE CD-ROM

1. Put in the CD-ROM. Wait a moment or two. The disc should start by itself. (If the disc doesn’t run automatically, click on MY COMPUTER on your desktop, click on the CD-ROM drive, and click on SETUP.EXE.)

2. The setup program will install all the files on your hard disc. Just follow the on-screen instructions. When it is finished, you should have a jbop Activity Center icon on your desktop. Run the program by clicking on this icon. (You don't need the CD-ROM to run jbop, so put it away in a safe place.)

GETTING STARTED: REGISTER ONLINE

1. The first time you use jbop an activation window will appear on the screen. You should now register the product on the Internet. This activates all the Activity Packs which you installed on your computer. If you don't register, you can only use the Welcoming Shabbat pack. (If you don't have an Internet connection, don't worry. We have a way to register you off-line. Just send us an email to help@jbop.com and we'll tell you what to do.)

2. Make sure you are connected to the Internet before you continue. Click on <Activate now>, then enter your name and email address. On the next screen, enter the activation code you received with the CD-ROM and click on <Continue>. After a few moments, the program should begin. If you get an error message, make sure you are online, and try again. If the problem persists, send an email to help@jbop.com.

3. Now that you have registered, all your Activity Packs are activated. Next time you run the program the activation window will not appear. Keep the activation key safe, together with the CD-ROM, in case you need it again at a later date. (If you choose not to register, by clicking on <Remind me later> the activation window will appear next time you start the program.)

HOME SCREEN

Here’s where you pick a subject, an Activity Pack, and a level, and choose an activity.

1. Click on a subject e.g. HOLIDAYS or ISRAEL.

2. Click on an Activity Pack e.g. HANUKKA (in Holidays) or FIRST VISIT TO ISRAEL (in Israel).

3. Click on a Level – EASY or ADVANCED. EASY is probably best if you’re in Grade One, Two, or Three in public school. ADVANCED is probably best if you’re in Grade Four, Five, or Six in public school. The arrow will point to the level you chose. Now you’re ready to play!

4. Move your mouse over any one of the six colored KID BUTTONS to find out where they take you. Click on a Kid Button to go there.

5. When you enter an activity, you will hear the kid in the upper left corner telling you how to play the activity. If you already know how to play, you can stop the kid talking by clicking on him or her. Take care not to click twice, as this will take you out of the activity and back to the Home Screen.

If it’s your first time in jbop, start with the green button (Tali’s Secret Message).

For help, click on the bubble in the lower right corner. To QUIT jbop, click on the little pot in the upper right corner.

TALI’S SECRET MESSAGE (green button)

Tali has a secret message. Decode it, and you’ll find out what to look for in this Activity Pack.

1. You’re looking at Tali’s secret message. Click on READ, and you’ll hear the message in code. (Click on STOP to stop the reading.)

2. To decode the message, click on a colored shape. You’ll either get a word OR a clue.

3. If it’s a clue, find the word in the word list that best solves the clue, and click on it. In EASY, click on one of the four word choices. In ADVANCED, scroll down until you find the right word, and click on it. If the clue box closed, you correctly solved the clue.

4. Keep going until you’ve decoded the whole message. (If you can’t get a clue or two, click on I GIVE UP!)

5. The message will now be read out, and some of the words will be depicted by images.

6. Go through the following screens one at a time, and learn more about the theme of the Activity Pack.

7. Sometimes you will have a Hebrew prayer or blessing. You can listen to this, while seeing the text in Hebrew (button 1), in transliteration (button 2), or in translation (button 3).

To go back to the HOME SCREEN, click on TALI in the upper left corner.

NOTE TO KIDS: You can enter Tali’s Secret Message from the Home Screen a second time if you want to just have fun. This time, pick the funniest wrong answers you can – sort of like playing Mad Libs. Click on another colored shape, and the clue box will close each time. When you want to hear your funny story, click on READ.

MATT’S MAGIC STORY (purple button)

Matt likes stories where words and letters move. Want to help him tell one?

1. Click on PLAY to start the story. (EASY and ADVANCED have the same story.)

2. During the story, you’ll sometimes be asked to click on a letter. Click on it.

3. When the story’s over, click on PLAY to see it again.

To go back to the HOME SCREEN, click on MATT in the upper left corner.

ADAM’S ANIMATED STORYTELLER (blue button)

In this storyteller, Adam brings the words. YOU do the animating!

Here’s the most creative activity on the disc. Once you’ve learned how to make animations, you can come back and do it again and again.

THE BASICS

1. Read a page of Adam’s story. (EASY and ADVANCED have the same story. What’s different are the do-it-yourself animation features.)

2. Pick your BACKGROUND. At the top are two View Boxes – one for Bops and one for Backgrounds. Click on the arrow under the word “Backgrounds”, and click on Scenes. Now click on the Right and Left arrows to try out all the scenes. You can do the same with Colors.

3. Pick BOPS. Bops are miniature animations. Click on the arrow under the word “Bops”, and pick the kind of bops you want to view. Click on the Right and Left arrows to view them.

Want a bop on the screen? Click once on the bop in the View Box, and then once on the screen – wherever you want the bop to be.

The way to start animating a page is always to pick your background and pick your bops for that page. If you don’t like where you put a bop, click on it, keep the mouse pressed down, and drag the bop to where you want it. If you want to remove a bop from the screen, click on it (so it has a square around it) and click on the red X.

EASY LEVEL

1. Here’s where it gets challenging. You can make any bop LOOK, SAY, and MOVE the way you want. When you’ve placed a bop on the screen, or whenever you click on a bop on the screen, there’s a square around the bop. You’ll see the words LOOK, SAY, and MOVE.

2. LOOK is already selected, so the LOOK BOX is open on the right side of the screen. Click on things in the LOOK BOX and see what happens. (You can change the size, direction, and color of the bop, whether its bop animation is on or off, and whether the bop is visible or invisible.)

3. Now click on SAY. In the SAY BOX you can pick a “talk” bubble or a “think” bubble, and type into the empty square in the Say Box what that bop is saying or thinking. Then you can change the way the type looks (font and color), and can add a sound effect.

4. Now click on MOVE. In the top row of the MOVE BOX you can make the bop appear, or disappear, or move across the screen. To make it move across the screen, click on the third square in the top row of the Move Box, and then drag the target which appears on the bop to wherever you want the bop to move. You can also choose the style and speed of movement, and add a sound effect for when it moves and when it lands.

To see what you’ve created on the page, click on PLAY PAGE at the bottom of the screen.

Take your time. Try out everything in LOOK, SAY and MOVE. See how you can make the animation for this page of the story more interesting.

When you’re happy with the animation you’ve made for this page of Adam’s story, go on to the next page! (Click on the Next Arrow on the bottom right of the screen.)

ADVANCED LEVEL

1. Here’s where it gets REALLY challenging. You can create your own movie for this page, in which bops change how they LOOK, what they SAY, or how they MOVE across a sequence of four frames.

2. When you’ve placed a bop on the screen, or whenever you click on a bop on the screen, there’s a square around the bop, and there’s a purple sequencer for the bop in the upper right of the screen (where it says: "1 2 3 4"). The sequencer is where you decide LOOK, SAY and MOVE for that bop for each of four frames.

LOOK for Frame One is already selected, so the LOOK BOX is open under the sequencer. Decide how the bop will look in Frame One. (See EASY LEVEL instructions for LOOK, SAY, and MOVE – or just experiment.) Click on SAY for Frame One to have the bop say something in Frame One. Or perhaps you’ll prefer to click on MOVE and have the bop appear in Frame One, and then click on SAY for Frame Two to have the bop say something only after it has appeared.

By deciding a sequence for each bop you’ve put on the screen, you can create an entire scene for this page of the story. (Of course, you don’t need to create an entire sequence for each bop. Some bops can be more active than others!)

To see what you’ve created on the page, click on PLAY PAGE at the bottom of the screen.

When you’re happy with the animation you’ve made for this page, go on to the next page! (Click on the Next Arrow on the bottom right of the screen.)

GENERAL

You can go back to an earlier page when you like, to see it (PLAY PAGE) or change it. You can also add pages of your own at the end of the story.

To go back to the HOME SCREEN, click on ADAM in the upper left corner.

NOTE TO EDUCATORS/PARENTS: This activity area invites a lot of personal expression. Encourage children to relate to the text for each page, yet – at the same time – allow them to be creative and playful in their “animated interpretations” of the text.

CARA’S QUESTIONATOR (red button)

Cara loves asking questions – so the questions are flying in this activity!

GAME

1. Cara’s game starts automatically. When the spinning stops, move your mouse over one of the three buttons at the bottom of the screen, and click. You’ll get a question.

2. Click on the best answer. If you’re right, you get 10 points. If you’re wrong, you have ten seconds to try again. You get 5 points if your second try is correct.

3. The game has ten questions. (EASY and ADVANCED have two completely separate sets of questions.) The most points you can get is 100. If you want to try to improve your score, click on Repeat Game.

PAD

Now try Cara’s Question Pad, where Cara asks questions she’s thinking about.

1. Click on PAD (under GAME on the left side), and read Cara’s questions.

2. Click on the first empty line under “My Answers”. You can type in your answers to Cara’s questions, and you can also add questions you’re wondering about yourself – questions you might have thought about when doing the Magic Story or the Animated Storyteller, or any questions you want to raise about this Activity Pack topic.

To go back to the HOME SCREEN, click on CARA in the upper left corner.

BETH’S BRAINFOREST (orange button)

Beth’s Brainforest has word games that make your brain work. There are three games for now – but the Brainforest will grow over time.

LETTER CATCH

1. The goal is to catch falling Hebrew letters – but ONLY the letters found in the Hebrew words on the right side of the screen. EASY has one word at the right; ADVANCED has three words on the right, and letters fall much faster.

2. Your computer keyboard has Right/Left arrows. Use them to move the girl across the screen so she catches the right letters. Use them to move her out of the way so she doesn’t catch a wrong letter. (Dodging letters is as fun as catching them!)

3. You start with 100 points. You’ll add ten points for each letter you catch that’s in a word on the right (it doesn’t matter what order), and lose ten points for each letter you catch that’s not in a word on the right.

4. When you’ve caught all the right letters, pictures will appear. Click on NEXT for a new word or set of words.

WHAT’S THAT STORY?

1. The goal is to find the hidden words. If you do, you’ll unlock a story in which these words appear.

2. EASY has 5-7 hidden words. ADVANCED has ten hidden words, and you need to find them before the detective gets all the way across the screen. (It’s not easy beating the detective!)

3. The word list is on the left. When you find one of those words in the square on the right, press down your mouse on the first letter, and drag the cursor all the way to the last letter. Do it right, and the word changes color. Words can go right to left, left to right, up to down, down to up, or on a slant. Make sure to drag from the first letter to the last!

4. When you’re done, a story will appear. Read the story, and see how it uses all the words you just uncovered!

To go back to the HOME SCREEN, click on BETH in the upper left corner.

MATCH BY MATCH

Coming soon

DJ MAX’S MUSIC MAKER (yellow button)

DJ Max has picked a #1 hit song for each Activity Pack. You can hear it, sing it, learn to play it, and record your own tracks over it!

1. The title of DJ Max’s song pick is at the top. Click on PLAY. You’ll hear the song, and see the words. (You might want to turn up the volume to hear it louder.)

2. After you’ve learned the song, click on VOICE OFF (Karaoke) and then on PLAY. See if you can sing it! (Don’t worry. It’s not recording!)

3. The lyrics appear in English letters and in Hebrew. You can hide the lyrics by clicking on the cross at the edge of the window.

MELODY MAX

Here’s where you can learn to play DJ Max’s song on the keyboard.

1. Click on the MELODY MAX button on the top left. This opens the Melody Max control panel. Now click on LEARN TO PLAY SONG. The first phrase of the song is played on the keyboard. (EASY and ADVANCED have phrases of different lengths.) If you didn’t follow it the first time, click on REPEAT.

2. Now it’s your turn. You need to play the same phrase. To play the DJ Max keyboard, either use your mouse (click on one note at a time) OR press on the keys of your computer keyboard in the eleven-key row that runs ASDFGHJKL:”

3. If you play the phrase right, you’ll hear a soft bell, and the next phrase is played for you.

4. As soon as you make a mistake, though, a different sound will cut in – a “boing-slide” sound. That means you should stop playing, let the keyboard show you the phrase again, and THEN you can try playing it again. You can try again as many times as you need to (the keyboard plays it again for you each time), or – if you want to move on to the next phrase – click on KEEP GOING.

5. Try playing all the phrases until you’ve played the entire song. Click on the MELODY MAX button to close Melody Max.

STUDIO MAX

Here’s where you can record your own tracks.

1. Click on the STUDIO MAX button at the upper right. This opens the Studio Max control panel. There are six tracks (circles) where you can record, and a large RECORD button.

2. Pick the instrument you want to record with. There’s an instrument name above the keyboard on the left side. Click on the arrow, and you’ll see other instruments you can pick. Click on the one you want.

3. Now click on RECORD in the Studio Max control panel. The Record button will blink red twice, and then recording begins. (The Record button now says “Recording”.) As the DJ Max song plays, you can play whatever you want on the keyboard – either using your mouse OR using the computer keyboard keys in the row ASDFGHJKL:”

4. You can click STOP to stop recording, or the recording will turn itself off at the end of the song.

5. Now click on PLAY to hear the song – including what you’ve just recorded!

6. The first circle (track) on the Studio Max control panel now has an instrument name under it. Pick a new instrument, click on RECORD, and the second circle (track) is recording what you play. When you’re done, click on PLAY, and you’ll hear the song plus both tracks you’ve recorded!

7. You have six tracks to record on. Clear a track by clicking on the circle (track) and clicking on CLEAR TRACK. Then you can click on that track, click on RECORD, and record something new.

8. To record your OWN song – not DJ Max’s – click on MY SONG. Type in the name of your song, and click on a background beat (or none). Now click on RECORD, and use the keyboard to make your own music. Don’t forget to click on PLAY whenever you want to hear what you’ve recorded.

9. Click on the STUDIO MAX button to close Studio Max.

To go back to the HOME SCREEN, click on MAX in the upper left corner.

NOTE TO EDUCATORS/PARENTS:

Some children will want to try repeating all the phrases of the song; some will want to create multi-track recordings; others will just listen to the song once or twice. The essential goal is to increase children’s familiarity with basic Jewish songs, and this activity gives them varied opportunities to do that.

POT OF STUFF

At the top is the name of the Activity Pack you're in, and two items to choose from -- your STAR CHART for that Pack, and all your SAVED STUFF for that Pack.

When you enter, your STAR CHART is always open. The faces along the top of the chart show you which activities you tried in this Activity Pack. Any face that's lit up is an activity you've tried. The squares in the chart show you how you did in each activity -- whether you did part or all of the activity, and how many points you earned. Click on Print to print out this chart, or on Send to email it to someone.

When you click on SAVED STUFF at the top, you'll see three menus.

The first menu, under Adam's face, lists all the animated stories you created in this Activity Pack. If you animated the prepared story text (Adam's Story), it will show the name of the story, and will number each separate version you made. If you wrote your own story and animated it, it will show the title you gave your story. Click on one of your stories, and then click on Go To to open it so you can view it, show it to someone, or continue working on it. Click Print to print out the pages of that animated story.

The second menu, under Cara's face, lists the answers and original questions you typed into Cara's Question Pad. Choose a set, and click on Go To to open them, on Print to print them, and on Send to email them to someone.

The third menu, under Max's face, lists all the songs you recorded in this Activity Pack. If you recorded additional tracks to Max's Song, it will show the title of that song, and will number each separate recording you made. If you recorded your own original song, it will show the title you gave your song. Click on one of your songs, and then click on Go To to open it so you can play it or continue working on it. Click Send to email the song to someone.

You can visit your Pot of Stuff anytime you like to see what activities you've done and to return to what you've created in an Activity Pack. You can only get to the Pot of Stuff from the Home Page. When you're ready to leave the Pot of Stuff, click on the chicken in the upper-left corner.