MarcoPolo Weather is a digital sandbox tool that encourages kids to freely explore, experiment, and play. Kids can control and change various weather conditions, such as temperature, wind, and precipitation, and observe how avatars react to the changes. Kids also can clothe and accessorize the characters and add items to the weather scene such as flowers, a tent, an igloo, and more. You can choose from six languages in settings including English, Spanish, French, Russian, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese.\r
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MarcoPolo Weather provides a friendly environment for kids to explore weather. The narrated facts help kids build vocabulary and science knowledge, and the variety of interactive objects will keep kids engaged. As kids experiment with the outdoor scene, its fun to see how the avatars react to the different weather conditions. Some aspects of the free play are a bit confusing, however. For example, in some scenes a beehive drops when you try to drag it into the scene, and its not entirely clear how to get it to stay. Overall, MarcoPolo Weather offers the interactivity and variety kids love and cause-and-effect science that can carry over into real life.\r
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As with most digital sandbox tools, MARCOPOLO WEATHER emphasizes exploration and open play. Tapping a play button lands you on the main screen, which includes an avatar and animated animals in an outdoor forest scene. Kids can select one of the nine weather conditions, change the setting from day to night, or tap to adjust the temperature and/or wind speed. They can drag interactive objects located along the bottom of the screen onto the scene; objects include clothing and accessories, two other avatars, fruits, flowers, vegetables, a tent, snowballs, and more. A parent section includes a description of the app and settings, as well as extension activities related to weather.