App Review: ShapeBuilder
ShapeBuilder teaches an important lesson – sometimes there’s nothing more important in life than putting all of the pieces together. Granted, this probably isn’t what my daughter is thinking about while dragging puzzle pieces around – but it’s occurred to me more than once as we play with the app together. Like most successful kids apps, there’s a simple concept at the core of ShapeBuilder: put together a jigsaw puzzle by dragging the shapes around and then watch as they magically transform into a nicely animated image.
An empty puzzle
Puzzle In Progress
One great thing about this app – there’s an almost endless series of puzzles so it stays fresh over time. My two year-old daughter does struggle at times trying to drag the pieces into place — but that may just be because she’s a little young for this one. It requires fairly developed fine motor skills to get the pieces into place, as well as more advanced concepts of geometry to identify exactly where the pieces should go. There is a nice pay-off when things do fall into place — nicely animated images appear and you get audio congratulations for your success.
It’s no different, really, than a real-world puzzle – but for younger kids it’s probably important to be actively helping them thru this one because they can get frustrated if left to their own devices. All in all, this app is a great one to have around because I know my daughter will continue to learn from it as she grows.
Interested in checking it out? You can get it here.
Related posts:
- Top 20 Kids iPhone Apps It’s easy to love the App Store, but I do have one frustration – it lumps in kids learning apps with all educational apps, including those aimed at goals such as teaching Korean to businessmen and logic to prospective lawyers. In my mind, this makes it harder for developers to share their kid-specific content, and [...]...
- App Review: FirstWords: At Home There are some kids apps that you just love. In response to the recent launch of our favorites lists, @NuggetIsland declared “we are totally a shapebuilder family!” Shapebuilder earns this endorsement because it does a great job of reinventing a classic – the children’s puzzle. It’s easy, intuitive, and uses touch technology to teach a [...]...
- App Review: Teach Me Toddler Teach Me Toddler is definitely one of my daughter’s current favorite apps. The app is pretty straightforward – there’s a talking mouse that asks kids to identify a letter, number, shape, or color from among a few options. After the initial set-up (parental supervision required ) you get a screen like this when you open [...]...
- APP REVIEW: Chinese4Kids Having studied Mandarin for over 10 years and having lived in Beijing for a few months, I have a special place in my heart reserved for an app that might help my daughter learn Chinese. That said, I am still blown away by the quality and the value of the new Chinese 4 Kids- Animal [...]...
- APP Review: Letters A to Z Letters A to Z succeeds because it takes a simple concept and executes it well. My toddler loves it because it is easy to use, visually pleasing, and helps her learn her letters. Playing with the app is straightforward — you can flip through the letters of the alphabet the same way you browse pictures [...]...
Share
[...] snap into place on top of silhouette puzzles. Real images are revealed when the puzzle is complete. Read a Review Get It From The Store Letter [...]
[...] Shapebuilder earns this endorsement because it does a great job of reinventing a classic – the children’s puzzle. It’s easy, intuitive, and uses touch technology to teach a core concept – shapes. [...]