the ikids blog

App Review: Feed Me!

One of the newest kids iPhone apps, “Feed Me! Numbers, Colors & Shapes!” is an endless buffet of educational fun. It features fantastic animations of a hungry purple monster who is constantly day dreaming about something — a color, a shape, a number, a pattern – you name it, and this magic little guy can dream it up. The focus of the app is on selecting the appropriate object that matches what the purple monster is dreaming of. Sounds a little complicated, perhaps – but when you see the app, it all makes sense:

When you’ve identified the appropriate object, you drag it over to the monster. If you get it right, the monster eats it, smiles and it’s on to the next day dream. If you need help, you can touch any of the objects to hear an audio description. If you get it wrong, the monster gets a bit of a stomach ache and you have to select again. On and on it goes with a wide variety of objects and concepts. The app keeps track of performance over time on different types of questions, and awards a treasure chest when certain milestones are reached.

Some of the things awards are given out for:
- Answering 6 color questions correctly
- Answering 10 shape questions correctly
- Answering 10 math questions correctly
- Answering “time” questions correctly
- Answering 50 questions correctly

This approach succeeds because kids are consistently rewarded for their learning, while additional milestones remain on the horizon. This helps keep the learning experience fresh over time and provides ongoing motivation to continue to play – and learn.

Another aspect of this app that’s great is the fact that it’s been produced in eight languages with native speakers giving voice to the dreams of the little purple monster on every version. This language crossover makes it perfect for kids that are learning their first, second, or third language. No matter what language the kids speak, it’s easy to love the possibilities that this app opens up for all early language learners.

One feature request for any updated versions – it would be nice if an additional “mode” existed that allowed kids (or parents) to select a specific type of question. The random mode is great, but for my toddler some of the pattern-based questions are a little more than she’s ready to handle, and it would be nice to be able to focus in on the shape, color and number questions which are a better match for her development level. Likely many kids could benefit from this ability to focus on specific subject matter or difficulty level.

One other note – part of the fun of watching my daughter play with these apps is getting to see what happens when she rapidly touches everything on the screen in an effort to understand the dynamics of the interface of a particular app. In the English version of this app, rapid fire touching on some of the objects in the pattern questions leads to several longer audio files all playing at the same time and a bunch of gibberish playing. Not the end of the world, and definitely not a reason to skip this app — but something that should probably be cleaned up in future versions.

Those two notes aside, this app is highly recommended. It’s a great educational experience that will engage kids over time and hold their interest while they learn. If you want to see it in action, you can check out a video demo of the app here.

If you’d just like to get it in the store, it’s available for $1.99.

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