the ikids blog » Reviews

Toontastic

digitalchristopherrobin — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 03:44:50 +0000

Storytelling is a tradition as old as time. For generations, kids have loved to hear stories of adventure, magic, romance, heroism and all the rest. They’ve also always enjoyed creating their own stories, putting their own special stamp on familiar tales, and bravely inventing new ones. Toontastic, an award-winning iPad app from Launchpad Toys, has taken this simple truth about what kids enjoy, and used it as a foundation for an entire platform that enables kids to tell stories and share them in entirely new ways.

Quite simply, Toontastic is a brilliant idea brilliantly executed. The iPad app enables kids to create their own stories. How? Scene-by-scene, kids are prompted to select background graphics, characters, & music, and then kids are prompted to move their characters around the scene while speaking and recording their own story. That may sound complex, but Toontastic makes the entire experience elegantly simple and easy for kids as young as 4 to manage with minimal adult supervision.

Toontasic also lends itself well to intergenerational play. My four-year old daughter and I play this app together regularly – at her request. Often we’ll split up the characters in each scene and then improvise the story. She ends up being a princess a lot and I am typically the knight, the pirate, or the dragon. Parents beware: you may find yourself enjoying this as much as you did movies like Toy Story or Aladdin. It’s one of those rare experiences that is fun no matter how old you are – everyone can get a little something different out of it. Still, as fun as it is to live the childhood fantasy of controlling my own cartoon, it’s even more magical to watch my daughter’s imagination in action in real time.

If you’ve got an iPad and you’ve got kids, Toontastic is quite simply a must have. Seriously folks, this app is in the App Store Hall of Fame for a reason. Stop what you’re doing and get it now.

Still not persuaded that this app is a must have? Check out the content kids have already created.
You will be inspired: http://toontube.launchpadtoys.com/

Kids Maps Delivers Kid-Friendly Fun

digitalchristopherrobin — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 18:09:43 +0000

My kids are obsessed with Dora right now. Everyday banter is full of references to the characters in the show. Our little boy, much to our dismay, seems to believe that he is in fact the personification of Swiper. Our little girl, on the other hand, strongly identifies with Dora. Come on, vamanos, is her rallying cry. For those that aren’t familiar with the show, one of Dora’s favorite tactics is to turn to her friend The Map to help her find her way. In the show, The Map is a character that comes to life and always seems to know where to go and what to do.

In life, my hope is always that the kids will be able to act as their own Maps and chart their own paths. That said, I’ll still feel better if they know some geography to help them along the way. And that gets me to why I love Kids Maps, a new iPad app from Media Mechanic. It’s a puzzle-style iPad app with the United States map as a background. The app displays one state at a time and prompts you to drag it into place while using audio to share a fact about the current state. Simple, kid-friendly play that teaches geography.

It’s a polished app put out by an independent dad developer who promises more updates (I’d personally love to see a world map!). In the meantime, it’s still a great app and you can get Kids Maps from the App Store.

Free App Magic Features Build A Train

digitalchristopherrobin — Mon, 02 May 2011 17:47:31 +0000

Regular readers are familiar with Build A Train, which we first launched last November and which was met with both a bit of buzz and a bit of piracy. It’s our version of a virtual train set for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Since launching the original version of the app, we’ve been busy. We added new maps, new trains, and new bonus content.

We’ve worked hard to give fans what they’ve asked for, and the response to these enhancements has been great. We’ve also created a free lite version of the app so that folks can try it out before they buy. Build A Train Lite includes all of the train-building fun of the full version and one map to drive your train around. Response to this free version has been great – we’ve had close to one hundred thousand downloads already.

But we’re not done yet. We’re working on additional fun for another major content update to both versions of the app. Here’s a sneak peek of one of the new boards that will also include some fun bonus content.

We get very excited about all of this, and we’re always very excited to share it with others. That’s why we were so happy when the folks from Magic Solver decided to feature Build A Train today in Free App Magic. If you’re not familiar with it, Free App Magic is definitely worth checking out. Every day it highlights great paid apps that have temporarily been made available for free. It’s a great way to discover fresh content without breaking your budget.

Family fun with Pictureka

digitalchristopherrobin — Sun, 01 May 2011 05:07:21 +0000

Fun is best when it’s shared. It’s a simple lesson, but one that can be easy to lose track of in a world turbocharged with personalized digital experiences. Shared gaming experiences with family members can be a great way to balance this out and for everyone to connect and have fun together. If that sounds appealing, then Pictureka on the iPad from EA is worth checking out. Both my daughter and my wife absolutely LOVE this app. It’s simple, intuitive, and enjoyable for all ages – you just have to find objects inside of a larger pattern. Despite its wonderful simplicity, it’s still challenging enough to keep everyone interested, and the variety of game modes helps keep the whole family engaged. As a bonus, the music is also a great part of the experience – not since Tetris has a video game soundtrack for a puzzle game succeeded quite this well at conveying frantic fun.

Careful! It’s stimulating, addictive play. Here’s a video with some of the action from the iPhone version:

If it looks like something you might enjoy with your family, you can get it here in the App Store. Family game night will never be the same..

Nighty, night..

digitalchristopherrobin — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 05:45:19 +0000

We receive a lot of review requests and we look at a lot of apps. Every now and then we come across one and we just fall in love.

Nighty Night! HD is one of those apps for me. What’s so special about it, you ask? Well, our kids (iPad veterans at this point) just love it. The music is sweet, the visual production values are outstanding, and the concept is both engaging and intuitive. The app, you see, is an interactive bed time story that allows children to put a variety of animals to bed. The interface is elegant in its simplicity – just tap a room, and you see a close-up view of an animal getting ready for bed. Flick the lights off, and the animal goes to sleep. Sounds simple, but the kids adore it. Like any quality bedtime story, part of the value of Nighty Night! HD is that it actually helps my whirlwind of a two-year old realize that it’s time for bed. I’m clearly not the only parent that loves having something that helps put the kids to bed – Nighty Night! HD is currently the #1 paid iPad book app in the US Store.

Check out the video to see why Nighty Night! HD is a must-have bedtime companion for your digital wunderkids:

Then go grab Nighty Night@ HD for your iPad. You can get it in the App Store here.

App Review: The Good Shepherd

digitalchristopherrobin — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 22:41:39 +0000

There’s a lot to be said for apps that excel at delivering kids an easy-to-use experience – and Good Shepherd HD does a great job of this. It features nice graphics and is well executed, but the real magic is the simplicity of the concept. The app has instant playability – simply help sheep find their way by using your finger to drag a path for them to walk back home. My three year old immediately grasped how the app works and soon enough was regularly asking to play “the sheep game”.

Good Shepherd HD includes five different levels, with additional sheep, flowers (collect them to score points), and obstacles. In addition, there is a game mode that allows you to play against the clock — which is a great way to extend the appeal of this app to older kids. In the future, it would be great to see the concept extended on the iPad with additional levels and depth added, but Good Shepherd HD is great as is — truly a hidden gem for kids within the app store. Interested? You can get it here.

Recommended for kids age 3-6.

App Review: The Velveteen Rabbit

digitalchristopherrobin — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 03:26:16 +0000

There is nothing quite like the magic of a child’s love. Nothing. Anyone that has ever experienced it — be they human, toy or bunny — is left forever changed. No story captures this magic as elegantly as The Velveteen Rabbit. The story of the Boy who loved his Rabbit has been a classic for generations – and now has been beautifully transported into the digital era by Ruckus Media. This story has always been a favorite of mine and sharing it with my daughter on the iPad was a special treat. She was fascinated by the story, mesmerized by the illustrations and couldn’t wait to read it again. It may have earned a particular spot in her heart because she has a well-worn, well-loved, Very Real Rabbit of her own, but this story will resonate with any child. Ruckus Media has done a great job bringing the story alive, with gorgeous illustrations by David Jorgensen, and the option of watching a prerecorded telling of the story narrated by Meryl Streep. The app also allows you to record your own version of the story, which is a nice way for parents who have to travel a lot to stay connected to the bed time routine when they are on the road. (Even when Mom or Dad is away, they can still read a bedtime story…) Perhaps best of all, the app (normally priced at $3.99) will be FREE over the Thanksgiving weekend. It’s hard to imagine a better way to celebrate the holidays with your family than to enjoy this story that is all about a child’s love. I, for one, can think of nothing that I am more thankful for…

Stack the States & Motion Math

digitalchristopherrobin — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 01:17:42 +0000

The depth of educational offerings continues to explode in the app store. Currently there are more than 23,000 educational apps in the store – and that doesn’t include any of the educational games that are out there. For most parents, however, finding truly spectacular apps is more important than the total number available. In that spirit, here are a couple of fresh must-have apps for parents looking to help their kids learn math or geography.

I have trouble understanding why Americans struggle with geography — I’ve even seen claims that up to 1 in 5 can’t find the US on a map. I’m not sure I believe that particular statistic, but the general point that Americans struggle with geography does seem accurate. If you’re determined to help your kids buck that trend, then Stack the States is a must have. It’s a wonderful combination of physics-based game play and trivia questions all focused on helping kids learn their states and capitals. Answer the questions correctly, and you get to drop a state on to the stack. If you stack the states high enough, you advance to the next level and get to keep learning. Careful though — this one can be fun for parents as well as kids. Quick – what’s the capital of Kansas? Not sure? (REALLY??) Then this is the app for you…

As with geography, there are plenty of studies out there documenting how American students struggle with math, especially when compared with their international counterparts. Solving this challenge needs to start early — if kids don’t master the basics, they’ll never be ready for trig or calc. And that’s where apps like Motion Math come in. It’s a great way to make fractions easy and intuitive to learn. This is another game that takes advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometer. Simply tilt your device to control the motion of a ball so that it lands at the appropriate point on a number line. For example, if the current fraction is 1/2, then your goal is to get the ball to land at the midpoint on the number line – and so on. There’s really no debate here – Motion Math is the best way to learn fractions since counting slices of pie. Yum.

App Review: Word World

digitalvictor — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:51:22 +0000

About a year and a half ago, I stumbled onto Word World, a cartoon produced by PBS Kids. I was instantly drawn in as much as my kids, with the cartoon’s engaging visuals and quirky characters. And the best part?

The show is educational!!! The animals and objects are physically made of their letters (see image of Pig), and every episode focuses on one mission:”Let’s build a word!”

Admitting my bias before I review the app, I can honestly say Word World is one of the best kids shows I’ve ever seen. Word World has a lot of power to shape the edutainment app-sphere.

Like the show, the app (Build a word) is focused on building words, which are transformed into objects with a simple pinch of the captured letters. The app concept is perfectly consistent with the mission of each episode: find the right letters to build the word at hand. The fun part is trying to grab the letters as they bounce around the screen!

At first, my little ones struggled with the app’s functionality. It was difficult for them to grab the letters, and they occasionally lost the letters while dragging them into the slots. Their clunky little fingers quickly got better, however, and the challenge now is keeping my kids entertained by the relatively small number of words to spell.

The Word World app makes kids forget they’re learning to read, and at a 99¢ pricetag, it is more than a steal.

Top 10 Educational iPad Apps for Kids

digitalchristopherrobin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 07:23:46 +0000

Considering an iPad and interested in what kind of educational content is out there for kids? Here are some of the best and most popular apps – which, when taken as a whole, present a compelling case for the role of the device as an educational tool. Let us know what other apps your kids love in the comments — there’s a lot of great content out there, and not all of it ends up at the top of the App Store listings. But here are some of the apps that did…

Top Educational Kids iPad Apps in the App Store

Star Walk is one of those special apps that delivers upon the iPad’s promise of being a “magical” device. You may in fact have already seen this one — it won the Apple Design Awards in 2010 and was featured among the best iPhone apps of 2009.

The iPad version continues to provide great astronomical information — but the real “wow’ of this app is the fact that it delivers a full screen augmented reality view of the heavens that rotates as you move your iPad around — turning it into a super-powered virtual telescope.

Strongly recommended both for experienced star gazers and the youngest observers of the heavens. (Although the littlest Gallileo wannabes may need a bit of help..) You can get it from the App Store here.

Honorable Mention: If you’re looking for other fantastic astronomy apps, both Mars Globe HD and Solar Walk 3D Solar System are great.

Fish School HD continues Duck Duck Moose’s strong tradition of producing quality kids educational apps for the iOS platform. Like their previous iPhone mega-hits, Wheels on the Bus and Itsy Bitsy Spider, Fish School HD features strong animations that can help engage kids in a learning experience. This app features a dynamic school of fish that swims into place to display letters, numbers and shapes — and, like a well-trained aquatic marching band, the fish are perfectly synced with the accompanying music. Fish School HD guides kids through different learning modes and periodically rewards them with free play with the fish. If you’re looking to help kids learn letters, numbers, and shapes, it’s hard to go wrong with this one.
You can get it from the App Store here.

Math Bingo has been one of the hottest kids apps in recent weeks and has been extensively featured by Apple — but in case you missed it, Math Bingo is wonderfully focused on a simple concept — you answer math problems to fill spots on a bingo board. This drill-style learning is complemented by adorable little “bingo bugs” that you place on your board as you correctly answer problems. Once you win a round you are awarded a bingo bug to keep and then given the chance to play with it for a bit — not only by touching it, but also by moving your iPad around and triggering the accelerometer. Great fun and a great reward for learning. My three year old isn’t quite ready for this yet, but apps like this one and Math Ninja are driving her curiosity around this whole “math” thing. Last night she spent an hour with me asking questions like what is 3+4 and 5+2 and 1+4 and on and on.. Anything that engages my daughter in learning like that is a tool I want in her life. If you’re interested you can get it from the App Store here.

Full disclosure here – Build A Zoo is our app, and we’re proud of it – but you don’t have to take our word for the fact that it is a great learning app for the iPad – Apple named it a “New & Notable” education app just the day after it was released. Build A Zoo features six different learning games that kids can play to earn animals for their zoo. The included games help develop a nice balance of skills including spelling, memory, matching, as well as timing and fine motor skills. Interested in seeing what your kids think? ~~We’ve got some promo codes for free copies of the app that we’d be happy to share with you, our loyal readers — just let us know in the comments..~~We’re all out of promo codes for the current version, but you can still get it from the App Store here.

There’s absolutely no doubting the fact that Cookie Doodle is an incredibly engaging app. Kids love to play house – and this app lets them bake and decorate cookies without the mess. Trust us – if your kids like baking real cookies, they’ll love this too. We have seen some comments in user reviews that this app is void of educational content — but we disagree. If you’re looking for apps to help your kids get a jumpstart on reading, writing and arithmetic, than this probably isn’t the best app for you. But if you believe the process of going through a self-guided yet structured creative exercise can help your child learn to think, than this is probably an excellent app to add to your child’s collection. Just be prepared to help eat the virtual cookies.. You can get it from the App Store here.

Math Board is a classic – one of those apps that validates our claim that mobile devices are the modern chalkboard. This app takes that idea quite literally – math problems appear and you have the ability to work them out by hand on the virtual chalkboard. The app features deep options for customizing both the type of problems you want to answer and the overall quiz. Further it also stores your quiz results and displays them in an easy to see dashboard. Perhaps the best part of this app is it’s ability to deliver value across a wide range of learning levels. Depending upon the child, it’s easy to see this being useful as a regular learning tool for kids from as young as 4 to as old as 13 — and not many apps can make that claim.
You can get it from the App Store here.

Color & Draw is a modern coloring book. It includes a wide variety of line drawings that kids can color in, as well as stickers that can be added to drawings, and the ability to import images and draw on them. The app’s user interface is simple and clean and easy for little kids to figure out — meaning you don’t have to fight with the technology at all and can instead get straight to the fun of coloring. Color & Draw also makes it easy for you to save and share images — meaning that even if junior’s next masterpiece doesn’t end up on on gramma’s fridge, it may end up on her desktop. Sound like fun?
You can get it from the App Store here.

The Cat in the Hat has always been a classic, and it’s only gotten better on the iPad. The iPad version will read to you, or let you read and explore the story yourself along the way. Really, the magic here is the story – but the occasional convenience of having the book read itself and the fun of being able to interact with story elements gives this version a freshness beyond any paper copy.
You can get it from the App Store here.

123 World Geography is both a guided coloring exercise and a great introduction to geography. It’s best explained by watching the demo built into the app, but the essence of it is that you get to color in a wide range of maps. Once you’ve finished coloring in your map, you can also easily save or share your colorful cartography with friends. A great app for the kids in the car on any road trip.
You can get it from the App Store here.

Super Why is a favorite of many kids from the PBS Kids series. Their app is true to the series – with classic characters each hosting their own game, including sentence completion, rhyming, spelling and a letter hunt. The visual look of this is obviously top-notch and the learning games are of obvious educational value. Some reader reviews seem to indicate that there’s been some instability with this app – but I’m happy to say that I’ve not been able to crash my iPad with it. Which is lucky, because our kids love it.

This list is based on a mix of our personal take and iTunes App Store data as of early June ’10. We’re confident all of these are truly great iPad apps for kids — but we’re not convinced our list is completely comprehensive. Although the situation has improved greatly since we put together our list of Top 20 Kids Educational Apps for the iPhone, the nature of the App Store still makes it easy for some great apps to slip through the cracks and makes it even harder for them to ever get rediscovered. On that note – are your kids using any great educational iPad apps that you love that you don’t see on this list?

Let us know — we’d love to feature some reader favorites here.

Do share.