the ikids blog » Ages 1-3

iPad App Review: My Numbers

digitalchristopherrobin — Mon, 31 May 2010 16:37:53 +0000

A few weeks ago I got my wife an iPad for our anniversary. In what seems to be a fairly common occurence for many early adopter families, it’s been tough to get it back from our kids since it arrived. Besides having fun with the oversized versions of their old favorites from the iPhone, they’ve got a few new favorites on the iPad. One of these is My Numbers, from Punflay and EMANTRAS.

My Numbers reminds me of some of the toys I grew up with – the form factor of the iPad definitely allows for a different kind of learning experience than is possible with iPhone apps and for the digital reinvention of some classic toys.
At it’s core, My Numbers is a simple counting experience that allows kids to master their numbers by practicing with objects, colors and sounds. Touch an object, and the appropriate number is spoken. Touch a number, and the appropriate objects light up. Spin the color wheel, and the colors of the app change. Perhaps best of all, the navigation has been optimized for the youngest learners – which is part of why I think our kids come back to this app. They don’t spend any time fighting through menus or navigation — they simply push the oversized buttons and get to explore the wide world of numbers.

Kudos to the My Numbers team for a solid kid-focused, educational iPad offering. If you’re interested, you can get it here. And, as always, if you’ve got other favorite educational apps for the iPhone or iPad, please do let our readers know in the comments.

Estamos ocupado con OccupyBaby

digitalchristopherrobin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:58:44 +0000

I’ve just returned from visiting family on the other side of the ocean where, among other things, I got to watch my toddler try to get the hang of Hungarian. I just loved watching her mind soak it all in. I’m sure many parents can relate to her first few words — “No”, “Uh oh”, and “Chocolate”. I’m also guessing that there are many parents out there excited about helping their kids prepare for the multilingual world of the future. To those parents, I can enthusiastically recommend OccupyBaby, a great kids iPhone app from Milobox.

OccupyBaby’s base farm theme allows toddlers to easily learn the names of farm animals in English, Spanish and French. It features lots of cute little animals in an easy-to-navigate scrolling barnyard interface. The app’s music is engaging and the interaction is easy, allowing even the youngest kids to play along. Just tap on an animal to hear a sound effect and hear the name of the animal spoken. Or slide your finger across the screen to scroll back and forth and reveal more animals. And if you really want to make things simple, you can put the app on an autoplay mode that will scroll thru all the animals one-by-one with no interaction required. That’s all there is to it — which keeps things manageable for the kiddies.

OccupyBaby is well-designed, easy-to-use, and – as I mentioned – a great tool to help young learners explore a few different languages. Once kids have learned the names of the animals in one of the languages, they can easily switch it up. By the time they are 3 they will be ready to identify all the barnyard animals they meet on your next Madrid-Paris-London road trip. Sound like a dream come true? Well, there’s an app for that. And you can get it here.

P.S. In case your road trip takes you to Budapest….rooster in Hungarian is “kakas”.

App Review: FirstWords: At Home

digitalchristopherrobin — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:32:18 +0000

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 core concept – shapes.

FirstWords: At Home succeeds in a similar way. The app introduces spelling one letter at a time by allowing kids to drag the letters of a word into place, aided throughout by helpful audio prompts.

FirstWords: At Home

You simply touch the letters to hear them spoken and then drag them close to the appropriate spot where they helpfully snap into place. When you complete a word, you are rewarded with an animation that highlights the letters of the word one at at time. And then it’s on to the next word.

For kids that are exploring letters for the first time, this is ideal. The app helps reinforce the connections between letters and sounds, while also introducing the idea that letters can be combined to make words.

FIrstWords: At Home also offers the option to adjust the difficulty level of the app – for example, you can hide the letter hints and let your child try to spell the word on their own.

For parents with kids that have recently mastered their ABCs, this app is a perfect next step in their development. Interested? You can get it here.

Have other apps you’d like to see featured?

Let us know about your favorite kids iPhone apps!

Review: Learn to Talk

digitalvictor — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:20:38 +0000

Learn to talk, an app aimed at 1-3 year olds, features over 160 illustrated flash cards for learning the basics of vocabulary and action words. Two things struck me instantly when I saw this app: the cost and the illustrations.

When I saw the $14.99 price tag for this app, I admit I had some sticker shock and my interest was piqued (as were my expectations). Before I let the real testers go for the gold, I decided to give the app whirl.

I immediately went through the directions which were helpful and showed the simplicity of the interactions. Ok so far.

I then sifted through the high impact words, and made my way down the list, to find a good body of vocab, with audio to match.

The illustrations on this app are fun and professionally crafted.

And then I finished the sections and the app was complete. Still waiting for the big payoff I toyed with the settings and still felt a bit let down.

So next step was to get the munchkins to try the app.

My 14 month old was able to sift through the cards pretty easily, and his interest was there

but not captured fully. My hunch is that a few more tries will get him hooked, and on the path to learning the basics.

In the meantime, I give this app high marks for ease of use, illustration and the depth of content, but the pricetag is simply too high given today’s app market.

With most kids apps coming in around $.99-1.99, it is hard to justify this app at $14.99. I suspect a sale price would lead to increased interest.