Part of the Brainy Fables series of storybook apps, Uxmal is an English/Spanish story about a young boy, Uxmal, who is growing up in the Mayan world. The story was written by Franco Soldi, illustrated in blue and white by Pedro Bascon. In the story, a local carnival brought together the county’s strongest men to compete in the famous pyramid challenge, but none of them succeeds in throwing the coconut over the pyramid. But, then a little boy named Uxmal is able to do it, and changes the history of his town. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Featuring a simple art style and a compelling story about a trouble-making dog, Quem Soltou o Pum? (Who let Fart out?) is proof that you don’t need a lot of bells and whistles to tell a story on the iPad. The story is simple — a much loved dog keeps making a mess, but the dialog (in Portuguese) is full of puns. The creative writing combined with the simple but compelling interactivity earned the title an honorable mention in the 2012 BolognaRagazzi Digital Prize. Too bad it doesn’t cost less (the high price earned it a lower rating on our scale). Teaches: reading, Portugese. Companhia das Letras. www.companhiadasletras.com.br, $8.99. Best for ages 3-up.
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The first in a series of Disney Classics storybook apps, this is the story of three children (Wendy, John and Michael) who enter Neverland with Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. Children can touch some of the illustrations to hear them labeled. Some of the pages have typical jigsaw puzzles, games of concentration, or coloring pages. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Perfect Pitch Piano (PPPiano) is designed to teach you to play piano by ear, by playing a copy-cat style game with your iPad. Your screen displays a large, responsive keyboard that is just over an octave in size (17 keys) and sounds exactly like a piano. The app starts easy, playing a one or two note phrase and then waits for you to answer. The lessons get progressively harder; wrong answers give you another chance, depending on the settings. You can adjust the activity so that you can make as many as six mistakes. You can also change the pitch and tempo. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
You might as well admit it; everyone “goes to the bathroom.” We have to brush our teeth, wash our hands and clothes, take baths and clip our nails. This app is designed to bring up these sometimes touchy topics, by way of a rather wild looking child named Pepi. You start by choosing whether Pepi is a boy or a girl, and then are shown four icons (a washing machine, toothbrush, bath and toilet paper). You then help Pepi go through each routine, one step at a time. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
The Numberlys comes from the studio that created The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Lawrence Lessmore, directed by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg of Moonbot Studios. You start with a story, told by a narrator with a thick sounding accent, who tells the story of a grey society that has no letters or words — only numbers. As you swipe your way through the story, you help a small group of friends convert numerals like “8″ into letters like “B” or “R” by shooting missiles, slicing the letters in half, bouncing on trampolines, spinning turntables, and so on. There’s a routine per letter, giving you plenty of surprises. The art mixes grey industrial art styles from the 1930′s (a Metropolis look), with a totalitarianism, Big Brother theme. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Designed to help children learn and practice the fundamentals of reading both analog (with hands) and digital (with numerals) clocks, this app drills children with five monsters who have eyes that watch your fingers move on the screen. Children can unlock up to 15 photos of the monsters by completing the three levels of difficulty for each character and earning 5 stars. In the easy level, time is kept on the hour and half-past the hour as an introduction to telling the time. In the medium level, time is tested at 5 minute intervals, introducing the concepts of “past”, “to”, “quarter past”, etc. Getting an answer wrong will remove a star you’ve already earned. The hard level will test children across the full range of the clock, but in this round you have to earn 5 stars in a row to please the monsters. If you get a question wrong you have to try again. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This a memory game designed to provide practice making eye contact, or “eye contact skills.” It is designed for use with children with special needs, specifically those with autism and Asperger’s Syndrome. You are shown a close-up view of a person, and a numeral is shown on their retina for a few seconds. You are then asked to type in the number, making this a memory game. By answering the correct number, you earn money. You can use the money you earn to buy things for your restaurant, creating a fun, accumulative play pattern. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Learning to write letters and numerals will never be the same after a child tries LetterSchool on an iPad’s slippery screen. Content includes both uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers from 1 to 10. You can toggle between three types of letters/numeral styles — D’Nealian (used in many US schools), HWT (Handwriting Without Tears) and Zaner-Bloser (the “traditional” format). You start with a set of letters (or numerals, if you have it set up in numeral mode). Each letter or numeral comes with three tracing games designed to introduce the name, sound, and the strokes required to learn it. In Tap, children find the “magic dot” at the beginning of the letter, tap it, and watch as the first part of the letter comes to life. (The letters and numbers might be displayed as grass, that you mow as you trace.) You can then tap the next dots shown at the end of each stroke to complete the next line… when finished you earn a star, and unlock the next game. Trace requires children to trace the letter correctly all the way to the end to earn a star and unlock the next challenge, Write. In this activity children must write the letter on their own without a helper line. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
This is a 32 screen rendition of Jack and the Beanstalk that follows the original story line, with audio narration, read-along text, and some interactive features. Created by Ayars Animation. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Play with a set of beautifully illustrated, zany monsters (on par with Moshi Monsters) in this Italian-language app. The narration is especially colorful, giving you a nice dose of the sound of a romantic language. A monster creation studio makes it possible to construct your own monster. Creations can be shared in an online gallery. Contents include 30 screens about a monster who is trying to be more scary, so he figures out that he can join a circus. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Gube is a collection of over 500 pre-screened YouTube videos, each with no ads, and tagged by age. There’s no shortage of science, episodes of existing children’s programing like Sesame Street, and silly animals. Note that you’ll need a live Internet connection. The preferences let you filter the videos by age group (infant, toddler, pre-school, and grade school). Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
This app lets children take control of the “scary” monster and learn how to not be afraid of it. Each page progressively reveals and then removes each piece of the Big Green Monster by cleverly changing the background screen colors. Children can add the Monster’s eyes, hair, ears, and nose, and poke him to see what he does. There are four modes: Read Along with a Friend; Read Along with Ed; Sing Along; and Read Yourself. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
This app features hundreds of labeled photos to explore. The objects are sorted according to categories, including, animals, transport (this app was made in Australia, so there are some language differences), bodies, alphabets, numbers, shapes and colors. Each screen (or flashcard) contains one simple interactive feature, such as a sound. Second language packs are sold as in-app sales, for $1.99 each. These can be purchased in the preferences screen and include support for Spanish, French, German, Italian and English. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
The arcade-style games in this app are based on the online game available at ZiggityZoom.com. There are three play mechanics, plus a Monster Creator-where you can customize and name up to five monsters, who stay in storage. You can grab and drag food from a conveyor belt, and drop them on your monster’s mouth to feed it. If you overfeed the monster, it will will explode. Other games include a food fight, and a food catching game. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This is a collection of matching and hide-and-seek games, based on farm animals. Each screen contains a simple matching activity. For example, a child might be asked to find a sheep (hiding behind a bale of hay) or move a porcupine to collect falling apples that are counted. There are 20 animals, each labeled with both print and verbal cues. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
The traditional print edition of Eric Carle’s classic book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, is an effective way to let children informally discover quantity, as they help a caterpillar count/eat his way through the pages of the book. This app takes a different approach, using the food items cut from the book illustrations and turning them into a highly directive, self-correcting worksheet that deals specifically with numbers 1 to 10. You start by choosing one of five levels, from easy to more difficult. These range from “please eat the strawberry”,which is limited to touching an object to hear it counted, to a timed race where you must count specific food items from a set to earn points. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Twenty animated routines engage children in counting, from 1 to 20. The art is by Dutch illustrator Caroline Ellerbeck , who also published two Little Golden Books. Options let you switch between 16 languages (Arabic; Chinese; Dutch; French; German; Greek; Italian; Japanese; Lithuanian; Polish; Portuguese; Slovakian; Spanish; Swedish; Swiss German; and English). There is also a free lite version that lets you count to five. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This talking picture dictionary contains 1,700 words accompanied by pictures and spoken sentences. Children can swipe through the pictures, just exploring, or they can search by keyword. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This 24 screen app is adapted from a printed book by Rana DiOrio, illustrated by Chris Hill. The app addresses the question, “what does it mean to be global?” and gives you the idea that the world would be a better place, if we all thought globally. Features include on-the-fly toggling between Spanish and English, narrated sentences and limited animation on each screen. Other features include a coloring book, a journal where you can type your own sentences and drag and drop stickers onto a blank page, a set of lesson plans and a quiz. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This is a simple flash card app based on the Irish illustrator Chris Judge’s picture book, featuring The Lonely Beast. The 26 interactive hand-drawn scenes feature the Beast (a large, dark hairy creature with two eyes), and his friends as they explore each letter of the alphabet. The narration is provided by the author; music is by Simon Judge. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
You can bring the world of Neverland to life, in your choice of language, with this rendition of Peter Pan. Pages can be changed by swiping, plus there is an easy-to-access table of contents. Both the on-screen text and audio narration can be toggled and examined, and children can have the story read to them, or read it on their own. Features of the enhanced HD version include: touch pronunciation, explain to me, show me, and Karaoke reading. Two versions of The Adventures of Peter Pan are available: an enhanced HD version for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch (USD $3.99), and a streamlined, non-interactive version for iPhone and iPod touch ($0.99). Designed by French publisher Chocolapps’ (formerly So Ouat!) this app contains 42 screens/pages of content. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Here’s a rare collection of seven short stories written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss in the 1950s for Redbook magazine. It is being released along with the hardcover book from Random House. Stories include The Bippolo Seed (the story of a mischievous, greedy cat who leads an innocent duck astray); The Bear, the Rabbit, and the Zinniga-Zanniga (the story of how a single eyelash saves a rabbit from an insecure bear), Gustav the Goldfish (a boy overfeeds his pet fish, causing it to outgrow its bowl), Tadd and Todd (about twins in search of their individuality), Steak for Supper (a Seussian creature follows a boy home hoping for a steak dinner), The Strange Shirt Spot (a boy can’t seem to get dirt off of his shirt and everything else around him) and The Great Henry McBride (the story of a day-dreaming boy who fantasizes about his career choices). Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Here’s another solid Duck Duck Moose app. The idea is to present younger children with a narrated question, such as “who is upside down?” They then try to find the correct answer, from eight possible choices. There’s a nice variety of questions and the names of different animals are used (e.g., alligator, cat, chicken, cow, dog, elephant, giraffe, hippo, lion, monkey, mouse, panda, penguin, pig, seal, skunk, walrus, and zebra, as well as an imaginary “squirgle”). Children are also introduced to emotions such as smiling, surprised, crying, angry, and sad; actions such winking, waving, yawning, eating, wagging his tail, and sleeping; positions of backwards and upside down; activities of listening or having a party; sounds such as meow and woof; and attire including wearing a hat, sunglasses, or bowtie. As children play, they can listen to jazz versions of nursery tales. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This is the second in the The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library series. Cat in the Hat is the host (and the narrator) who takes us on a fictional expedition to find dinosaur fossils. This includes a trip to the modern day Super Dino Museum, where animated dinosaur visuals are hidden on each page. Each page has developmentally appropriate content for both younger children as well as capable readers, making this a good all-purpose app. For example, hidden information cards from Thing One and Thing Two provide more facts such as “Ankylosaurus: This 30-foot-long dinosaur had an armor-covered body and a club tail it could swing from side to side. A well-placed blow with its tail could break the leg of a T-Rex!” Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Motion Math Hungry Fish lets children practice skills like “instant addition” in an undersea setting. We reviewed the free portion of the app — the first of six levels. The center of the show is a fish who eats number bubbles (e.g., addends). You help, by dragging the correct bubbles to the fish as quickly as possible. This might involve combining bubbles such as 3 and 4, to make 7. The better you do, the harder the problems and the more points you earn. These points turn into magic pearls that can be used to customize your fish, with different colors or fins (a nice touch). There are six sets of problems, but only the first can be played with the free version; the other five are available as in-app sales. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
With a look and feel that is nearly identical to the Kinect edition of the game, Kinectimals for iPad lets you pet, bathe and teach your large baby cats. The more you play, the more parts of the island of Lemuria that you unlock. There are five total, each with different challenges. For example, you can flick a ball to see how many times your cub can catch it, or swipe up to make your cub jump, in time to a jump rope. You can also transfer your pet to the Kinect, by holding your iPad in range of the Kinect camera. Once it recognizes your cubs pattern, your cub “jumps” into the Kinect game. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
The iPad edition of the famous Disney theme-park ride lets you touch-and-explore 16 watercolor scenes depicting various parts of a happy, exotic world where everyone seems busy and happy. Each scene contains related hot spots that help the story along. In a refreshing touch, the ever familiar “read to me” and “let me explore” navigation options have sidestepped. Instead, each page advances slowly, automatically, or it can be hurried along either with a bookmark — in case you want to jump directly to a page — or with a swipe, that puts the whole production in the context of a balloon ride. The last page includes the famous song, follow the bouncing ball style, and you can tap on the screen to control the fireworks. One word of caution — make sure you download a current version and use a recent version of the iOS operating system. According to the iTunes reviews, this app can crash. It is also a large download — at 133 MB. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Now you can think of your iPad or iPhone as a drawing/flannel board and story telling machine. The drawing is paired with a narration feature that makes it easy to do a “color commentary” on the picture you just made. The end result is a powerful language experience. After you finish your picture, you tap a microphone, and are told to “record your voice — 3-2-1-Go!” As a recording light flashes, you can describe your work. Note that this is a very different process than apps like Doodlecast, where you redraw your picture and talk in real time. With this app, an innovative highlighter is layered over your drawing, letting you highlight features as you talk. Once you have a picture and a highlighted soundtrack, your work is saved automatically in your photo library, making it possible to share by email. This works backwards as well… you can import images and sketch or talk over them, with a glow in the dark marker, if you like. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
This language experience/creativity app puts a children’s book author (Mo Willems) inside his own app. It also invites you (or a child) to serve as the co-author/ co- illustrator. The result is a Mad-Libs style experience where you can draw elements of the story, and insert your own favorite favorite parts in the narrative. There are two primary modes from the main menu: Create Your Own Story (choose parts of the story and at times record your own voice) and Draw the Pigeon (a free-drawing experience, where Mo Willems gives you art lessons). Features include the ability to see the narration (like captions), and the ability to record your own voice, to hear it woven into the story. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Designed to expose very young children to Spanish and English, this app lets you build basic Spanish vocabulary as you interact with Lucy (who speaks English) and Carlos (who speaks Spanish). Your goal is to drag and match picture blocks with their spoken English or Spanish counterpart. The starter app is free to download and features Animals. Two additional books, Colors and Numbers, are available as in-app purchases for $1.99 each. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Designed to introduce young children to Jazz music and it’s instruments, this app follows two children as they explore the Jazz Big Band, where they discover the sounds of each instrument. There’s a full jazz Big Band arrangement that can be mixed and matched. On the last of the 15 pages, children can test their knowledge with an un-timed quiz that asks children to match a phrase (or a lick) played by each instrument, with the correct picture. Instruments include the saxophone, trumpet, trombone, bass, piano, guitar and vibraphone. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Want to see what the home-based math curriculum of the iPad age looks like? Designed by the highly regarded French app developer, GameLoft, Playful Minds is a $3 iPad-based math curriculum that provides a leveled, K-2 math curriculum, mixed with an assessment system along with a set of arcade-like games to reinforce the content. After you login (with an email address) you see a series of islands, each with an animal professor host, along with a game-board. Each stop represents a new set of problems. The problems are mostly multiple choice or correct answer. They’ve been pulled from “Skill Sharpeners Math” — one of many inspired by the NCTM standards for K-2. Content includes 300 exercises and mini-games organized around Algebra, Geometry, Data Analysis, Measurement, and Numbers & Operations. Directions and explanations are displayed in print and by narrator; the app can handle up to five children. Features include the ability to adjust sounds and toggle between US or UK English. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
This mad-lib style story leverages the power of your iPhone or iPod touch camera and microphone to let you create a custom 12 screen ebook featuring your child’s name and photo, framed in a nature theme. You start by creating a profile. Parents and children then receive 12 prompts to perform certain outdoor, physical activities like running, jumping or finding a smooth stone. Using the iPhone/iPod, parents take still photographs of their children engaged in the activities, and the photographs are uploaded into a pre-developed story narrative for subsequent viewing, reading together, and conversation. The app is designed to be used by teachers or parents with the children, and not by the children themselves, serving as a prop to encourage physical activity. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
New from BinaryLabs (makers of Dexteria), LetterReflex takes on the common issue of letter reversals. The app features kinesthetic learning techniques to help kids tell the difference between b’s and d’s, as well as other commonly reversed letters and words. While letter reversals are developmentally appropriate and normal for girls until the end of first grade and boys through the beginning of second grade, LetterReflex addresses the topic in a low pressure way. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Once you get past the idea of touching the swarms of realistic roaches, ants, or bees, children quickly fall for this collection of 18 counting and classification activities. There are two modes. You can move through a series of structured challenges progressively (progress for one player is bookmarked), or you can freely explore. Management features include the ability to toggle on/off scores, achievements, visual instructions, extended introduction or the background music. The leveling causes the app to get easier if a child struggles. A “bonus mode” presents the hardest challenge. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Beanie Baby lovers now have an app of their own, in the form of Beanie Ballz Bounce. Designed for the iOS smaller screens, the free app is a bit like Doodle Jump, only backwards. Instead of bouncing higher, you drop down, from platform to platform, earning points by collecting Ty labels. You also have to avoid Beanie Monsters who sit on some of the platforms. If you make it to the bottom, you unlock the next level. There are four levels total. Created by Fun Nugget for Ty, Inc. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
New from French publisher So Ouat! (now named Chocolapps), a rendition of Adventures of Robin Hood, in the form of a 25 page/screen retelling of the classic story, complete with pop-up animations, on-screen text and audio narration and a full-screen cartoon video of the story. The HD version includes mini-games. Children might find the hooded Robin in a crowd, compete in an archery tournament, and storm Prince John’s castle to rescue Maid Marian. Other features include: ‘touch pronunciation’ (touch a word to hear it spoken); “explain to me” (a word’s definition and its opposite are given, to provide context for unfamiliar words); “show me” (an illustration displays to represent a word); and “Karaoke reading” (designed to help children learn to read the story themselves). Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
What does the inside of a seashell look like? What about an insect, a motorcycle or an iPad? Here’s an app that lets you find out. The app contrasts two images — before x-ray and after x-ray, and every possible gradation between. To move between the views, you swipe with a single finger, from top to bottom. Content includes 26 everyday objects, arranged from A to Z. A double-tap offers a stereoscopic option, or you can pinch to zoom and reveal detail. This app is based on the photography of Hugh Turvey, the Artist in Residence at the British Institute of Radiology. The accompanying text is by author Paul Rosenthal. There are different versions, one for iPad, the other for iPhone or iPod Touch. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.
Turn your slippery iPhone screen into a guitar fretboard with this Magic Guitar app with this follow-along style app that lets you mimic various guitar styles. You hold your phone like a guitar neck, and beams of light tell your finger where to go. A shake will bend the tone, and a swipe will give texture. The idea is to match the moving marks as closely as possible to earn points, which are recorded on a leaderboard. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating, and see why this received our Editor’s Choice Award.