Singing Fingers starts with a blank white screen, then you drag your finger slowly across the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad’s screen. A microphone is required. As you move your fingertip, you notice that your “ink” is powered by sound. The louder you sing, the fatter your line. And the color is associated with the pitch. So if you sing a scale, you make a rainbow pattern. After you’ve made a doodle, trace your finger back over your drawing, to hear your captured audio. If you drag quickly, you make a drawing, to play your sound back. If you trace your finger quickly, the sound plays back quickly, like fast-forwarding through a file. The app was created by doctoral students Eric Rosenbaum (who spoke at Dust or Magic 2009) and Jay Silver of the MIT Lifelong Kindergarten Group. 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.
Road Trip Bingo turns your iPhone or iPad into a bingo board. Instead of numerals, the 5 x 5 grid contains a random assortment of items you might see passing by your window, ranging from common things — a cloud, tree or exit sign, to the more unusual — a horse, sailboat or a police car (may your sightings be rare). Once you spot an item on the board, you give it a tap to mark it with a virtual marker. Five in a row in any direction wins, an event marked by a chime and a sticker. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This time-telling app offers four activities from the main menu. The first lets you freely move the hands of an analog clock with your finger, to see if you can make the time match a digital am/pm clock below. The background provides clues about if it is day or night. Correct answers provide a round of applause. The second lets you change the numbers in the digital display at the bottom to match the time displayed by the clock hands. The third is a free mode, where you can move the clock hands or the change the numbers at the bottom to see the time instantly change. The fourth turns the clock into a real, functioning clock, in a clever twist. Part of the “Learning is fun” collection. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Five activities — each previously released as separate apps — have been combined into one $4.99 universal app. See the individual reviews of each app, with ratings. Sound Shaker is a sound making game that uses the accelerometer, so you move the screen to make musical patterns (see the full review). Field Flier lets children control a flying bird. They touch spots on the screen to hear activities like sleeping, resting or hiding labeled. Count Caddy lets children count by 1s, 2s or 3s, by dragging and dropping items into a large circle. Sort Slider shows two objects, and asks children “which one matches.” To make a match, you can either swipe with your finger (left or right) or tilt the screen. In Pattern Painter, children are asked “which shape comes next” and are then presented with three options, multiple choice style. They are then asked to trace the shape on a template. If they have trouble, a short tutorial automatically starts. 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.
Five bite-sized games feature a chatty, quirky little monkey, who serves as the coach and instruction giver. Content includes concentration, color matching (touch all the green fruit), jigsaw puzzles (drag-and-drop puzzles), odd one out (which fruit is not the same), find the fruit that starts with the letter B. Every three activities earns you a sticker,which can be saved on a flannel board. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
The second of two letter tracing apps (the first is Letter Writer: Oceans), this App combines a set of lower case letters with real space facts. For example, after you trace the letter ‘m’ three times, you are presented with a short narrated presentation all about the planet Mars. To complete a letter, you must follow a pulsing line of dots with your finger. See also Letter Writer Oceans for practice with upper case letters. Note that both apps are designed for the smaller iPhone or iPod Touch app (they are not iPad native). 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 first of two letter tracing apps (the second is Letter Writer: Space, that deals with lower case letters), this App combines a set of upper case letters with real ocean facts. For example, after you trace the letter ‘W’ three times, you are presented with a short poem about the Whale, as a large whale swims across the screen. To complete a letter, you must follow a pulsing line of dots with your finger. See also Letter Writer: Space for practice with lower case letters. Note that both apps are designed for the smaller iPhone or iPod Touch (they are not iPad native). 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 iPhone or iPod Touch into a drag and drop creativity space for collages. After you choose a background color and a head shape using as set of slide-open menus, you can freely drag and drop different items into place to try out different looks. Finished products can be saved or shared on social networks. The program look and runs fine on the iPad although the version we reviewed was not universal. The clip art library was developed by illustrator Hanoch Piven. Content includes 20 face outlines and 100 objects. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Duck Duck Moose’s fourth app contains two nursery rhymes woven into one app: Baa Baa Black Sheep and Row Your Boat. There are three ways your child can navigate from scene to scene: manually, by swiping or touching; using an arrow button; or selecting autoplay in the preferences to automatically change the scenes. As children explore, they can hunt for four hidden outlines in the pictures. 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.
Lean the iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone left or right, to steer a single balloon through a maze of tree branches or clouds that gradually get harder. The higher you go, the more points you score,and high scores can be posted on a leader board. The free version has less content. The $.99 version contains more mazes and balloon options. 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.
Inspired by the Mandala patterns of the Buddhist monks, this app makes it possible to convert your finger drawings into snowflake-like symmetrical art, set to zen-like music. There are two drawing modes, normal and blend. The palette contains 35 colors and three types of brushes. Content includes ten songs. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Turn your iPhone screen into a paint-splattered mess with this simple program. The app was first released in 2008 and has been updated several times; but it is basically the same. While there is no iPad version, it still works and looks fine on either sized screen. The program starts with a blank, white square turntable surrounded with splatters of paint. You can either swipe or tap to start it in motion, in either direction. A double tap makes it stop or increase in speed. If you hold your finger down, you can make a perfect circle, or you can choose the large paintbrush to make a big mess, quickly. 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.
How many times can you touch a target in 60 seconds? That’s the challenge of this fast-paced matching game for one to four players, that runs on the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. First you are shown something to pick, such as a colorful tomato or a potato. Next you see your item, mixed in with two other choices. The goal is to touch it as quickly as possible. Wrong answers result in a buzz — correct answers bring up a slightly larger, harder set of items, one of which is yours. 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.
Baby Einstein content comes to your mobile device for the first time in this mixture of short video, and do-it-yourself fact screens in which you can record your own voice and follow links to online purchases. The videos consist of six three minute video segments taken from existing content (Baby Neptune and Baby Beethoven). Each follows the tried-and-true formula of mixing classical music with close ups of interesting objects. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Teachers take note: WordTotz is a customizable flashcard app designed to help children learn their first words using familiar pictures and sounds.The app lets you create your own cards, using photos from your photo album. You can then record your own voice over the photos; potentially very valuable as a language experience. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Like a recipe book for exercise, this reference for iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad consists of a database of 150 exercises. You start by touching a region of the body (e.g,. back, legs or shoulder) and then see a list of exercises, presented in step-by-step fashion. For each exercise, you can download a short 10 second video showing what to do. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This finger painting experience for iPod Touch and iPhone, with a new version for the iPad, has a clean visual design, a manageable 10 color palette and resizable stickers. You start by choosing from three themes (ocean, school or farm). Next, you see a well designed creativity space, offering colors, a single, one size paint brush, an eraser and a row of stickers. There are also icons for saving your picture to your photo library, or alternating between 12 backgrounds per theme, including a blank white or black canvas. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Poke the spider to change scenes in this adaptation of the classic nursery rhyme. You can make rain come down from the clouds, splash in the puddles, help a caterpillar become a butterfly or play peek-a-boo with a frog. Your child can also count from one to ten as a squirrel builds his house, find hidden eggs on a scavenger hunt, create your own music using eggs that play different notes, stack hats on the spider’s head, listen to classical music with violin and cello pizzicato, and record their own singing. 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.
Children explore with their fingertips, in this colorful underwater playground, where a school of quick swimming fish illustrate numerals (up to 20), the alphabet song, and a set of shapes. In the alphabet song, children can swipe forward or backward, hearing the alphabet backwards if they like. If they stop at a letter, such as U, they hear “U is for Umbrella.” The number line works the same way, only the quantity is presented along with the numeral, in the form of a line of small eggs on the bottom of the screen. The “Playtime” activity fills the screen with dozens of differently colored fish, of every shape, size and pattern. Other more structured activities include a game of concentration, and a discrimination game, that asks children to find the fish that doesn’t belong. The iPhone and iPod touch versions are available for $.99 at http://tinyurl.com/fishiphone; the iPad vesion is $1.99: http://tinyurl.com/fishipad. 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.
Available in both free and full versions for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, Drawing Den is a coloring program that offers eight pictures that you can color, and there are no stamps or undo options. Other features include the ability to quickly share a photo and a “stay within the lines” option that you can toggle off, in case you want to make a mess. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
It used to be when you wanted to sketch out the plans for an invention, you grabbed a napkin. The iPad equivalent is Doodle Buddy, a multi-touch sketching utility. Content includes 24 backgrounds, including white, black and several for word games like dots and tic-tac-toe; four drawing tools and an infinite color selector. There are also 80 tiny stamps, and the ability to import a photo from your photo library. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Based on the Webosaurs.com virtual world, this app features 3D versions of the Webosaurs’ characters including Stretch, Pterry, Horns and Rexxy. Players can race their Webosaurs through various environments by moving their iPhone face up and down to maneuver through obstacles and jump over ramps. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
The content of this iPod Touch app includes one flash card per letter, which are presented randomly. For each letter, you see three animals. The idea is that you see a letter (for example ‘F’) and then touch the associated animal. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Yesterday I learned that Apple had removed an App called “Scratch Viewer 1.4″ from the App store (by way of a Facebook post by Scott Traylor). This decision has ruffled some feathers (see http://computinged.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/apple-removes-scratch-from-ipadiphoneitouch/ for a taste of the comments, including one by Alan Kay).
So I decided to dig a bit deeper into this issue. 
WHAT DOESN’T THIS APP DO?
This app is not Scratch. This might be misleading because it appears the Icon for the App is labeled merely as “Scratch.” The true name is “Scratch Viewer.” So let’s be clear — this is not the free, NSF funded, full-fledged version of programming toolkit called Scratch that we’ve all come to know and love. It’s an $4 App that lets you do something you can currently do for free on your computer.
Four early reading activities each feature a character from the PBS Super Why program. In Alpha Pig’s Lickety Letter Hunt, your child helps Alpha Pig find his way home by identifying one of three letters presented verbally (e.g., do you see the letter “v?”). In Princess Presto’s Wands-up Writing, the goal is to make objects appear by identifying letter sounds, tracing letters on the touch screen, and writing words. Wonder Red’s Rhyming Time presents words in a multiple choice format. The word is first presented (“press on the word that rhymes with trap”). Children are then shown two choices (DOG and CAP). Finally, Super Why’s Story Save is a fill-in-the-blank activity. As children play, they collect virtual stickers they can use to decorate a sticker book. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Featuring good music and bad design, this preschool app starts with a view of a farm that was modeled after the original Little People farm toy set. Various items launch short animated routines or games.
For example, touching a large turtle (hey, what’s a dog-sized turtle doing on a farm?) starts a multiple-choice matching game where you “touch two turtles that look the same.” The idea is valid, but the game starts too hard for the intended age range and has no contextual value. Inside the barn, children can play the haystack game, a memory puzzle where they track a moving haystack with their eyes. Two other activities include wiping mud off the screen, which is fun, despite frequent prompts to “move your finger back and forth to clean it all up.” Finally, there are two twitching children near the barnyard. When they’re touched, children hear a nice rendition of “Turkey and the Straw.” As they listen they can make the children move to the music by touching them. Created by IDEO LLC for Fisher-Price. Teaches: classification, fine motor skills, memory. Fisher-Price, Inc.. www.fisher-price.com, $1.99. Best for ages 3-5.
Rating: 
or .56%
FISHER-PRICE LAUNCHES FIRST-EVER IPHONE APPS
Classic Chatter TelephoneTM, See ‘n Say®, Little People® Farm Toys Transform into Magical, Fun iPhone Games
EAST AURORA, N.Y. – March 18, 2010 – Fisher-Price, Inc. (a subsidiary of Mattel, Inc. NASDAQ:MAT) today put a fun, digital spin on some of its beloved, iconic toys by launching its first-ever iPhone applications, enabling children to experience classic toys in an exciting new way. The Chatter Telephone™ toy (first introduced in 1962), See ‘n Say® product (first introduced in 1965) and Little People® Farm (the Little People® brand was first introduced in 1959) applications, for ages 2-5, are available for download on the iTunes App Store now for $.99 – $1.99 each.
Want to see a 21st century rattle? Innovative and easy to use, this bite-sized App engages young children with music in a way that could only be done with a motion sensing device like an iPhone or iPod Touch. You start by choosing one of six sound sets: chimes, a flute, drums, barnyard sounds, a xylophone and a random mixture. The instructions are short and sweet — “Tap the screen to add sounds.” From this point, your iPhone or iPod Touch screen becomes a musical open-ended busy box, where every tap becomes a ball, that rolls around the screen, using the accelerometer to detect the motion (hence the term “shaker”). Longer touches result in higher notes and larger balls, helping children understand musical relationships. This is part of the Tickle Tap Apps series. Teaches: music, scales, causality, logic, fine motor skills. zinc Roe Design. www.zincroe.com, $1.99. Best for ages 3-5.
Rating: or .96%
One of a library of Qbooks, Sebastian’s Tail is an eBook on an iPhone with excellent text decoding, but some weak points in the interface. There are also two additional games: concentration and a word search. After you choose your language option (US English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and NZ Maori) you can either hear the book narrated, or explore the words and draw on the illustrations yourself, or (for the iPhone only) record your own narration. To record your own voice, you find the recorder button, which pops up quite frequently, and start talking. The next time you touch the words, you hear your voice. We reviewed the Lite (free) version. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
What could be better than an old-fashioned dot-to-dot puzzle? A touch-screen version, naturally. To connect the dots, children touch the letters or numerals in sequential order; gradually forming an outline. Correct connections create a line, and when the last dot is touched, a picture appears. Puzzles are grouped by category, including 26 transportation pictures, 35 musical instruments and others. 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 flannel-board-like game lets you experiment with different faces on one of five different puppet “monsters.” Children can touch anywhere on the face to scroll through different combinations of features, As each part is added, the monster thanks you. When things are in place, you can play with your monster in one of three ways. You can take her photo, bring Elmo in for a well done skit, or dance with your monster by touching anywhere on the screen. Made for Sesame Workshop by IDEO LLC. (http://www.ideo.com/work/item/sesame-street-iphone-apps/) 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.
Telling Time is an iPhone/iPod touch app designed to drill children on telling time using both digital and analog clock faces. The best place to start is with Free Play, where you can touch and move clock hands around the dial, and see a digital clock reading at the same time as the analog clock and hear the time spoken out loud. There are three challenge activities: Set the Clock – you must drag the hour hand and the minute hand to the correct setting; Which Time? – you must match the time on a digital clock by moving the hands of the analog clock to the correct position; and How Long? – you have to set the clock to a target time that is earlier or later than the time shown. Each activity has three levels of difficulty. The problems are arranged in sets, and each set is greeted with a round of applause. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Leveled reading curriculum comes to the small screen, with Reading A-Z’s non-interactive leveled readers. Called ReadSmart Edition Apps and sold for $1 each, the titles cover 27 levels, from PreK to 6th grade. The ReadSmart process is designed to refine the fonts of the story to make the print more readable. Each of the leveled books features discussion points at the end. Individual books are $0.99 each, and 12 book libraries are $6.99. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
If you like follow-the-leader types of rhythm games like DDR, you’ll like this easy-to-learn 100 MB rhythm game for your iPhone or iPod Touch. You first see and hear a sequence of beats, presented in one measure, and then get the next measure to try to copy what you’ve seen and heard. Content includes five rock-style songs with two challenge levels, each. Created for Disney Interactive Studios by Muppet Studios and the Chinese-based enorbus (www.enorbus.com) studios. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
How’d you like to become a sea turtle? This interesting app puts you inside the shell of a large sea turtle, and asks you to explore a 3D undersea environment in a race to label radioactive waste canisters. The game takes place in the future — the year 2016 and scientist have figured out how to turn turtles into living robots. Developed by Hiccup Studios. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Designed to improve math skills, this math app uses a 3D tile-matching metaphor to deliver practice with addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and fractions. The goal is to touch two tiles that have the same amount (e.g., 4 and 2+2). If they match, the tiles disappear, and you search for the next pair, until all the tiles are gone. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Zap moving flies with a frog’s fast tongue, in this fast-moving, thumb exerciser. You see a frog surrounded by moving flies, which can be tapped to be eaten. But don’t wait — the clock is ticking and the flies get smarter. After 60 seconds (marked by audio countdown), the frog burps and the flies escape for another round. Developed by 360KID for People Operating Technology. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Apple Harvest Game
Seven simple math games for the iPod Touch or iPhone provide practice with counting and number patterns. To start a game, you simply touch an icon from the main menu, which it is easy to jump back to at any point (tap the “menu” icon). In the first game, Melon Harvest, children first hear an elephant ask for a quantity of melons, from 1 to 9, for example “I need 7 melons.” Next, they must drag the melons to the basket, one at a time, until the quantity matches the numeral shown on the basket.Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Concentration anyone? This iPhone/iPod touch app delivers a simple game of concentration. Each card shows a picture of an animal, and an associated sound. The object is to try to make a match by touching any two squares. When the squares flip over, the animal displayed makes its sound, and the pictures stay on the screen, a fact that clutters the game. If the animals don’t match, they are flipped back over and you must try again. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
The Sums Stacker app lets you move numerals and sets of numerals around with the tip of your finger. There are two modes of play — solve and race — and two difficulty levels. The challenge is bite-sized and addicting: to make a three column stack of quantities that add up to the number shown at the bottom of the screen. Once the stack matches the sum, the screen clears and you get another challenge.The numbers are represented in eight ways that vary in their level of abstraction. More information is at www.mathdoodles.com. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.