- A classic Victor Borge: http://t.co/IUTJKidH via @youtube #
- A classic Victor Borge: http://t.co/IUTJKidH via @youtube #
This one player problem solving adventure features Milli, Geo, and Bot from the Umizoomi Nickelodeon show. In order to rebuild a submarine, children move through 25 activities that consist of mazes and puzzles, some of which involve using your voice as an input. There are two modes: adventure (move through the games in the context of the story) and team training (choose one of the 25 mini-games individually). Curriculum is based on the Pre-K and Kindergarten math skills, which includes counting, sorting, matching, identifying, sequencing, adding, subtracting, dividing, measuring and comparing. Developed by Black Lantern for 2K Play. 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.
Based on the book by David Carter, Spot the Dot is a “needle in the haystack” or “I Spy” type of app, where the same item — a small colored dot, is hidden in nine pages, or screens. Each challenge is presented with the text “can you spot the (color) dot?” forming a predictable pattern. Created for Ruckus Media by Unicornlabs. 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.
After you choose one of the four game save slots to save your progress, you can take the tutorial, which is recommended, to learn how to master each one of the 50 levels. This requires expertly matching button presses on the Wii controller with events on the screen to make parts on an assembly line or sink golf shots. If you hit the target beats, you are rewarded with an enhanced version of the song. Features include some additional 2-player rhythm games. 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 fourth in the Professor Layton puzzle series, this game is set three years before the events in Professor Layton and the Curious Village. In the story, Professor Layton receives a letter from an old schoolmate telling him that a mysterious giant is destroying his town. This time, the professor investigates with his young, smart new assistant, Emmy. There’s a wide variety of brain teasers and riddles; more than the others in the series. In the first, for example, you find a hidden clue by taking the first letter from each line, in a paragraph. 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 mashup from vintage 1980 cartoon super heroes combines actual footage from the Power Rangers TV show with a well designed fighting format for one or two players. In the DS version you use your stylus, and in the Wii version your Wii Remote as your sword to morph into a Red, Blue, Green, Yellow or Pink Ranger. Each has different properties, required to defeat each enemy. There’s a lot to explore — You can unlock secret passageways, access hidden levers, and follow mystical pathways to get hints on how to defeat the MegaMonster. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
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.
Looking for a serious soccer game? Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) delivers plenty of sharp, realistic graphics and mixes it in with a set of intuitive controls. PES 2012 features include a more detailed career mode, improved teammate AI (artificial intelligence) so the players work better, better zonal marking and positional defending, and a new collision detection system. 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.
Back in the 1980s these six classic video games earned a lot of quarters. Today, all six come on a cartridge the size of a quarter. What’s more, they’re in 3D. The catch is that they’ll only run on the Nintendo 3DS. Titles include Pac-Man, Pac-Man Championship Edition, Galaga, and Galaga Legions, along with two new 3DS only games. In Pac-Man Tilt, you move Pac-Man through stages filled with obstacles, platforms and ghosts with tilt controls. You use flippers, platforms and power pellets to jump, flip, swing, and eat through to the finish line. In Galaga 3D Impact, the 3DS becomes a ship’s gun turret as you attack and defend the ship while ridding space of the incoming Galaga army. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
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.
Here’s a mix-and-match activity that turns you into the editor of a fashion magazine. You can dress your Moxie Girlz dolls by trying different outfits, hair, eye color and so on. Next, you stage a photo shoot, and take different photos, earning money that can be used to buy more accessories. Features include journal and diary options, Moxie Girlz quizzes and the ability to add your own photo to the game, providing you have a DSi (with a camera). Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This pocket-sized edition of Madden NFL for the Nintendo 3DS brings virtual football to the 3D screen. Content includes 32 NFL teams and stadiums, with three types of playcalling. GameFlow automatically selects the best play for the situation based on authentic NFL team gameplans; Arcade gives you more control over plays; and Classic lets you experience your favorite team’s playbook. There are both 11-on-11 games, or 5-on-5 games that have no penalties and no play clock — the winner is the first team to score a set number of touchdowns. 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.
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.
This second Just Dance Kids contains 40 new dances for 1 to 4 players, plus some new platform options (the last version was Wii only). The dances are led by a squad of real kids, who model the moves. Content includes songs from The Wiggles and Yo Yo Gabba, as well as covers of popular songs including Whip My Hair, Just the Way You Are and Burning Up. A shuffle mode lets you select your favorite songs for non-stop dancing, and there’s a playlist option, say, for a party. The Wii version features a four player cooperative mode, as well as a Balloon Mode where kids compete against each other to get more items and earn more points by shaking their Wii Remotes. The Kinect version tracks kids movements with the sensor and features a Create mode that lets kids star in their own music video and create their own original dances for any song. The Playstation Move version lets kids capture their dance moves using the PS3 camera to snap photos while dancing, and can be played with up to four players. 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.
Those frogs can now jump right out of your 3DS screen, in this new edition of the classic arcade game. Content includes six worlds to hop through, including New York, the Far East, and Space. There are 60 stages in all, each with multiple road crossing challenges that get harder. Along the way, you meet other frogs who might destroy obstacles, absorb damage or light the way in dark spaces as you progress through the game. Features include the ability to compete against other players in 4-player multiplayer over wireless, engage in street battles, and show off your skills in the new Forever Mode. Developed by Alpha-Unit Co. Ltd. for Konami. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This app features four levels, ranging from counting (drag a set of balloons to the matching numeral) to a game of concentration that involves matching sets of dots to numerals. The better a child does, the harder the problems become, and progress is tracked in a management section. Correct answers earn stickers. The management section lets you toggle the background music on or off. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Your child can help Dora and Kai-lan perform vet checkups, bathe, feed, groom, and potty-train the animals, who do tricks for thanks. Animals include bunnies, birds, puppies and kittens. Features include the ability to save up to three games. The microphone is also used (e.g., say hi to the new pet). Children can also play backyard games, dress-up the pets, and teach them tricks to earn treats, toys, and hats. Developed by Black Lantern for 2K Play. 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.
Are you ready to “enhance your mind-body connection?” Drop this DVD into your XBox Kinect system, and you’ll have your own Indian meditation guru, at your service. The game is organized into seven types of meditations, each designed to help you focus and connect to your personal “flow state.” Each activity is introduced by Deepak Chopra, the relaxation expert best known for a long association with Michael Jackson.There are seven lessons, each introduced by Chopra’s relaxing, authoritative voice coaching you to relax– “imagine the air as water.” Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
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.
This cartoon adventure contains excellent music and fast-paced sidescrolling, with plenty of fights in between. On the DS, all the dialog requires reading, which makes this a language enrichment activity, as well. Created by WayForward for Warner Bros. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Turn your living room screen into a hair and nail salon, with this mix-and-match type of creativity experience. In the story, Barbie is running an operation called Jet, Set & Style Inc. You will travel around the world on the Barbie Jet Salon to do hair, nails and to consult on fashion advice. As you play, you earn “fashionista points” which can be used for the chance to style Barbie herself, for a show in Milan. Developed by Game Machine Studios for THQ. 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.
Let’s Work Together to Make Young Makers
Last month at CES, I met Dale Dougherty; a very smart publisher who co-founded O’Reilly Media. He’s one of the driving forces behind both MAKE magazine and the Makerfaire shows. Here’s his talk at Kid’s at Play http://youtu.be/FQ8my2HNgzc. Dale reminded us all that children are born to take things apart and put them together again; a notion that lies at the heart of constructivism — and our evaluation instrument. That’s why we picked “Children as Makers” as our topic for this month’s LittleClickers column on page 3. You can find a wonderful set of videos (don’t miss the singing fish car) and links to help us all “Make Makers.” You can also learn more about one of the first relatively low cost 3D printers, the Replicator, on page 19.
iPads in Kindergarten
We just finished a short series of videos with “The iPad Teacher” at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDE5C25B50EF55422. His real name is Chris Crowell, CTR’s Contributing Editor, and he earned his moniker from the children of Desmares Elementary School, where he has been a kindergarten teacher, sans iPad, for 14 years. This last year — his 15th — he’s been experimenting with an iPad 2, thanks to a training project we’ve been working on with the Acelaro Head Start, and an upcoming trip to North Dakota. Perhaps his biggest message is this: young children today are growing up with touch screens. They don’t need to be subjected to a series of lessons about how to use one. Instead, let them experiment with a collection of carefully selected apps and use guided exploration to introduce features, such as the camera and/or the microphone. Model the behaviors you want. “The great thing about the iPad is that it promotes exploration.”
Here are the video topics:
1. Introducing the iPad for the first time. How to charge it, how to store it, and most importantly, what not do.
2. Using the camera.
3. Care and feeding of the iPad.
4. Do things ever go wrong?
5. How to introduce a new app.
Take a closer look at our prototype iPad, on page 4.
- http://t.co/8zyBan5w Jason, While testing Doodlecast in his Kindergarten classroom, Chris Crowell had a good idea to leverage the power… #