This app features 26 letter-themed animated routines. It is especially designed to introduce children to various art techniques. For example, the letter V is made out of popping popcorn, which morphs into a volcano. After they watch the short video, children can trace the letter, uncovering a variety of interesting textures. Developed by 1K Studios in collaboration with designer Ulrike Kerber. 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 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.
Available in Italian and created in Rome, this interactive storybook by illustrator Gioia Marchegiani pulls you inside the world of a little girl who dreams about birds. In some of the screens, you can draw your own bird. It is possible to toggle the background guitar music on/off, as well as the narration. 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 make-your-own dream machine lets you mix and match artistic elements with a left or right swipe. With each motion, the “dream” changes, along with an accompanying three-sentence poem, presented and narrated in French. There is no English option. The app features the art of Stéphane Kiehl. 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 Laurence Anholdt, this app layers two types of interactive activities onto the pages, along with some scaffolding features (narrated text, and touch-and-hear words). There are 30 screens, plus a 360 degree art gallery, where you can explore the ten photos featured in the book. And this, of course, includes those famous 15 sunflowers. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Doink is a vecter-based animation experience for iPad. Originally designed as a Flash-based website, the iPad app makes it easy to create simple cartoons, one frame at a time, by progressively layering (or onion skinning) the next drawing over the last. 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 Xbox 360 version of Instant Artist, the title that comes bundled with the $80 uDraw game tablet package, includes all the drawing basics — pencils, brushes, chalk and charcoals, and an infinite number of colors. You can easily fill or undo with one button, and a redraw feature lets you review your painting, as you drew it. A smart pallet system remembers your most frequently used colors and tools. 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 “talk and draw” experience makes self-narrating and sharing a drawing into a nearly one-step process, providing you have an iPad. In addition, having an active YouTube account is handy for the optional sharing part. This is a very important App; a fact that was recognized by the 2012 KAPi jurors when they called DoodleCast the “best app for younger children.” For young children, this app turns the iPad screen into a creativity space where sounds and drawing can be mashed into the same project seamlessly. 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 give children a highly successful symmetry experience? Paint My Wings starts with a butterfly who says “paint my wings!” Using a palette of colors, you finger paint lines or dots on one of the wings, and can see it mirrored on the other wing, in real time. It is easy to save art as a picture, or clear the screen to start over. Note that there is no “undo” or options like fill, textures or layers. This is a very simple experience. Teaches: art, creativity, symmetry. Toca Boca. http://tocaboca.com/, $0.99. Best for ages 2-6.
Editor’s Choice Award.
Rating: 
or .94%
Finger-based coloring apps for the iPad abound, but this is the first designed to work with a special cigar-sized, AA battery-powered stylus. The stylus is called iMarker (made by Griffin Technologies, at http://bit.ly/fl84LO). First, you download the free app, which lets you try three pages with your finger. To unlock the content, you must buy the iMarker ($30, http://www.griffintechnology.com). So your $30 iMarker stylus is also a key. To unlock the app, you follow a zig-zag pattern on the screen with the stylus. Once unlocked, you see three options from the main menu: Make a Coloring Page, Coloring Pages and Free Draw. The coloring pages consist of animated black-line drawings. As you color, the graphics animate themselves. In an underwater scene for example, the fish might start swimming. You have the option of freezing the action, and toggling on or off background sounds. Content includes five categories, each with six “pages.” You can also make your own by choosing a background and dragging and dropping elements onto it. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
In this set of 20 carnival inspired games, you will leap into the air on a Rocket to Mars, catch coins on a roller coaster, twist your body in Crash Test Dummy, avoid tornadoes by pumping your arms as fast as possible in Hot Air Balloon Race, copy a monkey with the Monkey Barker in Monkey See, Monkey Do, and more. Designed for one or two players. Note that the Kinect sensor is required. 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.
Why watch a cartoon when you can make one? This pirate-themed cartoon storyboarding toolkit exploits the iPad’s microphone, touch screen and web connectivity for the sake of creating and sharing puppet-show like productions. You’re forced to start with a story planner, where you can arrange the general parts of your production. To create your cartoon, you choose a background — a blank screen is an option– or finger-paint your own, using a rudimentary set of creativity tools (too few drawing options, no fill or undo, too many color choices). Next, you drag one or more “toys” onto the screen, from up to 20 possible, or you can draw your own. By choosing “Start Animation” you can move your character around your screen, puppet-show style, as you talk, sing or play into the iPad’s microphone. Next you can select background music, from about 20 classical selections, and watch your scene. If you don’t like it, you simply re-record, and move to the next scene. 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 work with the uDraw GameTablet (required) this is a screen adaptation of the board game where you sketch and guess clues. Content includes 3,000 clues, for up to four players or teams, and games can be saved for long-term play. The clues range in difficulty level. There are three game modes: Pictionary; Pictionary Mania; and Free Draw. 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.
uDraw Studio is the drawing package that comes bundled with THQ’s uDraw GameTablet. You can paint, draw, and color with nine tools. For example, you can draw simple lines with a pen, then add character with the airbrush tool or chalk. Sliders and toggles adjust opacity, size and paint drop-off. The Line Tool lets you draw perfectly straight lines and the Paint Fill tool lets you fill in areas with a color. Content includes 100 stamps, 15 post-processing effects including black & white, sepia, negative, and neon, create endless customization options, and the ability to zoom in up to 400% for the fine details. Created for THQ by Pipeworks Software. 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.
Great news for Macintosh owners. Kid Pix, the popular drawing program used in many classrooms during the 1990s, has been updated for OSX. Like the first version, the program makes it easy to experiment with colors, paints, markers and water colors, along with a full library of animated stickers. It is also easy to narrate your creations, using the built in microphone or import your own images using the computer’s built in camera or photo library. 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 subscription-based curriculum for preschool through kindergarten lets children explore a wide variety of content in a structured way. After you log in, and pay the $8/month subscription, you can create individual accounts for up to three children, who can be at different levels. Each child can then log in, and create their own avatar. From this point, they can explore a classroom, where items lead to stories, structured multiple-choice style drills, nursery rhymes and games. As children play, they collect tickets, which can be used to unlock new clothing or toys for their classroom. Prices are $7.95/month and $79.00/year and each account allows up to three children per household. Call about school pricing. The service was created by Age of Learning, Inc. which is located in Glendale, CA. The creators originally started Neopets.com. 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 game looks and feels a lot like past versions of Mario Party, and there’s a LOT of content, with 80 diverse activities found in 13 party game modes. In Animal Tracker, for example, you place two or four Wii Remote controllers on a table. The game will make a noise, and the first player to grab the remote associated with the noise wins. Hide ‘n’ Hunt has one player asking the other players to leave the room while the Wii Remote controllers are hidden. When the other players return they have only a few seconds to find the hidden controllers. More traditional minigames include Derby Dash (use the Wii Remote as if you were holding a whip to spur your horse to victory); and Chop Chops (use the Wii Remote to see who can cut through vegetables the fastest). 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 versatile Wii Remote can become a graphics tablet when it is snapped inside the uDraw GameTablet from THQ (www.worldofudraw.com). The $70 Wii-only tablet will be released with a series of three drawing-based titles. You can make watercolor sketches, and replay them when using the included title, called uDraw Studio (to which the ratings apply). There’s an infinite number of colors that can be mixed or layered on a range of textured surfaces. You can replay your drawings as a slide show, erase, cut & paste, stamp and change for switching between, say, markers or charcoal. Work can be saved, or exported to your Wii’s SD card in JPG format. Two additional games (E-rated) will be Dood’s Big Adventure and Pictionary ($30). 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This open-ended drawing program gives you the best of both worlds — free one finger scribbling on a blank screen, or coloring on one of 50 traditional-looking coloring book pages. There is a color palette with 20 common colors,12 stickers and eight pen sizes. You can also toggle on/off voice instructions, and it is easy to save work, continue works in progress which are presented in the startup menu, or import pictures from your photo library. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Turn your iPad into an easel with this drawing experience. Content includes just two brush sizes (a bit limited), 60 colored pencils that look realistic on the textured paper, 70 crayon colors and four types of sprinkles. The sticker library includes 140 cars, animals, trains and toys; all of interest to children, fully moveable, and resizable with a pinch or a pull. Other features include one-touch saving to your photo library and the ability to email or tweet your picture in twitpic format, as long as you have existing accounts in place. 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.
If there were such a thing as PhotoShop for your pocket, it might resemble something like the iPad version of Brushes ($10, brushesapp.com). Originally designed for iPhone and iPod Touch, Brushes iPad Edition offers a set of non-watered down menus that let you adjust brush size and texture, down to the pixel. 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 $30 Nintendo DS game creates a nice extension of the traditional printed picture book (same title, published by Scholastic). Both tell the true story of Winter, a young dolphin who was injured in a net and lost her tail while recovering at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. Children unlock parts of the program one chapter at a time, until all 11 chapters are unlocked. Progress is saved automatically in one of three game-save slots. Created by 1st Playable and turtlepond Interactive by Crave Entertainment. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Open-ended drawing activity
Mister Rogers was known to be a bit of a geek, and he would’ve undoubtedly been thrilled to know that he finally has a bit of his neighborhood captured as an app. Despite being limited in content, it’s hard to find too many faults with this first effort.
Designed to be a crutch for helping children describe feelings, this fill-in-the-blank story maker comes with five pre-packaged themes (pretending, playtime, books, at school and when I get mad) plus a well-designed open-ended drawing activity. This later choice makes it easy and fun to finger paint with a selection of markers, watercolors, crayons or stamps; and then save your work to your device’s photo library. So yes, you could theoretically print out your child’s picture and hang it on your refrigerator.
Created by Touch Screen Preschool Games (www.touchscreenpreschoolgames.com, aka Darren Murtha Design) for PBS Kids (pbskids.org/mobile). Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
A screen capture of the main menu taken July 2009
Note: in 2009, Kerpoof was acquired by Disney, and the company was asked to make the creativity portal for Disney.com. See also: Disney Create.
Well-designed, free (with subscription teasers) and powerful, this online creativity kit has grown up since we first reviewed it nearly two years ago, when it was mostly an electronic flannel board. Recently acquired by Disney, the free, Flash-based site offers children five rich creativity activities, making it possible to make sketches, greeting cards, drawings, movies and multi-page stories with tools partially funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. The core of the site remains the electronic flannel board that makes it easy to drag and drop smart stickers onto over 80 backdrops. Each scene contains theme-related items that automatically resize, based on the scene’s perspective. For example, in the firehouse, you can position firefighters and equipment as needed. A firefighter positioned in the back of the picture looks smaller; when moved to the front, it grows. In addition, moving a light source — such as the sun — around the screen changes the lighting accordingly.
At various points in the experience, children are shown interesting items that are off limits unless they subscribe (e.g., “many of the items for sale in the Kerpoof store are for members only”). These premiums include the ability to form groups (e.g., for a teacher’s classroom), buddy painting (a very interesting collaborative drawing tool, for two children), and so on.
It is still easy to save and print work. Costs for membership range from $4.39/month to $44.79/year, although there is enough content (as of March 2009) available for free to make this site well worth the bookmark. Please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This third title in the Didi & Ditto series features the same film-quality animation that has become a trademark of the Canadian developer Kutoka Interactive, mixed with 16 games.
In the story, Didi & Ditto (young brother and sister beavers) are preparing for a visit from Mother Nature, but a sneaky wolf has been hiding the musical instruments and the food. After they sign in (to save games), children can choose to play in the adventure mode, or jump directly to one of the games, where they can sort letters, construct short words or match numerals with quantities.
The hybrid game comes on one disk that can be installed on either Macintosh or Windows computers. Please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.