Turn your iPad into a vet’s office, with this collection of 24 short activities. The idea is to take care of six animals (two dogs, two cats, a parrot, and a cockatoo) by dragging and dropping bones back into place, clipping nails, combing hair, or catching fast-moving fleas. 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.
The app starts with 10 clearly marked icons, each leading to a set of five or so games. Each has a nature or animal theme. Activities include puzzles, matching, coloring, concentration, hide-and-seek, dot-to-dot, and spot the differences. It is easy to get out of any activity instantly, and there’s plenty to discover. Features include the ability to adjust the sounds. 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 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.
Each of the 12 pages in this app document Grover’s creative attempts to keep Elmo (and your child) from turning the page and getting to the end. He tries glue (you can rub it off), locks (you match colors to solve the combination) and so on. See also The Monster at the End of This Book. Created by Callaway Digital Arts for Sesame Workshop. 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 part of a series of apps that feature a new Mom-Comm tracking mechanism, that lets you look over the should on what your child does using Facebook or email. Play Maker was created for Fingerprint by Krome studios. After you design a character by mixing and matching heads, bodies and legs, you can record a happy sound and sad sound. Next, you see your character filling the screen with letters attached to them. You are asked to match all the characters holding a number 9 card, and are told not to touch a robot with the wrong number or you’ll loose. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This is one of the four new free FingerPrint apps created by former Leapfrog executive Nancy MacIntyre. See also Big Kid Life: Firefighter. In this title, children are introduced to a story, step by step, and then are asked to remember the main events. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Puzzingo was inspired by classic wooden puzzles for kids. As children play with the puzzles, they learn what the different pieces are, as well as the different sounds they make. After they complete a puzzle, they are rewarded with minigames – including singing the ABC song, popping balloons, swatting flies, and more. In addition, once a puzzle is completed, children will unlock new puzzles to play. All the puzzles come together to build a circus ground. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Eight timed games give young children a chance to play with firehouse themes. Games include Firetruck Traffic (help the firefighters get to the fire while avoiding other cars by tapping on the screen); In The Trees (tilt the screen to guide a firefighter into the trees to rescue pets); Put Out the Fire (spray water on burning windows); Safety Net (guide a net to catch jumping animals); Find & Rescue (a hard to control maze game); Helicopter Drop (a confusing game where you drop water out of a fire helicopter onto flames) and Firefighter Gear (a confusing matching game). Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
This app is a collection of 18 puzzles. The quick-moving format resembles Nintendo’s WarioWare, only with a multi-touch screen, and a health-related theme. You’ll move a collection of food through a maze of intestines, drag and drop bones into place, flick splinters out of a hand, or drag and drop a set of gears, based on shape and size, to get the brain working. 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 collection of 17 puzzles of six varieties. The most noteworthy and familiar are the I SPY-like, hidden object games, which have you searching the screen until your eyes ache. In the story mode, adapted from the modern Nancy Drew books, Nancy tries to help a wedding take place by finding all the items needed for the ceremony. You interrogate 15 suspects — reading required — and complete the games in order to solve the crime. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Well designed but very challenging, this picture searching program follows a tried-and-true formula that translates well to the iPad’s clear touch screen. While it isn’t designed specifically for children, it’s the kind of app that a child (or adult) can do. It is also fun to do as a huddle game, with many people helping to spot the hidden item. You start by logging into one of four game-save slots, which saves progress automatically. The goal is to search through ten scenes that consist of hundreds of tiny, clear items, shown against a single color background and arranged into an outline that you instantly recognize (e.g., a dog, shoe or pair of scissors). 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.
Featuring characters from the Jim Henson Company TV show, The Dinosaur Train, children start by finding hidden dinosaur eggs in a scene in this app. Next comes a multiple-choice style matching game where you put eggs into the correct nest, based on color and pattern. There is also a baby/mother matching game that includes dino-terms (a matching game with two choices), and a coloring activity where you fill in a scene. There are versions for both the iPhone and iPad. Other PBS Kids apps include Super Why! and Martha Speaks Dog Party. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Help Dora get ready for the Favorite Foods Festival by chopping, stirring, and mixing different food ingredients, using the touch screen on the Nintendo DS. There are recipes for enchiladas, pizza, salad and so on, as well as 30 minigames designed to reinforce early math concepts such as counting, matching and measuring. 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.
Drill and practice gets a new face, voice and brain, with this updated edition of one of the first robotic learning toys. Powered by three AA batteries (included) the 9 inch tall robot is controlled by inserting one of 30 two sided cards into his belly, covering every letter of the alphabet and numeral up to nine. The cards are color coded on the bottom so Alphie can keep things straight using an optical reader. There are eight possible button combinations so children can make matches (e.g., 2D shapes with 3D shapes; sets with numerals, and so on). The LED screen and light-up mouth gives Alphie a wide range of expressions. 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 racing game consists of an eight inch tall talking dog, with 12 bones that fit in a container in his back. The idea is to follow directions, and try to be the first to slip the bone into the dog’s mouth. After setting up the game by randomly placing the twelve bones around the floor, you press Red Rover’s nose and he calls out which bones he wants. You must run to find the right bone and feed it Rover. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
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.
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.
In this matching game with an Egyptian theme, your goal is to match items in grids that vary in difficulty in order to earn money used to rebuild parts of the ancient kingdom, and unlock harder puzzles. Content includes 100 levels, 20 buildings, and new bonus tools, along with four language options. Subscribers, please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Designed specifically for Dora-loving preschoolers, this one player Nintendo DS title uses the DS microphone, 
enabling a child to offer commands or praise to Perrito, Dora’s puppy. After you choose one of the three game save slots, you can start playing with your puppy by clicking on the map icon. There’s a bathroom where you can feed and bathe him, or a dressing room where you can dress him up with hats and shirts. If you go outside, you can lead him through obstacle courses by tracing a path with the stylus. To feed Perrito, you scribble on a bag of dog food. Completing a game earns dog biscuits, which can be used to buy new items that unlock more games. Your ultimate goal is to win the Big Puppy Competition. Please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.
Designed to look like a pot of soup, this battery-operated phonics toy comes with an attached talking spoon that prompts children to find the letters needed to spell specific three-letter words. While he talks, background music plays in repeating loops. There are five activities including letter sounds (tells the sound a letter makes), finding fun (asks for the letter that makes a sound), counting colors (asks for you to press a certain color block), letter order (tells you what what letter comes after) and spelling time (asks you to spell a word). Includes 4 AA batteries for demo purpose only and an automatic shut-off. Please log into our database using your password to read the full review along with our rating.