Endless Alphabet

This app drives me crazy. It has recently become my two-year-old's go-to app; it wins awards left and right; and friends recommend it to me all the time. And yet, from a literacy point of view, it's pretty terrible. There is so much to like about it, that I feel bad criticizing the flaws in the literacy learning. When I talk to other friends with two-year-olds who adore Endless Alphabet as much as my daughter does, it feels like splitting hairs to point out that in many instances the letters make sounds they don't actually make in the context of that word. Or that "gargantuan" is a ridiculous vocabulary word for our toddlers to be practicing. Because what does it matter, really, when we've found an app that holds the two-year-olds' attention spans for longer than five minutes at a stretch? And one that encourages the kids to practice letter names and learn new words at the same time? It's gold... right?

Endless Alphabet opens with a parade of adorable monsters playing musical instruments. You then choose from a variety of continuously-updated words and a monster scatters the letters from the word. Your job is to put the letters back into their proper place. As you drag each letter into place, the letter says its most common sound (although NOT necessarily the sound it makes within the word; for example, the letter e always says "eh," even though in reality it is silent in many of the words, such as "dye"). Once clicked into place, the letter says its name. Every time Autumn plays with this app she editorializes as well: /a/, /a/, /a/, A "... for Autumn!"  buh, buh, buh, B ".... for Brooklyn, and there are two of them!" " V ... Vivian starts with V. My friend, Vivian! She starts with V!"  

Please note that in the letter A example above, the word could have been "musician." Yes, Autumn has learned that the letter A is for Autumn. And the reading teacher in me cringes when she says, aa, aa, Autumn. But that part is not the app developers' fault; after all, they don't know my daughter's name. They do, however, know their own words. And the sound /a/ (as in "apple") is very hard to hear in the word "musician." If they had consulted a literacy expert in the development of this app, they would have been told that the letters should make the sounds that they make within the actual word. 

Another problem is the pronunciation of some of the sounds themselves. The first, most essential, rule in making a phonics app is to make sure that there is no distortion in the pronunciation of the stop sounds (letters like B and D, which have sounds you can only say quickly and then you have to stop. As opposed to M and N, which are continuants: you can say their sounds as long as you have the breath to hold it.) In Endless Alphabet, monster voices make all of the sounds. Which is cute, but the letter sounds come out in deep, guttural voices, sounding like "BUH, BUH, BUH." Worse, if you hold your finger down on the letter B, the "uh" sound gets stretched out even further, so that it sounds like "buuuuuuh." This is nothing like what the letter sounds like within the word: NIBUUUUUUHLE? 

After the word is built, the monsters return and act out the meaning of the word. Some of the words strike me as more interesting / appropriate than others for the youngest learners, in terms of the vocabulary learning that toddlers should be doing, but Autumn's decision-making process is always inscrutable.

The companion app to Endless Alphabet is Endless Reader. That one looks and feels almost exactly the same as Endless ABC (and is made by the same folks), but the words are smaller. Some recent words I saw include "ball," "cake" and "eat," and they get used in a sentence during the definition portion. Originator calls these words "sight words," even though they are phonetically regular, and clearly thinks that they are teaching kids to read with this app. Of course, this app has all the same problems outlined above (the A in "eat" does not make an /a/ sound!) They have recently started charging for many of the words in the app, and I say good riddance to those words. My kids know they are not allowed to touch anything with a lock on it. These apps have so much potential. It is a pity that they did not consult with a literacy expert.

It is probably worth noting here that I am the only person on the Internet critizing these apps. Do a quick Google search of the reviews of Endless Alphabet and you will see only raves... "Wit and whimsy," "charming," and "surprisingly sophisticated" are just some of the words that pop up. And everyone's kids are apparently addicted. Resistance is futile. Those darn monsters are just too cute.

Sky Fish Phonics

Sky Fish Phonics is the first phonics app both my kindergartner and I love. It feels like a fast-paced video game with sharks to dodge and CVC words to decode. First you choose a fish to represent yourself, then you begin a journey through the sky,  shooting from pod to pod avoiding the poisonous sharks. As you go you have the opportunity to collect new costumes and to rack up points by collecting stars. Every so often you also have to answer a multiple choice phonics question to advance to the next pod. For example, change "jet" into "net." JET -> _ET with the choice of three  letters you can click on to hear their sounds.

Costumes include shark, princess, cowboy, ninja, and more.

The game is smart, in that it adjusts to the student's level of play.  The level of the phonics questions adjusts depending on how many you get correct at each level; and there is a Progress Dashboard for monitoring how a child is doing. While Brooklyn's phonic skills are quite good, her executive functioning skills (impulse control, attention and planning) are not as good. When she gets frustrated with this game, it is usually because her fish gets fried in a trap. But the rewards are worth it.

An early level

A middle level

She reports that "It's fun because you might get shot, and then you have to start over. But you might get costumes, and sometimes it's the costumes you already have, but sometimes it's your favorite costume." When asked about the reading part of the game, she answered that she "just knows how to do that," because "she's in kindergarten."

We love almost everything about this game. I think the practice with executive functions and dealing with frustrations is just as valuable for Brooklyn as the phonics work. I hope in the future that the app developer releases more advanced levels with blends and digraphs to decode and substitute.

Sago Mini Bug Builder

I thought I was downloading this app for my little one, but as it turns out, both girls absolutely love the Sago Mini Bug Builder. Part of its appeal is its simplicity. Open the app and a cute pink bug lays a multi-colored egg that hatches with the tap of a finger. A geometric shape appears (Autumn says in delight, every time, “What is THAT?!”) that you decorate with the swipe of a finger to a color palette.  Stripes, polka dots, swirls… anything goes. Click the checkmark when you’ve finished your masterpiece, and watch your bug come to life.

Choose a hat to add to your bug, feed it some snacks, wipe the crumbs off its face, then snap a picture of your creation before she lays another egg to start the process all over again.

So what is it that my kids love so much about this app? Well, they both love to color, and this app certainly fulfills their creative yearning. They’re delighted with the way every bug comes out. And they’re just as delighted to begin a new one.

As for me, it would be hard not to be charmed by the bugs’ silly smiles and rainbow hues. I’ve also heard myself introducing some novel vocabulary words as the girls have asked my opinion on which hat to put on their bug (“The fez, definitely!”) or if I think the stripes look better this way or that way (“Why not draw some horizontal stripes and some vertical ones?”) So the Bug Builder may not be the most educational app around, but it’s far from the worst. I’m not sure how much longer this app will be free, but for now it feels like a great deal.

Dr. Panda

Are the Dr. Panda games new, or am I just late to the party? It seems that every time I turn around, one has gone free. And there was a time not so long ago when my youngest was obsessed with watching the San Diego zoo’s live panda cam (http://www.sandiegozoo.org/pandacam/), so I still get excited for her whenever I see anything panda-related. At this point, we’ve got Dr. Panda’s Handyman, Dr. Panda’s Beauty Salon, Dr. Panda’s Restaurant, and Dr. Panda’s Hospital.

Of course, it turns out the panda in these apps is purely gratuitous. He pops up to congratulate you for a successful repair in Dr. Panda’s Handyman, or to greet customers in the beauty salon. But there is no real need for a panda, per se, in any of these games. But that’s okay—all of the characters are adorable in a big-eyed simply-drawn sort of way, and my girls love them.

All of the Dr. Panda apps are role-playing games in which you pretend to be a handyman, beautician, chef, or doctor. The handyman app is particularly charming: in the giraffe family home, you get to use a jackhammer to break up the remaining tile in a broken floor, then spread glue, re-tile, and clean up the mess with a vacuum cleaner. The polar bear family has a leaky shower—lower in a new tub, with the use of a pulley system, then fix the broken pipes in the wall by fitting the pieces into the puzzle. My favorite might be the fish tank that needs assembling, populating, feeding, and then cleaning.

I like the problem-solving nature of Handyman. And there is an element of creativity behind every Dr. Panda app—you get to make lots of choices in how you handle situations, what color you paint the door, or which wig you put on the pig, etc. Plus there are lots of nice little extras. In between scenes in Handyman, you can visit the attic, where a friendly ghost and bat live, and play a quick little sorting game to separate the screws, nuts, and bolts on an assembly line. Sorting properly earns you stickers toward a scene full of power tools. In sum, the apps are fun and don't seem to be a total waste of time... especially considering the price I paid.

Princess Fairy Tale Maker

Duck Duck Moose may well be our second-favorite app creator (after Toca Boca!). For a long time, Autumn’s favorite app was Duck Duck Moose's Itsy Bitsy Spider. Just lately though, Brooklyn has taken to fiddling with the Duck Duck Moose Princess Fairy Tale Maker. Whenever I hear classical music blasting from the backseat of the van, I know she's creating a new scene. In fact, she told me that the classical music score that accompanies the app is one of her favorite things about it; she finds the music soothing.

There are three options on opening the Princess Fairy Tale Maker: “fairy tales,” “coloring,” or “my drawings.” This is a bit misleading, as the first two are options for you to create--in Fairy Tales, you use stickers or a paint tool to draw on a scene, then have the option to record a voiceover narration. Coloring is a similar scene on which you can use your finger to fill in color, sparkles, or patterns. Any of the resulting scenes or coloring pages end up saved in My Drawings and can then be rearranged in any order to result in a story.

As always, when I purchased the app, I envisioned Brooklyn creating whole stories with it. I thought she would meticulously create each scene to build upon one another and then narrate a brilliantly-held together tale to go with it. And maybe she would if I worked on the bestselling hypothetical stories with her. But we don’t have the time. So I’ve had to adjust my expectations some. Instead of stories she creates individual scenes. Each one is new and creative. Sometimes she tells me stories to go along with the scenes; she has yet to figure out how to record these stories, but that’s okay, since they rarely make a whole lot of sense. A built-in writing prompt or two from Duck Duck Moose might have helped point her in the right direction. But hey--at least she enjoys the soothing music. 

Leo's Pad: Preschool Kids Learning Series

I downloaded the Leo’s Pad app, and the four free “appisodes” that go with it so far, on the advice of SmartAppsforKids.com (an awesome resource, which I subscribe to in my Facebook feed) and then forgot all about it until Brooklyn started talking about the characters as though they were real people. The first time she mentioned  Cinder, I assumed she meant Cinderella. But this Cinder goes with Leo, not Prince Charming. And there’s a Marie, who Brooklyn likes because she goes out of her way to include her friends in things, as well as someone named Gally. It wasn’t until I went to the website to research this post that I realized the characters she was talking about are young Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie, and Galileo Galilei.  (Cinder is Leo’s pet dragon.) Figuring that out drove me to the iPad to watch some Leo’s Pad for myself.

Leo’s Pad is a series of animated stories with embedded games that adapt to just the right level of difficulty as you go along. The appisode that I watched/interacted with began with Cinder darting away and hiding from Leo. I was asked to check and see if he was behind the circle, or the door with the number 5 on it, or the blue curtain… clearly a test of my understanding of shapes, numbers, and colors. After that Leo explained that it was Gally’s birthday and so we should make him a present; first I got to draw him a card with stickers and a paint application, then fit the parts of a telescope together like a puzzle while Leo named the parts, using the scientific vocabulary words for them. And the last thing I did before I got interrupted and had to put the iPad down was to choose the right amount of stones to launch Leo into the air with a catapult so that he could fly with mechanical wings next to Cinder off to Gally’s birthday party.

The combination of art, science, and historical content crammed into one short appisode was dizzying (nevermind the review of the preschool content!) My five-year-old has no idea who these people are, and doesn’t particularly care. But basic machines and the relationship between the friends are themes she relates to. And the interaction with the characters in her stories is very cool. This next generation “appisode” that learns about its viewer and adapts as it goes along strikes me as the very thing the iPad was made for. People talk about the big break through that Blues Clues and Dora the Explorer were for preschool television because they talked directly to the kids and waited for an answer. Well, now the kids can talk back, and the characters are actually listening. How cool is that…?!

But wait there’s more… The app also features a Parent’s Pad, on which you can track your child’s progress with different skills. It’s a built-in assessment tool that tells you if a child (or different children) improved or declined with things like color identification. Or letter tracing. And it will tell you which games the children played and appisodes they watched. You can set up separate accounts for a number of different children.

I doubt this app (or at least the individual appisodes) will be free much longer. This must be some type of testing phase. Either that or it’s all a massive hook to make sure we can’t live without Leo and friends. Brooklyn might be there already. I asked her what she liked about Leo’s Pad and she said she likes how Leo does some stuff and then she gets to do some stuff… And she also really likes Cinder, the dragon. We have had the app a few weeks now and there has not been a new appisode in that time; I really hope Kidaptive is planning updates regularly.

Storybook Maker

Storybook Maker is basically a desktop publishing app for children (or should I just call it a publishing app? There is no desktop computer involved—everything is created right on the iPad… is there a name for this type of program yet?). At any rate, you create books with as many or as few pages as you like and the result is a multi-media book to read on the iPad or to save/email/print as a pdf.

Here is a short demonstration that explains better than I ever could: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms3lKtdIJxA

Mastering this app took a little more effort on my behalf. I tried just installing it on our iPad and waiting to see if my 5-year-old would figure it out for us, but she ignored it. In the past, Brooklyn and I have had moments of collaborative brilliance making up bedtime stories together ("Princess Stinkyfeet"), so I had a vision of us collaborating on a multimedia project in which she dictated while I typed, she illustrated and I helped arrange, etc. But first I had to figure out how to use the app. And, in the end, it really was very intuitive, but there are just so darn many options to wade through first!

When I finally did sit down with the iPad, it was following a long weekend in NH with the grandparents. I used the app to create a souvenir photo book in which I included photos and stories about the places we went and the things we saw. The app really was ridiculously easy to use, but I didn’t actually use many of the options available to me: I didn’t change the font size or color, I didn’t use the stickers or physics objects, and I didn’t draw free hand.

Here is a page from my initial attempt at using the app:

When I showed Brooklyn what I had done, she was as excited as I was by the app. One thing that was interesting though, was that she immediately wanted to do everything I hadn’t even thought to do the first time around. She took the iPad from me and made her own book with free-form drawings and stickers that same day. After that, we explored a bit more together and we were both excited to find the backgrounds and borders to jazz up our creations. Later, I realized I could have included even more cool extras in my NH scrapbook, like sound effects, including the boom of fireworks to go along with my Fourth of July photos.

Here is a page from one of Brooklyn’s independent creations:

If this sounds like a lot of work, I suppose it is, but it’s also fun. And it’s certainly a powerful literacy tool as well. Over the past few days Brooklyn and I have finally begun to commit our Princess Stinkyfeet ideas to the screen. We’ve been working slowly, in the quiet moments when her sister is napping. Brooklyn talks, and I edit as I type. I knew that she was creative, but one unexpected delight is how much care Brooklyn is also putting into the language. Our basic plot is that Princess Stinkyfeet has horrifically smelly feet and so she tries many things to solve the problem, but the smell keeps coming back. Today, after a page about the princess going on vacation and the townspeople being able to breathe easier while she was away, Brooklyn instructed me to include the sentence, “Wherever she goes, the stink goes.” I was impressed with the turn of phrase, and told her so. That is the type of thoughtful interaction that the iPad can be a powerful tool in facilitating, if you are willing to put in the time and energy. Happily, that’s all it takes though—it’s not expensive at $3.99. And there are no in-app purchases. 

 This is an app I can enthusiastically recommend to everyone, but I envision it being used most in upper elementary classrooms. So teacher-friends, take note!

The Monsters Inc. Storybook Deluxe

My preschooler was home sick today, so I decided to finally bite the bullet and buy the Monsters, Inc.Storybook Deluxe by Disney. And I have to grudgingly admit that it's not a terrible ebook. Understand that this is faint praise. I bought the app because the poor girl was on the couch, moaning and groaning, and I expected this to be a half-hour distraction (and that it happily was!) But I've written elsewhere about how dubious I was that an app with this iTunes description could actually be much of a literacy experience:

Description

***Unlock content for the Monsters University Storybook Deluxe app!
***Relive the incredible story of the highly acclaimed film classic Disney•Pixar Monsters, Inc.
***Find hidden Scare cards throughout the story!
***Fun Game: Navigate your way through a Monsters, Incorporated scare simulator training room to collect scream energy!
***Surprisingly fun personalized features, based on your own screaming and roaring abilities!

FEATURES:
•Retelling of the film Disney•Pixar Monsters, Inc. with read-along text and full narration!
•Hear quotes from the actual film as you tap on your favorite characters!
•Look for clues to find and collect Scare cards that include pictures of your favorite monster Scarers, along with their scaring stats!
•Includes short animated clips from the original film!

I'm no Luddite (could a Luddite keep this blog?), but my head implodes at the thought of a future in which children chose which "book" to read based on the movie clips included and/or how loudly they're encouraged to scream at the screen. That said, Brooklyn cared about none of this. She can't yet read, so she wasn’t seduced by the marketing materials on iTunes. She was interested in purchasing the app because she likes the movie—we both do. The writing in the original movie is clever, and the characters are really fun. I only hoped that some of their personality would come through in this “storybook deluxe.”

The first thing that happens when you open the app is an introduction that explains Monstropolis is a city powered by human screams; “monsters everywhere depend on you!” You’re encouraged to scream in order to unlock the fun and games. At this, Brooklyn screamed half-heartedly (but let’s allow that this might be more fun for a kid without a fever; I kind of wanted to scream myself). Once unlocked, the choices are to READ or PLAY. The READ option is the ebook. And this is where Brooklyn spent quite a while listening to the story attentively, with the text-highlighting on. Once the story had finished, she went back to the home screen and tried the PLAY option, which was a game in which you tilt the iPad back and forth to maneuver Sully through a child’s bedroom without touching any of the child’s things (because, you know, contamination) and then roar as loudly as possible at the child simulator. This only proved mildly fun, mostly because the technology doesn’t quite work as well as we wanted it too; neither one of us was able to avoid the obstacles with much finesse. Later in the evening, when my two-year-old got home, Brooklyn was eager to share the app with her sister, but it was the storybook, not the games, she wanted to show her.

So I said up top that this isn’t a terrible ebook. But that doesn’t mean that it’s quality children’s literature either. What’s the difference, you ask? Well, it’s not always easy to identify either one. But here is what I look for in a quality print book… strong writing, interesting language, subject matter that draws the child in, and developmentally appropriate themes.  Strong writing means the traits that we teach: things like an identifiable voice (think Olivia), sentence fluency so that it trips off the tongue when you read it out loud (Dr. Seuss), and well-developed ideas (the Harry Potter series). Interesting language means using just the right word at just the right time. The best children’s books introduce interesting words effortlessly, so that the children are not endlessly asking, “What does that mean, again?” It doesn’t mean always using a fancy synonym… But what would Where the Wild Things Are be without the “wild rumpus”? And, of course, even if the writing and language is strong, the book has to speak the children: it has to be about something they care about.

In this case, the monsters (as they were created for the screen) are funny and loveable characters who are engaged in an elemental fear of all children: scaring them in the dark. What could be better? Lots, it turns out. This ebook is a straight synopsis of the movie. The writers try to encapsulate everything from the 95 min movie into a 35-page book. It barely makes sense even if you've seen the movie; it is nowhere near as funny or as clever as the movie. Worst of all, the characters have none of the personality, and Brooklyn could barely keep the plot straight (on one of the first pages the Child Detection Agency is introduced and the acronym CDA first used; later they are referred to only as the CDA and Brooklyn asked me “What’s that mean, again?”) In general, a good rule of thumb when looking for quality children’s literature is to stay away from movie tie-ins. There are exceptions, of course… Shrek, for example, began as an excellent book, before it was an excellent movie. But this is a disappointment in terms of literature. In terms of entertainment, well, Brooklyn looked happy enough.

Part of what might have entertained her are the positive digital features to this ebook. In my opinion, what Disney did really well in developing this interactive storybook is in the development of the ebook itself. The term “ebook” can really mean anything these days, from a PDF of the printed book, to essentially a cartoon. Minimally, I think an interactive storybook that I download from iTunes has to have illustrations on a screen with an oral reading of the text and some hotspots to click on here and there. Animations, zooming in and out, musical scores, sound effects, text highlighting, built-in dictionaries, hotspots where the reader clicks to interact with a character or object, foreign language translations, voice recognition, tilting and shaking of the physical machine, built-in games and the option to record my own voice can all be nice additions. Or they can be distractions, depending on the design of the app and the reader.  Good ebooks need to manage all of these digital features in a fashion that is workable for developing readers. That is, the kids need to be able to focus on the text, first and foremost. And the digital features need to support the story.

The Monsters Inc. Storybook Deluxe actually does this really well. The text is off-set from the illustrations and highlighted word-by-word as it is read, so that the child is looking solely at the text for as long as it is read, and then can swipe to see the full illustration. Once the text has been read, flashing symbols indicate where the hotspots are that uncover new parts of the illustration, supporting the child’s comprehension. Although Brooklyn enjoyed the professional narration, including some of the actors from the movie, another nice extra that is available is that there is an option to record your own voice reading the text. Older children might benefit from the fluency practice of recording themselves and listening to their own playback. With such a long storybook, I also personally enjoyed the dropdown menu at the top that allowed us to choose any page to jump to at any time. And best of all was the separation of the READ and PLAY features. There was no need to scream or roar at anyone while reading the ebook.

While I wish the book itself was better (and at $6.99 I can’t really recommend the app to anyone), I can say that Disney has some pretty smart app designers on board. I just hope they come up with some more interesting projects in the future.

PBS Kids Video

Both of my kids love the PBS Kids Video app because it turns the iPad into a television.  More and more lately, I find myself answering the question of, “Can I use the iPad?” with “Yes, so long as you’re not going to watch TV.” And that is mostly because of this app.

My kids’ behavior with this app takes the term “digital natives” to a whole new level… the two-year-old now liberates my phone from my pocket, slides to unlock it, identifies the PBS Kids app, and is watching TV before I even know she’s got the phone. My five-year-old pointed out features I had no idea were there. For example, she showed me how swiping to the right while in a show reveals a table of contents with thumbnails, titles and running times for all of the clips available for that show.

Of course, there is an upside to watching television this way—there are no commercials (no whining that she wants me to buy her Stompeez or sugar cereals) and the only programming available is the good stuff from PBS. Okay, I could do without Arthur, and Caillou might be the whiniest kid on the planet, but at least it’s not My Little Pony.

In general, the app works really well.  Even though the clips are short (most are around 2 minutes), there are lots available—I counted over a hundred of one of my daughters' favorite shows, Wild Kratts. The saving grace to this app is that it needs an internet connection to operate. And our iPads are wifi only. Right now, I’m relieved not to have to fight about it in the car… Though I might feel differently this summer, if I try to take them on a long car ride somewhere. And there’s always my phone to fight about. Oh, and did I mention that the app is free?

Super Why!

 

           

           My two-year-old has recently started singing the alphabet song. She sings, “A, B, C, W, X, Y, Z, NOW I KNOW MY ABCs! NEXT TIME WON’T YOU SING WITH ME…!!” Whoops. Beginning reading—specifically phonics—is my professional specialty, so I may take these things a little too personally…  That said, I was amenable, but not expecting much, when she wanted to play her older sister’s Super Why! game on the iPad.

            Super Why! is a PBS Kids show, but we don’t watch it at home; I’ve seen it a few times, and vaguely think of it as the show where those cartoon kids jump into a book. But Autumn clearly knew the show: she recognized the icon and chose the app herself. They must watch it at her babysitter’s house.

            At any rate, she opened the app and chose to play Princess Presto’s Wands Up Writing game. When the game opens, you see a four-letter array and three lines for letters. Princess Presto explains that you need to listen as she says the letter sounds so that you can choose the correct letter to spell the word. For Autumn, the first sound was /m/. Then you are supposed to choose the M from the array. So Princess Presto asked, “What letter makes the sound /m/?”, and Autumn turns around to me and asks, "Mom, which one is the M?" At that point, I stopped what I was doing and started paying more attention. Since when does my toddler know her letter sounds?! But she does—she got the next few right as well. I don’t know if this phonological knowledge is a product of watching Super Why! with the babysitter or what, but we’ve been playing with the Super Why! app all week now.

            In addition to Princess Presto’s Wands Up Writing game (which is called that because you are asked to trace the letter with your finger after identifying it by sound), there are three other interactive games in the app. You can practice rhyming with Wonder Red; go on a letter hunt with Alpha Pig; or finish sentences to save stories with Super Why. Each one is visually appealing to match the PBS show. More importantly, the designers got the educational aspects just right: the sounds are crisp and clear, everything is spelled correctly, and the games move at a pace controlled by the app user. Believe it or not, this is not the standard in every app. I have reviewed many a free phonics app available for the iPad, and it is often the case that there are small errors in the apps: In the really pretty and innovative Endless Alphabet app by Callaway Digital Arts, for example, the vowels make their short sound as you drag them into the word, but that is often not the sound they make within the word being spelled (the o’s in “kazoo” sound nothing like the short o sound). And Super Why! does more than just practice phonics: in other games, children practice reading words, comprehending stories, and recognizing letters, among other beginning literacy skills.

             In sum, if you are looking for a solid app for practicing beginning reading in a game-like atmosphere, this is $2.99 well spent. Both of my kids like it, and I like what they are learning from it.

The Land of Me—Storytime

 
 

The Land of Me—Story Time is neither an ebook nor a game. It’s an interactive storytelling app. When the app launches, you are immediately transported into the cave of an ancient tortoise storyteller named Granny Olive. There are no menus or setting to navigate. Just Granny asking who you would like the hero of the story to be. You tap on one of the three characters listening to make them volunteer. Next you are asked what you would like the story to be about. Again, you chose between three icons. Finally, you decide if you want the story to be happy, sad, or funny, by choosing an appropriate mask. Granny Olive then tells a 60-second story with the elements you chose, accompanied by animations that appear as chalk drawings on the cave wall. 

A small return arrow takes you back to Granny’s cave once her story has played out, where the process begins all over as she asks, “Right my dear, who’s our hero this time?” Although this can get repetitive for adults, there are, in fact, 27 different story combinations possible. And I love the way the interaction with the characters teaches about story elements. My five-year-old can—and does—experiment by changing the outcome of the story while holding the other elements constant, or chooses a new character just to see if they each behave exactly the same way in the same situations.

          The magic in this app is in its lushness. The app fills the full screen at all times, with no menus or buttons.  The text is incorporated into the setting. Sound effects like water dripping in the back of the cave add to the atmosphere. Best of all, as short as the stories are, they are complete stories, with a conflict, climax and resolution. And the funny stories are funny; the sad stories are sad; the happy stories happy.

          Land of Me makes two other apps: The Land of Me—Making Things, and The Land of Me—Songs and Rhymes. All three apps feature the same characters and the same sort of interactivity.  Choose a song, style, and tempo for your band (Songs and Rhymes) or a machine and materials for your machine’s body and base (Making Things) for lessons in music and physics. Despite the similar appearance and characters though, neither Making Things nor Songs and Rhymes has the same appeal as Story Time.

Toca Boca

          By far the most popular app designer in our house is the Swedish company Toca Boca.  The girls love the stylish and silly characters in all of the games. They also enjoy how simple all of the games are—there are no menus or rules or settings to fix. Kids of all ages can just open the app and play. Somehow we have acquired the following 8-10 different Toca Boca apps over the years on our various iOS devices (Toca Boca is generous about periodically releasing a specific app for free, or gifting a holiday version of an app—over time, they collect on the machine): 

Toca Tailor and Toca Tailor Fairy Tales

Toca Band

Toca Hair Salon and Toca Hair Salon Christmas Gift

Toca Tea Party

Toca Monsters

Toca Doctor

Toca Store

Toca House

           I am honestly such a fan of all of these games that I am having a hard time deciding which to write about, but in the interest of being specific, I will just choose two to describe. 

Toca Tailor

           Toca Tailor is the sort of thing the iPad was made for. It is a design tool I can imagine being useful in real life, as well as to a 5-year-old’s imagination. Open the app, choose a model to dress, then change everything about the outfits with a swipe of the finger. Shorten and lengthen hems and sleeves, choose styles and patterns… you can even use the iPad camera to add to the selection of patterns. For example, check out this sweet dress I made with a photo of my cat:

              Unlike other dress-up apps, there are no short skirts or exposed belly buttons in Toca Tailor. The focus is squarely on the clothes—the patterns, textures, and outfits—rather than the sex appeal. And because of that, the app feels like it is appropriate for boys and girls of all ages. In fact, although other reviewers have said this is an app for little girls, I know more than one dad who has spent more than his fair share of time playing Toca Tailor.
 

Toca Tea Party

            Yes, she could just have a tea party on the floor with her stuffed animals. And she does do that. But one tea party does not preclude the other. This app can be used in conjunction with the blanket and the stuffed animals. It just adds a bit of color and flair. It also had the advantage of being portable: tea parties are now something that happen on long car rides or in doctor’s waiting rooms as well as on my living room floor. 
            Set the scene by choosing the tableware and refreshments, lighting the candles, and tuning the radio. Then eat and drink from all three settings until someone spills and needs a clean up. Practice saying things like, “Excuse me!” and “Please pass the delicious carrot cake,” and “Could you turn the radio down, please? I can’t hear what Pooh Bear is saying.” Surprisingly, it isn’t my youngest who likes this app the most. As simple as it is, my five-year-old is charmed by it. 

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Most of the Toca Boca apps call for creativity. In Toca Hair Salon she can cut, style, color, and grow people and monsters’ hair. Toca Band allows her to combine cartoon characters who are playing different parts in a band: percussion, vocals, or bass, to name a few. The result is surprisingly catchy and not at all irritating. When she rearranges the characters, the music changes to reflect the emphasis she chose.

Another bonus to the Toca Boca apps are the social skills learned. As mentioned previously, there is no way to play Toca Tea Party without practicing social niceties like “Please,” and “Thank you,” and, “Could I try some more?” (In fact, this app is often mentioned as a favorite amongst parents of children with autism, due to the fact that many children with autism love electronics and also need encouragement to communicate verbally.) When my 5-year-old plays Toca Store she flips through the catalogs looking for things to “buy” for each of her friends and family members: “Ooooh, Mommy loves carrots. And Daddy just said he needs new shirts! Zoe’s always wanted a cat…” Then she practices her math and counting skills by paying for each item individually.

The Toca Boca website lists six philosophies that guide the development of their products. Number 6 is “You will like our products, but your kids will love them.” They may have missed the mark with that one—I love these apps at least as much as my kids do!