Category: Ipad Apps

Music to our ears! Kids’ Ipad App Reviews

My hubby and I are pretty much tone deaf. The only exposure our daughter really gets to music is the radio playing in the background or in the car. We have abandoned music classes because, if this is hereditary, it’s probably better to spend our money elsewhere. However, I was recently sent the following two music apps which we really like and hopefully will foster an appreciation of Music.

Tap-A-Tune (free)by the folks at Mindshapes, this app reminds me of whack-a-mole. You have the option of either a keyboard or mole holes, where a selection of hilarious characters pop up and by clicking on them in order you end up playing a nursery rhyme. You can choose from a selection of Nursery Rhymes and instruments. There is also an option that allows children to create their own music and another for babies; no matter what they click it will play a nursery rhyme.

 

Meet the Orchestra (£1.49) this is an excellent app that introduces children to the different sections of the Orchestra (Brass, Woodwind, Percussion, Strings, Piano). Children can tap on each of the instruments to listen to the sound they make. After exploring the instruments there are a selection of quizzes.; identify by appearance, find by sound, matching and my favourite but a bit challenging for my four year old, defining the order where they listen to a short piece of music and then they have to press on the instruments in the order that they hear them. The graphics are amazing along with the sound. Shortly after playing this app we attended a children’s concert by the local Symphony Orchestra and said mummy ‘that’s a violin’! Brilliant!

 

Kid’s Ipad App Review: Word Wall HD

When I was at school we learned the alphabet by singing the alphabet song but this  a major ‘no-no’ now, as it is all done by phonics. Even though I’m a former teacher the whole phonemes, word families and CVC words is all a bit of a mystery to me, as I taught slightly older children and they tended to be able to read when they got to me. However, now that I have a four year old I really need to get my head around all of this.

About the App
I was sent Word Wall HD (.69p) by Punflay which was designed to develop early reading skills. To start there are two sections that introduce children to the letters and their sounds individually and then the children are introduced to word families (am, an, ig, un) and are asked to drag and drop any letter to create a word, which is then supported by the pronunciation and picture of the object.

After they have explored the writing sections there are then 4 activities to consolidate their learning; see and find, hide a word, bubble words and jigsaw. The matching game is pretty straight forward; children have to match the picture to the word.

My four year old really likes the Seek and Find where you have to swipe your finger over the screen until you find the hidden object. Once they find the object it reads the word to them supported with a picture to reinforce the meaning.

The Bubble Words, where you have to look at the picture and drag and drop the letters to spell the word that matches the picture, was too advanced my daughter as she is at the really early stages of reading.

The Jigsaw does pretty much what it says on the tin.

What we thought

Overall, I thought the app was okay and helped me, to some degree, better understand word families. My only worry is the American accents, as we’re based in the UK and the way they teach phonics is ‘unique’. I’m Canadian so I have no problem with this but I know parents who have removed some Ipad apps as they felt it was confusing for their children. However, many others have stated that they grew up on Sesame Street here in the UK and it’s not a problem.

Come to think of it there are huge differences between accents in the North and South in the UK. Would this put you off buying an app for your kids?

For more of our app reviews click here.

Disclosure: I received a free promo code for this app.

iPad Apps for Kids: Fun Felt

A friend of mine, with the technical ability, would like to develop an app for kids so I’ve been trying to help him come up with an idea. The other day, after spotting my daughters Fuzzy Felts, I thought they would be a great idea for an app. However, by the time I text him and he replied, low and behold I found one already existed, Fun Felt by Quiros Apps (.69p).

I absolutely love it. My four year old and I’ve been playing with it for ages. It’s great for creativity, shape recognition, fine motor skills, spatial awareness and you’ll see it also lends to literacy and numeracy.

Only negative is that it froze on a couple of occasions which was a bit frustrating.

So what do you think of our first attempts?

Click here to download

Disclosure: I have used my own affiliate code for this post. So, on the off-chance that you purchase it I get a measly couple of pence.

iPad Apps for Kids: Park Math HD

I was looking for an iPad app for my daughter that introduced basic addition and subtraction using picture stories and came across Park Math HD (£1.49) by Duck Duck Moose. I’ve come across their apps before and liked them. I do like this one as well; there are activities for counting, adding, subtracting and sorting with 3 levels of differentiation. I wasn’t huge fan of the Swing Counting one but the others are good.

For more of our app reviews click here

Ipad Apps for Kids: Puppet Pals HD

Yet, another fantastic Ipad app recommendation from my mate Danny Nicholson from The Whiteboard Blog.  I absolutely love this app Puppet Pals, it’s also available for iphones but can’t help thinking the screen would be too small and fiddly for little fingers.

Simply choose your characters, a background, resize the images and when you’re ready push the record button, move your characters around and narrate your story.  Within seconds you have an animated story.  My daughter is only four and cracked it right away.  The educational value is limitless (literacy, listening and speaking, drama).

The basic version is free and comes with the Fairytale characters, but I’m tempted to buy the Director’s pass (£1.99), which includes custom content and all the characters, so we can start using our own images; including my daughter so we can plonk her right in the stories.  She’d go crazy!

Here is my daughter’s first attempt.  Do bear in mind she’s only 4 and the concept of a beginning, middle and end to a story is still beyond her.

For more of our app reviews click here