I love this app! Monster Melody Mash is an adorable, addictive and unconventional musical app which challenges users to create unique electronica-inspired tracks by toggling off and on a variety of different hilariously and beautifully rendered cartoon monsters, each of which has a unique rhythm or melody attached to it. When activated, the monster will make the sound and dance along to the music. To keep the melody constant so that you can focus exclusively on rhythm, a pin toggle is available

Three “monster worlds” are available; Alien Monster (my favorite), Classic Monster, and Volcano. Alien Monster contains adorable sea-like alien monsters with a chime tool that shoots alien eyeballs from the craters of a planet, a decidedly cosmic keyboard sound, and monsters ranging from an anemone-shaped harpsichord of creatures to a cyclopean squid. Classic Monsters is a veritable graveyard of horror-show creatures, with a Thriller-inspired soundtrack, and a skeleton, vampire, mummy, zombie, and swamp creature. A piano keyboard consisting of spiders on a web, each with a different tone, lines the sidebar. The Volcano world pairs fiery sounds with a two-toned Volcano that sings the word “Volcano” at different pitches. More worlds are planned.

My 4-year old had a ball with it and got his 2-year old sister up and dancing to his musical stylings.

Did I mention that I love this app?

By Age Range, By App Feature, Just For Fun, Music, Preschool, Primary School, Reviews, Toddlers

Wondering how to talk to your kids about race? Well, as they say, there’s an app for that. Two apps, actually: Who am I? and Guess My Race, both created by Playtime Interactive for Cambridge Diversity Consulting’s Race Awareness Project, a project directed by Harvard cultural anthropologist Dr. Michael D. Baran with the goal of inspiring dialog about race through the integration of art, technology and education. This review focuses on the former app, though both are interesting and reccommended.

Who am I? can be played by two people or teams and is essentially an elimination game in which one party selects a face from a panel and then hands to iPhone to the opposing party, who can ask questions about the person’s appearance, including questions relating to race. “Easy” and “Hard” options are available; “Easy” includes 12 faces, “Hard” includes 24. When the correct face is selected, the face appears on a panel with “I consider myself a particular race, such as White or Asian” and the option to tap the picture to learn more. When tapped, a balloon is launched containing a quote from the individual describing his or her understanding of their own racial makeup. A person who considers themselves white may elaborate that they have Japanese, Irish, and Italian origins.

The individual quotes get at the heart of the message that the Race Awareness Project is trying to communicate: that race is fluid and easy to misinterpret. It may seem, at first blush, a bit hokey to use a computer application to address the topic of race with your children. However, the Race Awareness Project website points out:

“Research shows that even though many parents wish their kids to grow up “colorblind,” kids as young as three-years-old are actively learning about categories of race and ethnicity that they hear in everyday language. Therefore, it is critical that parents learn to responsibly talk about these issues and not leave children on their own to learn about race from the media or from others.”

The “Who Am I”? face elimination game was very fun to play with my 6-year old niece and 4-year old son, and sparked some interesting discussion about racial and gender differences that have lasted well beyond the game.

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“Meritum Paint Pro” is a creative art application that can turn the most basic scribbles into swirling psychedelic works of art. The use of the app is simple: just draw on the blank background and watch your design begin to morph, swirl, change color, and begin to fan out all over the screen. There are many options to choose from to control how the patterns develop and what colors to use. You can also change the background to a photo of your choice.

My son (2.5 years old) really loves to paint using this app. He will scream, “I made this for you … I made this for you,” every time the color changes, watching as his work takes on a life of its own. He loves to shake my iPhone, saving a copy of the current screen to the camera roll. The sound of a shutter clicking and the feel of vibrations are very satisfying to him, leaving me having to delete hundreds of photos from my camera roll.

I think this app would be a hit with anyone creative. Adults will appreciate the multitude of options there are to control every aspect of how their designs are created. Kids will simply love the ease of use and the beauty that they can create at the flick of a finger.

Art, By Age Range, By App Feature, Creativity, Just For Fun, Preschool, Reviews, Toddlers

“Pre-K Safari” is an amazing education app, teaching letters, numbers, shapes, and colors. Each activity has a safari theme and is great for kids who love animals. The music has an African beat, the sound quality is high, and I find it relaxing to listen to. Each game is narrated by a friendly hyena who gives praise for the correct answer and lets the player know when the answer is wrong but is always kind and encouraging. You can also track your child’s progress with an achievement screen.

I don’t think I ever taught my son how to use this app. All the activities are very intuitive, and he picked it up very quickly on his own. My son knew all his letters, numbers, shapes, and colors by just over 2 years, and I give this app and ones like it credit for helping him learn these things without any struggle whatsoever. As an adult, I find this app enjoyable as well. The colors game is taught by touching different colored butterflies, and I find their flying around quite lovely. There is also a free lite version to try, but this app is worth much more than $.99.

Animals, By Age Range, By App Feature, Counting, Language, Matching, Preschool, Reviews, Shapes, Toddlers

“Colortoons” is a nice coloring book app for young children. Consisting of four different themes and now twenty four animals to choose from, kids can either use “paint brush” to paint with their finger much like a traditional coloring book or with the “paint bucket” mode where they can fill in shapes with the tap of a finger. There is also a blank page for kids to draw on free-hand. You are able to save the finished page to your photos, but parents can also disable this if they desire.

My son is not a “keep inside the lines” kind of kid, but at 2.5 years, his fine motor skills are still being developed, and sometimes his fingers don’t do what he wants them to do, so for now he mainly chooses the “paint bucket” setting to color in the animals. I do wish there was an “erase” button because sometimes my son will ask me to remove a mistake if he switches over to “paint brush” mode. When I am not able to, he can get frustrated and lose interest. I do like that both the “paint brush” and “paint bucket” features are available, as well as a blank page for him to draw on.

Animals, Art, By Age Range, By App Feature, Creativity, Just For Fun, Preschool, Reviews, Toddlers

“MathGirl Number Garden” is an application designed to help girls gain confidence in math, specifically counting and beginner multiplication. This app is pleasant to look at and has girls in mind with the garden aesthetic. There are twelve levels that increase in difficulty, and the faster you answer the questions, the more points you get. Redeem your points to buy objects such as flowers or butterflies to add to your garden.

I like the fact that although you get more points for speed, there is no time limit to win the base number of points for a right answer, and if you answer wrong at first, you can keep trying. I think adding objects to the garden page is a nice motivation for girls to go back and practice their math skills.

I showed my garden to my 2.5 year old son, and he was really interested in this until he asked me to add a second pink bunny, but I could not. I wish you could just buy whatever you want with the points that you have earned. I do think that this is a fun app and a nice teaching tool that girls will enjoy using.

By Age Range, By App Feature, Counting, Math, Preschool, Primary School, Reviews

Geometrix is a simple collection of 3 games based on various permutations of collisions between circles, stars and squares. The three games include Chain Reaction, Star Chaser, and Orb Assault.

In Chain Reaction, the player taps on small squares to initiate a “chain reaction” which looks like a series of small bubbles. Each chain reaction garners points, Timed and free play modes are available.

In Star Chaser, squares are moved around a grid by taping the screen. The object is to collide with stars, garnering points, while avoiding red circles, which end the game. Options include Free Play, Timed mode in which a clock is continuously counts down to zero and is restored through gathering stars, and Challenge mode which challenges the user to obtain a specific amount of points. Three difficulty levels (Easy, Normal, and Hard) are available.

In Orb Assault, the square is moved along the screen by tapping at the location where you want it to go. Four color options are available at the bottom of the screen; the user chooses a color for the square, and then must collide with the corresponding circles of the same color while avoiding circles of a different color. Three difficulty levels (Easy, Normal, and Hard) are available.

Eight electronic songs options are available.

I found the games to be very challenging and not seem terribly responsive to my taps. My 4-year old got the hang of it much faster than I did (so what else is new?). The graphics are reminiscent of the 1980’s Atari, but this is a solid game with enough depth to engage and maintain interest.

By Age Range, By App Feature, For Parents, High School +, Just For Fun, Middle School, Preschool, Primary School, Reviews

I really love the fishing game apps on the iPhone! I would have to say that Flick Fishing is my son’s all-time favorite app! What is it about these fishing games that is so entertaining?

Like Flick Fishing, Doodle Fishing engages the cast with a “flick” of the phone and a flick back to “set the hook” when a fish bites. The reel-in is a bit flimsier; instead of dialing a rotary spool, the user simply slides a bar across the bottom to control reeling speed.

The game includes an map which the player navigates around by boat, which is controlled by a small steering wheel and throttle. When a location is selected, the player taps the screen to initiate the fishing expedition.

The grapics are consistent with the other “Doodle” games; (Doodle Jump, etc.), the graphics are a pleasing palette of bright colors and hand-drawn cartoon characters.

I don’t think think Doodle Fishing exceeds Flick Fishing in quality, but it’s a pretty fun little game in its own right; further development of the map portion of the game has the potential to improve it and add a new dimension of play.

By Age Range, By App Feature, Just For Fun, Preschool, Primary School, Reviews

Lola the Panda Bear flies through the screen on her choo-choo train, on her way to deliver presents to her friends, making frequent stops to complete letter-matching and reading puzzles. Each time Lola (i.e., your child) successfully completes the puzzle, the train zooms along it’s way, and Lola earns five coins which are tallied in the upper right corner of the screen. Every so often, the train stops at a toy store where the child can use the earned coins to buy presents, adding an element of math to the game. The purchased toys are then stowed on the flatbed of the train.

Three levels of difficulty are available (Hard, Medium, and Easy) which adapts the game for preschoolers through school-age. My 4-year old enjoyed the Easy and Medium levels, and even my 2-year old, who cannot yet recognize letters, liked to touch the pictures and delighted in the panda and the train. The game can be played in English, French, Spanish and German, which adds value to students studying other languages.

This is a cute and engaging pre-k and early reading game. I recommend.

By Age Range, By App Feature, Language, Math, Preschool, Primary School, Reading, Reviews, Toddlers

The app merges two or more faces to create a hybrid face based on the features of the input photos, which can be taken from within the app or selected from the iphone library. Up to six input photos can be selected. Resulting photos can be saved and shared via MMS or email. Faces are divided into six components: eyes, nose, eyebrows, mouth, chin and hair. Mix mode allows the user to shuffle through features or arrange them at will. Play mode will show the user a face and challenge him to rebuild it based on the available features, challenging the player to utilize facial recognition skills.

This all is a great concept, but achieving good results is very difficult in practice. Pictures must have exactly the same lighting and scale to merge effectively. Getting kids to sit still long enough for an unblurred front face shot was more challenging than I had imagined.

Pretty fun, with the caveats mentioned above, I recommend.

By Age Range, By App Feature, Creativity, For Parents, High School +, Just For Fun, Middle School, Preschool, Primary School, Reviews