The newly released picture book – “1 Little Boy” – takes a refreshing and innovative approach to interactive children’s applications. It is the original story of a little boy who goes on a fantastical journey and along the way is joined by a variety of animal characters from cherished classic tales. The app was carefully contemplated and executed with tremendous attention to detail. The text has a delightful sing-song rhyme and rhythm, the illustrations are remarkably attractive, and the narration is clearly and distinctly enunciated. You can interact with the story in several ways; you can touch each character to hear different sounds and expressions, touch the screen to have characters appear, and record your own voice to narrate the story. It’s a great educational resource, too. Kids are learning on several levels; they can read along with they narrator, they have the opportunity to count and recite numbers, and they can indentify different animals and their sounds. I’m HUGE fan of this application…”1 Little Boy” is a picture-perfect addition to our virtual bookshelf, and it’s an imaginative, refreshing, and amusing way to teach my son.

Animals, By Age Range, By App Feature, Counting, Preschool, Primary School, Reading, Reviews, Sounds, Toddlers

“Preschool Connect the Dots…” is a phenomenal value with a whopping 200+ puzzles offered and a plethora of settings that allows you to customize the experience for different ages, interests, and skill/competency levels. At first glance, the screen is full of what looks like a flurry of random dots with numbers or letters, but once you start connecting them, a rough sketch appears. When you finish the puzzle, you’re rewarded with a picture that completes the sketch. My favorite features include the option to choose from five different puzzle themes/topics (e.g. animals, transportation), the high quality sounds effects and narration, and the multitude of learning opportunities offered. From an educational perspective, this app helps preschoolers sharpen skills including object identification and pronunciation, counting, letters (upper and lower case options). We look forward to many, many hours of fun and enjoyment connecting the dots.

Animals, By Age Range, By App Feature, Counting, Language, Phonics, Preschool, Primary School, Puzzle, Reviews, Sounds, Toddlers

Poke, tap, and slide the colorful illustrations and the world of the Itsy Bitsy Spider comes alive. This skillfully-crafted application is made by Duck Duck Moose, the award-winning production company who brought us two other preschool songs-apps, “The Wheels on the Bus,” and “Old MacDonald.” This particular rendition seems to top the others with its endless critters and even more interaction to rouse a toddler’s curiosity. It promotes exploration and can facilitate as a learning tool when caregivers and children experience and talk about it together. My favorite feature is the chatty fly Chloe who buzzes around the periphery of each scene offering helpful tidbits of information about nature and the environment. I also like that my son and I can record ourselves singing. What a find! The Itsy Bitsy Spider is epic entertainment!

Animals, By App Feature, Just For Fun, Music, Preschool, Reviews, Toddlers, nature

This application features the talking dog from the PBS Kids television series Martha Speaks. Dog Party is comprised of four games: Chow Time, Doggie Dress Up, Martha Says, and Pop Quiz. All of these games – with the exception of Doggie Dress Up – are educational and aim to hone keen observation, vocabulary, shape recognition, and word comprehension skills. Beyond the multitude of learning opportunities, this app provides a value with four games in one, the production quality is excellent and visually pleasing, and the canine characters are captivating. It’s clever and fun, and makes us giggle. My son and I can’t get enough of the enthusiastic dog tongue that licks the plate clean during Chow Time!

Animals, By Age Range, By App Feature, Just For Fun, Language, Preschool, Primary School, Reviews, Shapes, Toddlers

As the name infers, this application has a bevy of different features geared toward very young children. In fact, Baby App: All-in-1 contains five distinct categories including: flash cards, a phone display, a piano keyboard, a notepad, and a quiz. At this point we don’t find much use for the phone display and the notepad which require a more advanced understanding of numbers and letters. The features my son and I enjoy the most are the piano keyboard and the quiz which exercise the identification of colors, numbers, shapes, animals, seasons, fruits and vegetables. Aesthetically, I wasn’t impressed by the artwork which looked like cutesy stock clipart and some of the items to be identified didn’t look much like the objects they represented. While it’s not the most artistically innovative app I’ve experienced, it’s functional, full of features, and will likely keep your child entertained.

Animals, By App Feature, Matching, Music, Reviews, Shapes, Sounds, Toddlers

In the Rescue of Ginger, our protagonists Madera the monkey and Figaro the frog go on a quest to find Mrs. Applebottom’s cat. There’s much to offer with this engaging application. The straightforward introduction gives verbal instead of written instructions – fitting since the target population for this game is kids just learning to read – and the characters (especially the mice) are endearing, playful, and full of cunning humor. There are over 100 interactive elements and this application engages the audience in active participation to solve problems along the way (think Dora the Explorer). From an educational perspective, this application encourages critical thinking and learning opportunities for color, shape, size, and number identification. The makers Lyn and Line are on to something very special and I’m eagerly waiting to join in the next adventure of Madera and Figaro.

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

This is a fairly typical matching game. Match the animals, and they make a sound. While it’s entertaining, the same animals are used game after game. There are no options to change grid size (4×5), so you get-what-you-get. Giraffe’s Matching Zoo doesn’t have much to offer, but it’s also free, and it does the job of keeping my child entertained while improving her memory skills. I would expect a little more if I had to pay for this one.

Animals, Matching, Preschool, Reviews, Sounds, Toddlers

Mr. Crab is hungry! Help him collect the numbers to trace the letters and make a word, then tilt the iPhone so the letters get gobbled up by the spinning wheel. Once a word is complete, you hear the word pronounced and see a child-like drawing of the word. It’s time for a new word when the spinning wheel eats all the letters. You can choose to write uppercase or lowercase letters, or numbers. I cannot say enough good things about this app! It’s awesome for preschoolers who are just learning to write. It provides three opportunities for a child to learn through writing the letters, visualizing the word and the picture, and hearing the word. The app goes even further by saying “good job” or “excellent” before moving on. This one is definitely worth the money, but if you want to save a buck, you can buy cheaper versions that offer only upper or lowercase letters.

Animals, Counting, Preschool, Reading, Reviews

Cucumber Soup is the story of a group of garden insects who try to move a cucumber that has fallen onto an anthill. They learn that in small groups or alone they aren’t able to move the cucumber but by working collectively they accomplish their goal. The insects then rejoice by sharing a feast of cucumber soup. There are three qualities of this storybook app that are especially appealing. First, the story conveys a valuable moral lesson that united together great feats can be realized that couldn’t be accomplished alone. Further, the design promotes counting, word recognition and comprehension by highlighting text and narration simultaneously thereby contributing to both auditory and visual learning. Finally, the app goes beyond storytelling to give a brief description of the ten different insects featured in the garden and provides a recipe for cucumber soup.

Animals, By Age Range, Counting, Preschool, Primary School, Reading, Reviews, Stories, Toddlers

This clever app builds on the foundation of the remarkably successful Peekaboo Barn. For Peekaboo Wild, instead of knocking on the barn door to be greeted by a mélange of farmyard animals, you tap the rustling savannah grass to view the exotic animals on the African plain. Each animal is identified by the sound they make as well as their written and spoken name in either English or Spanish. The educational focus is early literacy, language skills and animal identification. I couldn’t wait to upload this app because my toddler and I love the stunning graphics and sweet narration of Peekaboo Barn. The formula (concept, artwork, and even narration) are very similar but the animals and sounds make this a completely new experience for my little one. It’s a bit pricey considering you only get to peek at eleven animals on this safari tour, but it’s worth it to me; my toddler can’t get enough of the adorable hippo and I enjoy the elegance of this artful app.

Animals, Language, Phonics, Preschool, Reviews, Sounds, Toddlers