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

The children’s application Bumblebee Touchbook offers two main features. The first is “read and book” and the other is “watch a movie.” The book section is interactive and educational, while the movie portion is a 3-D animated short featuring adorable bumbling bees. When my son and I first played this application, I expected a passive book reading experience; we soon learned it was much more of a teaching tool with learning activities focusing on word recognition and counting. The lessons are concise and simple, but exquisitely done with graphics that have Pixar-like quality and charm. We especially enjoy the bumblebee movie, set to Tchaikovsky’s classical tune “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies”, which is reminiscent of my favorite Disney films “Fantasia”.

By Age Range, By App Feature, Counting, Music, Preschool, Reading, Reviews, Toddlers

Count Caddy is an application that teaches fundamental counting skills to very young children. To play, the user must drag various objects one-by-one into the counting circle; after each turn, the corresponding number is spoken and written to reinforce the lesson and to guide the user along the way. The creator – Tickle Tap Apps – clearly and effectively produced this app with the preschooler-set in mind. Count Caddy has an uncomplicated interface and simplistic animation that appeals to young eyes. It uses visual and auditory approaches to teach counting, helps to sharpen fine motor skills, and it does stellar job of wrangling my son’s attention span. Best of all, kids can challenge themselves to learn incremental counting (by twos and threes); this appears to be a unique and distinguishing feature of this educational application.

By Age Range, By App Feature, Counting, Preschool, Reviews, 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

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

It’s Pickin’ Time! That means you need to choose your assigned veggie out of the garden patch without accidentally pickin’ the wrong piece of produce. That’s all, huh? Not so fast….this game falls into that simple-yet-brilliant category and just about everything about this app is beautifully crafted and executed. The graphics are colorful and vivid, the interface is easy to use, instructions are clear, prompts are easy to navigate and the twang of the bluegrass music is upbeat and cheerful. Have I yet mentioned how addictively fun it is to play? Beyond entertaining, this game also helps to hone memory and dexterity, as well as color and shape identification. This is the first app I’ve experienced from the developer Iconfactory and I can’t wait to load more. This is a quality buy and well worth every penny.

Counting, For Parents, High School +, Just For Fun, Middle School, Preschool, Primary School, Reviews, Shapes

KidCalc is a math app chocked full of features including: a counting puzzle, a counting snowflakes game, math and counting flash cards, an animated calculator and math sets (addition and subtraction). Skills taught include number recognition by sight and sound, understanding of quantities, counting forward, backward and incrementally, and basic addition and subtraction. What makes the KidCalc app so effective is that math problems use icons to represent numbers so learners can “count-it-out” to further understand the meaning of each math problem. Further, the repetitive nature of this technique makes it a forceful learning tool. Buyers should be aware that KidCalc is geared for kids just learning math but it can be customized to be more challenging for more advanced learners. It amazes me how much is offered in this one app – it’s a real deal.

Counting, Math, Preschool, Primary School, Reviews

Sesame Streets’ Grover is a waiter AND cook today and he needs your assistance preparing menu items to serve to his hungry customer. Tilt your iPhone/Touch back and forth to count and catch food items to be used to prepare restaurant entrees. Grover’s Number Special is a unique app that is designed with video clips interspersed between interactive counting and identification activities; it envelopes you and makes you feel like you’re a guest star on an episode of Sesame Street. While many ages can appreciate the entertainment value of this game, it’s geared to preschool-aged children with basic lessons in counting, number recognition, and object identification. Older children might soon tire of the repetitive nature of the game.

Counting, Matching, Math, Preschool, Primary School, Reviews, Toddlers