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

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 song-based application has six popular preschool songs including the ABC song, 12345, Incy Wincy Spider, Three Little Monkeys, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. All of the songs are well-executed with simple animation, pleasant instrumentation, and a lovely chorus of talented young voices. There isn’t much to look at with this application but the audio is so nicely done the visual content doesn’t seem to matter. Many believe that music, especially songs with repetition and rhyme, can help children learn how to talk and communicate. My son benefits from Kidzongs Preschool Sing-along fun two-fold; he enjoys listening to music while sharpening his language skills, and he gets a break from hearing his tone-deaf (though well-intentioned) Mom sing to him.

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

The application Preschool Music offers four different activities with various musical opportunities. There are sheep who harmonize, parrots who sing music-in-the-round, aquatic creatures that produce various percussion sounds, and a keyboard labeled with musical notes. Visually, this application is nicely done with lovely bold and colorful artwork but – ironically – I found Preschool Music to be a somewhat unpleasant listening experience. The audio for three of the four activities (all but the percussion section) was difficult to listen to over and over again. It’s truly a shame since I’m a fan of what this app tries to teach, like different musical concepts (harmonizing and rounds) and how to make your own music (percussion and keyboards).

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

Elephant Song is a ditty about a confused singer trying to figure out if an elephant flies through the trees or a monkey swims in the ocean, and other perplexing predicaments. A savvy young boy helps the singer throughout the song pick the right environment for each animal. This app is somewhat educational (teaching children about the typical context for different types of animals) but mostly it’s a melodious song with fanciful illustrations and captivating opportunities for interaction. Pause each animal and there are extra animated bits; and at the end, there is a clever elephant puzzle. Watch out – you might find yourself humming this one in the shower!

Animals, Music, Preschool, Reviews, Sounds, Toddlers

TappyTunes allows you to play some of your favorite tunes by tapping the screen in rhythm to the music. As you tap, you’ll see colorful graphics in time with the music. It seems to me that you either love this app or you hate it. For me, it’s the former and I find it strangely addictive and soothing and especially enjoy tapping to the rhythm of songs that bring back fond childhood memories. I enjoy sharing these special songs with my son and teaching him the fundamentals of keeping a time to music.

Music, Preschool, Primary School, Reviews, Toddlers