“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.

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Most “educational” apps I come across build skills for predominately left-brained thinkers. In my experience, most of the lessons culture systematic, analytical, and logical thinking, and there isn’t much available for those looking to exercise their imaginative and creative, right-brained thinking skills. “Faces iMake…” is a unique application that offers an opportunity for both children and adults to explore their artistic side by making a face collage art using a variety of different materials. To play, you can choose from 20 different face shapes, 150 objects, and you can layer and rotate objects. I found the collage object choices to be quite satisfying and they were easy to navigate on the iPhone screen. My initial pieces of artwork weren’t so great, but as I played, I gained confidence and started to create faces I was proud to save in my photo gallery. The app also offers the option to assign faces to contacts, or to share via Facebook or email. The only negative about his application is that it appears (based on iTunes feedback) to be plagued by a bug that crashes the users idevice during use. Fortunately, I didn’t experience this problem, but it’s something to be aware of and is the reason for many poor user feedback scores.

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The wait is FINALLY over and our friends Madera the Monkey and Figaro the Frog have returned… this time to Save The Day! (Duh-da-da daaaa!) “Madera & Figaro Save The Day” is the story of two silly friends who join forces to help their community after a large storm has hit their fair city. Their mission is to help restore the city in time for the big party. An impressive follow-up to publisher Lyn & Line’s first application entitled “The Rescue of Ginger”, this app is supersized with more story, more interactive features, and many more learning opportunities. It’s the most interactive storybook app I’ve experienced yet and provides a perfect symmetry of educational game play and story. It’s a rich source of learning opportunities for young kids including elements that teach sizes, shapes, letters, numbers, colors, and matching. It’s packed full of original interactive features and games, too. Designers have crafted the app so that the sequence of questions are randomized, thereby capturing and keeping the attention of young ones who play this application over and over again. It has vivid HD illustrations that are designed to work on both the iPad and iPhone. What a treat!

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The application “Jam Packed!” is a clever puzzle game with the theme of packing. The object of the game is to find a perfect place for each object so each box is completely jam-packed with items. The game contains three categories – Black Box, Jewelry Box, and Lunch Box – with each getting progressively more difficult as the levels progress. Each category has 15 levels, and the tricky part is that each level is locked until you have accomplished the level prior. Trust me – it’s harder than you think to pack things so they all fit! After each sub level is completed, there is a rewarding comment displayed. The graphics and illustrations of items to be packed are realistic and the sound effects are somewhat satisfying. There isn’t any music, but there are dragging sounds when shapes are moved. “Jam Packed!” is great to help kids develop critical thinking and problem solving skills and the game is geared for toddlers to age 10. This is a superior app, a great purchase, and there’s a whole lot of puzzle fun jammed packed in this game!

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Can you find the differences between two pictures? Each set of pictures has 5 “differences” and the object of the game is to find them as quickly as you can. The quicker the differences are found, the more points the player will earn. The player has the option to use hints if they get stuck and 3 hints are available per game. The game gives the player 10 chances to guess incorrectly before time runs out. Find the difference, touch it, and a green circle will appear. If the player guesses incorrectly they will lose time points. If time runs out and the differences were not found, red circles will appear to inform the player where the differences are located. The nice part about this game is that the picture will appear again and again until the player successfully finds all five differences. This is a visual brain game; some of the pictures can be tricky and challenging. Luckily – if you’re stuck on a picture – you can use the magnifying glass to get a hint. The pictures are appealing and an exciting part of the game is wondering what the next picture will be. It could be anything from a child in a snow storm to a scuba diver in the sea. With each new update more more photos are added. “Find the Differences PRO” is never ending fun and a visual brain workout. What a fantastic app for elementary age children!

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If you’re a fan of apps by Duck Duck Moose (like the acclaimed “Wheels on the Bus” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider’), then you’ll absolutely flip for the publisher’s newest app. “Fish School” is a toddler/preschooler-based application that’s packed full of age-appropriate lessons and games. Lesson topics include letters, numbers, shapes, and colors; there’s also a matching and “differences” game. Each activity features groups of brilliantly-colorful fish that school together in various patterns for their instruction. The musical accompaniment is delightful classical string instrumentation that offers a high-brow soundtrack to this magical app. I find there’s a plucky playfulness about “Fish School” that makes it equally enjoyable for kids and parents alike. My son enjoys watching the active and ever-changing “fishies”, participating in the “ABC” song, and counting. I’m impressed with how this app has struck a perfect balance of game play and learning opportunities. “Fish School” engages my son’s adventurous, spirited-side, all the while, keeping his attention and interest in learning fundamentals like counting and letters. Admittedly, I have selfish reasons for liking this app. Watching the vibrant fish in the cool, crystalline blue water is like a mini-vacation for this tired Mama. All I need is the sensation of powdery sand beneath my feet and a cold beverage in my hand, and I’ll have the perfect virtual beach escape. Ahhhhh….

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A classy classic puzzle game that never gets old. It has been around for centuries and is still used in our educational systems today. “Lets Tans…” is a visual spatial puzzle game that makes people of all ages use the ole’ brain. This app has 3 different puzzle modes – Classic, Replica, and Arcade. There are 7 brightly colored shapes called tiles and they fit together to make a perfect square “the basic Tangram.” The 7 shapes assembled can form thousands of different shapes. There are 110 different shapes to form in the “Classic” puzzle mode. Drag the shapes inside the large shape, tap once to turn the shape in the direction you want it to go or tap twice to flip the shape to it’s other side. After each shape is assembled, the player is rewarded with an applause or some type of celebratory sound and then on to the next puzzle. Whether you’re in the car, waiting room, restaurant, or just hanging out and your child has their head buried in your iPhone playing “Let Tans…” – RELAX… they’re learning!

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I’ve spent a lot of time playing toddler apps with my son and I haven’t come across many that have as much educational breadth as “TeachMe: Toddler”. This well-organized application is brimming with learning potential with six different lessons on topics that include shapes, numbers, letters, phonics (letter sounds), colors, and counting. It’s a fantastic tool for learners and teachers alike. For children, the game-like lessons are entertaining and there is a reward system that offers encouragement and positive reinforcement. For teachers/caregivers, the app tracks and records lesson scores so that future instruction can be directed toward areas that need improvement. While “TeachMe: Toddler” deserves high praise for potential teaching opportunities, I must honestly admit it’s greatly lacking in other areas – namely the production value. The artwork quality is sub-par with less-than-dazzling stock art quality characters and clunky sound features. Despite this application’s aesthetic shortcomings, I recommend “TeachMe: Toddler” because it’s a great educational tool, fun for toddlers, and a fabulous value.

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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!

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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.

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