Toddlers Special - Five apps to keep the youngest entertained - Part 2 - AppFreak - All about iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch apps

Toddlers Special - Five apps to keep the youngest entertained - Part 2

Continues from the first part

ABC Animals if aimed to children learning the alphabet. This reminds me of the flash cards we used to have at school, with one letter and one object representative of that letter. S for snake anyone? The idea to bring this to the iPhone is fantastic, and it adds an element of interaction that I love. And more importantly, they will love. The player will be shown the card with a picture on top and the letter underneath. The cool part is that you can use your finger to draw the letter and it gives you instructions on where to start drawing. You get sounds as well and this is localised into Spanish, German and French. Parents have left many reviews with very valuable feedback.

If you get the alphabet right, you'll need to play with numbers as well. The creators of Sort Slider have another little gem called Count Caddy. It is aimed at preschoolers and introduces the subject in a creative way. Aided by one of the animals, you will have to drag the items in the circle to start counting them. As easy as drag and drop in the circle. The app will tell you how many items are in the circle with a big number in the screen and a friendly voice. From my experience, this game could be used in different ways to adapt it to the age of the user. For example, you can play to say the number before the app tells you. As the game progresses, other animals will join the teaching session and you will be asked to count by twos and by threes. This adds so much more to the game, since you can use it with older kids that are starting to do calculations. As in Sort Slider, the graphics, music and tone of voice are fantastic, and using different characters for different types of counting ensures that we all know what's going on. The cute animations between levels proved to get some giggles.

via youtube.com

Preschool Music contains four minigames to interact with sounds and images and even create your own music. I have seen similar concepts in other games, but this one brings you four short games and some nostalgic memories with the piano keyboard. I still remember my very basic physical piano that soon run out of batteries, but helped me to understand how a song is a sequence of sounds. The interactive keyboard with colours will allow you to recreate this experience. The app has it's limitations and some of the sounds are not great, but it does for a game with variety that introduces children to concept of melody and rhythm.