App Review: Nursery Rhymes with StoryTime

The Nursery Rhymes with StoryTime app is an interactive ebook app from ustwo for iPad. The look of it is gorgeous. The illustrations are reminiscent of 19th century woodcuts, vividly colored. Each nursery rhyme (there are 8 of them) is presented in two "pages" and each page has at least one interactive element. The text is incorporated as part of the illustration, and some of the text moves or reacts along with the images on each page. The narration can be turned on or off, and the reader is a British woman with a pleasant voice.

The interactive elements are fun but don't add much, if anything, to the comprehension of the rhymes. There's some wit and ingenuity to the design in some rhymes, e.g. Humpty Dumpty cracks open and the King's horses and men spill out; but in others, like the Grand Old Duke, it feels a bit more random. The humor is a little bizarre, with a tinge of the macabre. The sound effects when Jack and Jill tumble down the hill or get smacked with fish from the well (yes, you read that right) sound like an old kung fu movie, and after you cut the tails off the three blind mice with your carving knife guillotine, you can send the severed tails careening around the screen, or reattach them and cut them off again. Of course, this is my 3-year-old son's favorite part of the ebook. He thinks it's hilarious.

Overall, though, it seems that he's already getting a little bored with it. The interactive elements are quickly mastered and there's not much else to discover. After playing with it a short time I noticed he was already skipping some pages and even his favorites didn't hold his attention long. At $3.99 it doesn't break the bank, but as great as it looks I doubt we'll get hours and hours of entertainment from this one.

Review by Genesis Hansen

App Review: Drawing Pad

We first encountered Drawing Pad (Amazon) at the Apple store.  We then went home and installed it on both the Kindle Fire and Galaxy Tab because it was such a hit with the little dude.

You can use digital crayons, pencil crayons, markers, stamps, coloured paper and stickers. The sticker function is by FAR the most awesome. There are stickers of fish, vehicles, insects, faces, flowers, birds and animals, all of which can be shrunk or enlarged and moved around until you "stamp" it to make it stick permanently. The drawer that holds all the tools opens and closes, and Little J can now navigate his way through the drawer to change colours or tools, as well as scrap his piece of artwork and start over again.

Drawing Pad (iTunes) is an awesome app for learning fine motor movement, playing with paint without making a mess, and making the train go choo choo down the track.  Totally worth the $1.99 and good for kids from 2 up.

App Review: First Words

Review submitted by the lovely Genesis.


Here's my tip for getting through a restaurant meal with a toddler: get the FirstWords apps from Learning Touch. We have both the Animals and the Vehicles apps ($1.99 each). They also offer a Deluxe edition for $4.99 that has animals, vehicles, colors, shapes, etc.

FirstWords shows a picture of an animal or vehicle, with letter tiles spelling out the name of the object. There are corresponding letter tiles scattered randomly below the image and the child has to move the letter tiles to their appropriate place by correctly matching tiles. Each time my son touches a letter tile, the app reads the letter. When he touches the picture, the app says the name of the object. Once he successfully puts all the letter tiles in their correct places, the app reads each letter, says the whole word, and the picture spins, enlarges and makes the appropriate animal or vehicle sound before moving to the next word. The voice of the male reader is clear and pleasant.

There are some settings you can adjust to make it a little easier or harder depending on your child's age and familiarity with the app. I love that there are visual cues for beginners who don't know their alphabet yet. They can randomly move tiles around, but when they get close to the matching tile, it lights up.

My son adores these apps and was very quickly able to use them without help from Mom. He learned his alphabet by playing these games, picked up some vocabulary and now he gets that letters combine to make words. It's really fun to see him take skills he's picked up using the iPhone and apply them to reading print books. He loves to spell out titles and words in his books, and it's very natural to him to move between print and electronic media.

FirstWords apps are currently available for iPhone and iPad, and I thought they were worth every penny. New animals and vehicles have been added at no extra charge with periodic updates of the app, which helps to keep the game interesting. For less than the price of a mocha at Starbucks my son has had hours of entertainment and education, and it's so nice when my husband and I can actually sit and enjoy a cup of coffee at the end of a meal instead of taking turns chasing our energetic boy around a restaurant. Also great for car trips, plane rides, doctor's waiting rooms, or anytime the parent in charge needs a little break.

Learning Touch also makes a First Letters and Phonics app. My son loves it, but to me the voice of the reader/singer for the app is only slightly less grating than nails on a chalkboard. Caveat emptor!