Remember the days when you had to carry your kids' favorite electronic items along with you in the diaper bag? When "scribbling" required crayons and math help came in the form of flashcards? Oh, 2007 was such a simpler time ...
These days, there's an app for that. Parents with iPhones are using their phones to do everything form look up food additives to make animal sounds. Some local favorites:
Preschoolers: Animal Sounds
The Broadfoot children are big fans of Animal Sound Machine (99 cents from iTunes). Twenty different sounds, including dogs, monkeys, elephants and two different cows can be activated with the press of a picture. It can be educational for adults as well: Do YOU know what sound a camel or a racoon makes?
Toddler ABCs
"My 3-year-old, Sloan, knows all his letter, shapes, numbers, and is starting sightwords thanks for various flash card aps," says mom Molly Colletti Bridges. Toddler ABCs has been specifically designed to help your child learn to identify all the letters of the alphabet in a fun way. Each flashcard has a clear upper case letter on the top portion of the card and a beautiful accompanying illustration on the lower portion. As each new card comes up, an enhanced audio track states the letter to provide a multi-sensory learning activity. Available from 99 cents from iTunes.
School Age and up: Peggle
"My kids love playing Peggle," says Larry Davidson, Creative Director at Rowland Publishing in Tallahassee. Peggle has the player shooting balls into a Pachinko-style board with virtual pegs, the goal being to remove certain pegs and blocks within a certain number of shots. The game is based on a combination of luck and skill and has a variety of boards and "power up" options to keep it interesting. You can download it for $1 from Joystiq.
Free Games
Kimberly Justice Mengshoel has a six-year-old with a passion for Action Potato, a game that encourages little fingers to catch fresh potatoes for a stew. Her 12-year-old is master of Pappi Jump, a simple but addictive jumping game. Both are available free from iTunes. Brian Cain's two-year-old recommends the memory matching games, such as the simple Match.
For more apps for parents, visit Apple's recommendations page.
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Comments
I wasn't aware of these - thank you for pointing them out.
Marie-Claire Moreau
www.onceuponanapp.com is a great site for interactive children's iPhone and iPad apps . . . classic stories with a modern twist.
For parents who want their kids to learn some chinese, check out our newly released 'Chinese for Munchkins'. It is a cute app with gorgeous illustrations. flashcards, memory games, and a little piggy counting game.
Enjoy!
I also have a suggestion for parents, who have kids of 5-10 years old. It also makes sense to consider such an educational iPhone app as Kinder Hangman - http://sharkfuel.com/kinderhangman.html it is an interesting iPhone game that is very useful for development of kids and allows children to learn new words easily. Learning process is organized as an interesting game with graphical themes and animations. It is a good game that kids usually like very much. So, parents can use it to keep kids busy.
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