Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Ipod apps for preschoolers (and olders too)

So for yule I received an ipod from the husband. Really i wanted an ipod because of all the awesome educational apps people kept talking about. One appeared under the tree with my name on it and I squeed in delight as I downloaded a gazzilion apps for the chitlins.

So here is my list of THE aps you want to keep the kids busy and also learn something. Most of these are free but i will * any that need money. These are in order of my kids most used to least used.

1. Feed Me There are 2 free levels. One the purple monster is thinking of an lower case or upper case letter and you feed him the corresponding letter.
The awesome other free part the purple monster thinks of something...black and you drag the black animal to feed to him. It gets harder as it goes working with finishing patterns, fractions, telling time, counting how many objects there are.....

2. Starfall *starfall is a pay for ap. You can play it online for free here but my preschooler likes it soo much that I went ahead and bought the ap. The ipod version only is the letters not the books and other game you can play on the website.

3. Cut the rope *sometimes free* You want to feed the monster candy but the candy is attached to a rope. You have to cut the rope to drop the candy into his mouth. Sometimes this is very easy, other times it requires you to swing the rope, move objects, or other wise manipulate the candy so that it can fall into his mouth.

4. Read Me Stories Cute little books that it reads out loud to you. With internet the parent can put in a code and get a new book every day but books you already 'have' don't need internet to access.

5. 3 Mice lite You have to move the cheese and the traps around to make sure the mice can get to the cheese but the rats get trapped.

6. Angry Birds I think just about everyone knows of angry birds by now but really it's totally education. You have to figure out how far your birds will fly, if you change the trajectory if they will still hit their targets and several other mathy awesomeness. All while killing those mean old piggies.

7. Rocket Math free you build a rocket (which needs to have certain bits in order to be able to fly into space) Once you launch it it sends you to space where you have to solve math problems which earn you more money for your rocket and keep you in the air longer.)
Okay now this one isn't really a preschooler ap but my preschooler likes to build the rocket and shoot it off into the air where he then hits random planets (the math answers) He doesn't seem to mind that it's a math game.

8. Spongebob Marble *this has 1 free bit to it and the rest is pay all in the one download which is slightly annoying*  This is really kinda awesome. You have little spongebob marbles which need to go into the hole but you have to 'paint' a track for them to get there. As you move through the levels you sometimes need to work with opening buttons or magnets so that the marbles can get to where they need to be.

9. Gingerbread Fun You bake and decorate a gingerbread man. Not really educational but a lot of fun and the best part is 'eating' your gingerbread man as it makes a lovely crunch crunch sound.