iLearnWith: Animals

This is an excellent game that teaches kids about animals and their habitats. There are 3 levels, each level is the same format but is slightly more challenging than the last. The objective is to make your way across a map and find a character. The way you find the character is to follow the trail of animals they met on their journey.

Screenshots show levels 1 and 3.

The player has 4 animal images and has to use the audio clues given to figure out which animal the character saw first, once you get the correct animal, you will move forward on the map, once you’ve done them all, you find the character. It’s a simple concept so even the youngest (age or developmentally) can try it, but it progresses in difficulty so the older ones enjoy it too.

The first level gives you clues as to the kind of animal and you pick the right one. The second level gives you clues about the animal, then about their habitat, so you narrow it down that way. The third level gives you clues about the animal, the habitat and then the living habits to narrow it down.

A great way to teach associations, listening skills and about wildlife.

A great option for introducing and developing a child’s interest in wildlife and the environment.

iLearnWith Poko: Seasons

(I realized I have the iPhone version installed and x2 on my iPad, so bear with me with the screenshots.)

This has to be my favorite of the 3 apps, simply because there aren’t a great many apps that teach kids about seasons and appropriate seasonal clothing.

As with the other iLearnWith apps, iLearnWith Seasons has 3 levels, each level teaches a weather related skill and is harder than the one before it.

Level 1 gives you clues and asks you to touch the correct pictures showing those weather conditions. Level 2 shows you an image and has you touch the things in the picture that don’t match the weather, this teaches appropriate clothing and to recognize different characteristics of different weather patterns. Level 3 gives you a calendar with the days of the week, each day showing the weather and the Month written at the top, the audio tells you the season. What you have to do is choose from the activity options, something appropriate for the weather on a given day.

I’d love to see an activity where you have to choose appropriate clothing for Poko and Bibi (the 2 characters) for a given weather condition.

Screenshots show levels 2 and 3.

Excellent tool for children who struggle with understanding or learning appropriate weather attire and how to keep themselves safe and comfortable in different weather conditions.

iLearnWith Poko: Additions

This app is another great one which both my 4 year old and my 6 year old have enjoyed and played with often.

As with the other 2 apps, this app has 3 levels of increasing difficulty. This app, as the name suggests, teaches addition.

Level 1 has Poko (the little boy character) bowling with his dog Minus. Once they’ve knocked down a random number of bowling pins, you touch each one that has fallen and it moves them to the middle. It then shows you 2 numbers and asks which number shows the amount of pins they knocked down combined. This is a simple way to introduce the concept of adding, we’re not actually doing any adding since we’re just counting then all as one lump, but we are in fact adding the 2 scores to find the answer.

Level 2 has Poko, Minus and their friend Bibi in the sandbox with blocks. The audio tells us they 2 friends need to share their blocks to build something. We touch one characters set of blocks and it moves it to the middle and tells us how many are in the set, we do the same with the other set of blocks, it then asks us how many blocks there are all together. This moves on further with the concept of adding because the groups remain separate and we have to count them all to find the answer.

Level 3 completes the introduction to addition by introducing the equation complete with the plus and equals signs. You have to click the 2 groups of toys that Poko is thinking of (so there might be pencils and books but Poko only wants you to count the books, which there are 2 groups of). When you touch one group it puts the number on the board as an addend, the same happens with the second number and then you have to choose the correct answer from 3 numbers.

An absolutely fantastic tool for introducing and developing addition skills.

This is our list of developers and what they’re bringing to the party! We’ll keep updating the list as more developers join us. Don’t forget to thank them for their support, RSVP to the event on Facebook and of course, like us on facebook so you can join in on April 2nd.

Developers supporting our Autism Awareness App Party

• 2BME Studios will be joining us with their fire safety app 2BME Firefighter.
• I’ll have some codes to give out from I Learn With who have some gorgeous apps teaching about Weather, Math and Animals.
• Over The Moon Stories are setting their Islamic storybook apps Allah Made the World and Ramadan Mubarak – Happy Ramadan FREE on April 2nd in support.
• One of our favorite drawing apps Colorific will be FREE from April 1-3 in support.
• Mobile Education Store will be joining us. They make simply amazing language and social learning apps like LanguageBuilder and ConversationBuilder. We have codes for their apps SentenceBuilder and SentenceBuilder Teen to give away at the party.
• Buse Bee Studios will be joining us with Codes for their amazing educational apps Giggle Ghosts (iPad) and Zoo Train (Universal).
• PlayTales will have some codes and free stories for their library app.
• PixelMoon will join us with codes for their book app Urki: Beyond the Forest.
• Grembe Apps may not have any codes but they are supporting our party and we encourage anyone who needs a communication, visual/video schedule or modeling app or a reward app to check out iCommunicate, My Pictures Talk and iReward respectively.
• We’ll have codes to give out for Pyxwise‘s fantastic spelling app Simplex Spelling Phonics 1.
• Bebebe Co. will join us with codes for their colors learning app BabyLearns: Colors.
• I have codes to give out for LearningTouch‘s amazing apps First Words: Animals, First Words: Professional (perfect for teachers or therapists!) and the amazing learning to read series Bob Books #1 and Bob Books #2.
• I have 5 copies of Sight Words Hangman which uses the classic hangman game to promote early literacy.
• We’ll be giving away 3 paper copies of the amazing story Penelope the Purple Pirate, signed by the super fantastic author Melissa Northway. Read our review to learn what’s so special about Penelope.
• My PlayHome, with their absolutely awesome virtual playhouse app, will join us at the party.
• The all around amazing Toca Boca can’t join us due to time zone differences but I have some Toca Kitchen and Toca House codes from them for the party.
• Let’s Go Chipper will have some fun prizes to tell you about that you can get within their very fun kids environmental awareness app.
• Language Learning Apps will be joining us with their app Question It. This app was designed to teach children with Autism about WH questions and is based on the developers’ years of experience in therapy with autistic children.
• We’ll have some codes for the unique and very well made Islamic Rewards tracking app iSawab.
• The amazing Oceanhouse Media have given me some codes for ‘Cuddly as a Bunny’ and ‘Little Critter: All By Myself’ story apps for the party.
• I have codes from HappyKids Apps for their very cool ‘HappyKids Veterinarian’ app, a very fun role playing games that my kids have really enjoyed.
• One of our favorite developers Pi’ikea Street has given me 2 codes for Interactive Alphabet to give away with a special article link I think you’ll all love!
• Fellow Kiwi’s, Kiwa Media has given me codes for ‘Off We Go To The Dentist’ and ‘Off We Go On A Plane’ which are story apps that prepare kids for these anxiety inducing experiences.
• Little Learning Tots will be there with their apps Counting Numbers, My First Songs and Learn to Count.
• Spirit-Led Designs has a new book app Lily’s Picturebook designed for visually impaired children, the app also teaches over 50 ASL words using simple videos. Very cool! We’ll give this app away to some readers based on need.
• Operatio Apps doesn’t have any codes to offer but they’re supporting our party and will pop in at the end to let you all know about their current free/sale apps and promotions. Operatio Apps makes award winning math apps, they are perhaps the best quality and most fun math apps we have tested!
• I have 5 codes for Dr. Brown’s Autism Apps‘ Autism/DTT Shapes app. As the name suggests, these apps are designed specifically with people with autism in mind but no doubt have great benefit for many different needs, abilities and developmental levels. They have their ‘Autism DX/Treatment’ and ‘DTT Words’ apps FREE for this whole week as well.

Don’t see your favorite developer on the list? Ask them if they’ll join us and tell them where to get in touch! We can’t wait to see you all there!

Who? Muslim Friendly Apps and Blue Hijab Day are hosting. EVERYONE is welcome, whether you’re involved in the autism or special needs community or not we want to see you there, and bring a friend!

When? Monday April 2nd 4-5pm CST (Please note the updated time)

Where? Muslim Friendly Apps facebook page.

Why? Promote awareness about Autism and other special needs and how apps can help open up the world for people with and without special needs. As a meet and greet between developers and readers and *hopefully* to get some apps into the hands of some people who can use them wisely.

RSVP:  Autism Awareness App Party event page.

Help make this a successful event:

• Share on your facebook wall, twitter, pages, blogs, pinterest, google+ …
• Invite your facebook friends to our event and to our page through the facebook invite and share features.
• Let your favorite developers know you support them and would love to have them join us on April 2nd.

Thank you and see you there!

To use the app you simply input the deeds you’ve done as you do them, for example, when you pray, tap the Prayer section, then tap the prayer you’ve just completed, it will bring up a box asking if you prayed at home, work or mosque. The app does a very cool thing with this information, it gives you points! For example if you prayed at home, you get 100 points, at work you get 200 and if you pray in the Mosque you get 2,500 points. This is a great way to encourage yourself to be more consistent, and is a sort of tangible rewards system that could help people to understand the non-tangible rewards they are gaining (or losing) with Allah (God), a concept I’m sure many find difficult to keep ahold of in day to day life.

(Click for larger images)

As you can see from the screenshots above, the developer has included a huge range of sunnah (practices of the prophet) and fard (obligatory) actions including volunteering and social activities (which I thought were fantastic additions). It’s all laid out clearly and I found the app simple and intuitive. I like that it’s comprehensive without being complicated.

The app includes a chart to view your progress and a target system to help you reach those self improvement goals and even ways to share your progress with others if you so desire.

At any place in the app you can tap the ‘Info’ button at the top and it will pop up a window with verses from the Qur’an and Ahadith (sayings of the Prophet – peace be upon him) related to that particular action. This is my favorite feature and is the perfect touch.

At first I wasn’t sure how an app like this could be useful, but I realized there are so many ways an app like this can be applied to our lives. If you’re a new Muslim who’s trying to adapt to an Islamic lifestyle, a young Muslim who is just getting to the age where these actions become important for you, a busy Muslim who needs to fit these important parts of life into you schedule (or remember what you need to do next), or the struggling Muslim who needs targets and accountability. The app can be use privately, or it can be used as a group to help encourage and improve.

As with all Toca Boca apps, it’s an open ended, relatively simple ‘digital toy’ that is aimed at having fun and learning in the process. You have a family of characters, an older woman, an older yellow hulk-like creature, a girl, a boy and an even younger triangle headed creature. You can get to know their personalities and characters a little if you go in the front door and give them each several gifts, I thought this was a really interesting and excellent way to introduce the characters who live in the Toca House while still leaving it open ended.

As you go around the house you help the characters do various chores (clean windows, iron clothes, mow the lawn etc.) and the game ends when the sun goes down and you have the option of playing again. The chores can be repetitive (but then, what toy isn’t, take a real doll house for example, there is only so much you can do with it but it can keep you entertained if you use your imagination) but there is a good variety and multiple characters do multiple chores per room.

What I really REALLY love about this app is the subtle lessons buried under all the fun, it’s a family (a very diverse family I might add, which is always a good thing!) working together to do household chores and everyday things – and enjoying themselves! Although none of the activities has multiple characters at once, you get the sense they are working together, everyone has their own responsibilities around the house and does them happily and independently, what parent doesn’t want their kids to learn that one?

I haven’t had a thorough play myself yet so I’m not sure if there are games I haven’t seen, but I would love a room tidying activity and a bed making activity (because these are chores often assigned to younger kids). Really there are endless update opportunities in this app, I’m sure the Toca Boca team has some updates up their sleeve already and I know they love to hear your suggestions so don’t forget to say Hi on their facebook page and let them know your ideas.

Toca Boca, you’ve done it again and we can’t WAIT to see what else your team has for us down the line. Thanks for allowing us to check our Toca House early and tell our readers about it.

Toca House is currently in testing here so my screenshots aren’t available (I was told “Do you mind, I’m ironing!” by Mr 4y/o), I’ll upload them here when they are. In the mean time check out the Toca House trailer on Toca Boca’s YouTube channel, Toca Boca’s screenshots of the game on their flickr and our interview with Bjorn Jeffery from Toca Boca.

The story has some sweet background music that doesn’t interfere with the (also very sweet) narration or overpower the experience in any way. This music can’t be turned off which is why this app doesn’t get a ‘No Music’ tag, but I wouldn’t let that stop you. Even if you avoid music, this app is too good not to have! The narrators voice (by Ruby of ‘Ruby Studios’, who is a human we meet at the beginning and end of the story, see the second screenshot below) is very sweet and soothing, great for bedtime reading.

The characters in the illustrations are little felt animals which gives the story a very unique feel. They are minimally interactive and minimally animated which, if you read my reviews you know, I prefer for children’s stories especially for bedtime.

The story itself is not so much a story but a discussion about feelings, what they are, what they mean and how everyone has them. Being the parents of 2 children on the autism spectrum, we have done a LOT of conscious feelings and emotions learning/teaching in our home, we have many feelings books, feelings charts and feelings apps and feelings discussions are commonplace here, so we know a good feelings tool when we see it, and this is a great one!

On many of the pages you touch the characters and they will make a comment about how they are feeling. On one page they say Valentines Day related things like “Happy Valentines Day”, “Be Mine” etc. which is why the app didn’t get a ‘No Holidays’ tag. I decided to give it a ‘No Romance’ tag though because even with the valentines day mention, technically there is nothing romantic in the app. There is a little pig character (you can see him in the screenshots above) so I didn’t tag it ‘No Pigs’ but he could just as easily be a pink teddy bear and I would happily give it the ‘No Pigs’ tag as well.

Choco is an adorable, fluffy, sweet Bunny, his school says he needs a check-up so he asks a few friends what that means. He ends up going to see ‘Poppi’ and ‘Nana’ (Grandfather and Grandmother, who are humans), Poppi is a Dr and he gives Choco a full check-up.

I just love that the Author has used a rabbit instead of a child, this allows the child to remain removed enough from the story so that they don’t put themselves in Choco’s shoes and get anxious about it. It gives the kids something other than the rabbit’s experience to focus on (the novelty of it being a fluffy rabbit in the first place). I also think using a Grandfather figure as the Dr was a great touch. I wasn’t sure at first but decided that this allows the reader to see the Dr as a kind and trusted person. It gives the Dr character dimension, instead of being just ‘A Doctor’, he is a person we care about and who has another role as well, he is aslo Poppi.

The narration of the story is very gentle and even which adds another layer of comfort and reassurance to the story. Also a little birdie told me Dr. Poppi is a real-life human Dr who practices medicine in Western Kentucky.

Throughout the book on each page there are little question marks that flash softly (see the screenshot above), you touch them and the narrator asks questions relating to that page and what’s happening on it. At the end of the book there is a ‘photo-walk’ (first screenshot below) with audio about 2 girls who get a check-up (including a shot) at the Dr’s office (where the Dr happens to be their mother). After the photo-walk there is a list of all the conversation questions from each page (the ones that were asked when you tapped the question mark) so you can go back over them. I’d love the ability to skip between these questions and the respective pages to make reviewing the questions with the images they relate to easier.

The book goes even further and offers Reading Strategies and a Word list (see screenshots below), making this story an all around excellent teaching tool for many different learning environments.

You have one letter at a time, the app has an audio prompt “The letter A, the sound ‘a’, Apple.” to teach the sound each letter makes and associate it with a word, it also has a picture of the example (see screenshots below). You then trace the letter (which has arrows to show you the correct starting point/s and direction). I really like this approach, it’s simple so as not to be distracting, but multi-sensory (visual, audio and kinetic). When you’ve finished writing a letter you have the option of seeing a replay of how you wrote it, the app will show a pencil writing the letter exactly as you did. I would like to see the option of seeing the pencil write the letter correctly as well, that would add another educational dimension to the app that I think would help kids who struggle with letter formation.

You have the option of British or US English for the audio (first screenshot below), which I always like to see and the app has an instructions page (see second screenshot below) which teaches you how to use the app and offers some suggestions for how to use it with a student/your child. The delete option on single letter pages has you tap twice to help prevent accidental deletion, great feature. The ‘Reset Drawings’ option on the main page behaves the same, there is no prompt letting you know the action has been taken though which would be nice but isn’t a big deal.

The design of the app needs a little work, the initial screen and instructions screen can be a bit confusing (and sometimes hard to switch between as the app doesn’t always go back to where you expect when you press the home icon), but the apps intended purpose works well and it is an excellent educational tool, well worth a look. The ‘L’ page appears to be missing it’s lady bug also. Other than that, be aware there is a Pig on the letter P which is why the app wasn’t tagged No Pigs.

To set up the app you add children (first screen shot below) then you add tasks/behaviors (second screen shot below). When you add a child you have the option of adding a user image, changing the color scheme of the app for that child (see screen shots 3 and 4 where we changed it to green) choosing what sort of reward image they get (i.e. stars, smilies etc.) and options for how the reward system behaves (including whether or not to play a visual reward on completion, I really like having the option to turn those off).

When you add a task/behavior you add the reward, what the desired behavior is (this can be changed to Task in the settings), how many times the behavior/task should be completed before the reward is given, images and you can record some praise to be played upon completion.

You also have the option of using google image search to add images to a behavior/task, which is handy especially if the reward is something you don’t already have.

When you add a star (or smilie face in our case) you have a very simple screen (see first screenshot below) At the top is the name of the reward, the task or behavior to be completed and then the tokens. I didn’t add any images to this one (sorry) but if I had then they would also be here on the page as a visual reminder and incentive. I would like the grayed out token image to match the chosen token image (notice the chosen image is a smilie but the grayed image is still the default star), it’s a bit confusing to have the 2 different token images, but this isn’t a major problem.

On a childs main page (see second screen shot below) it will have a list of completed and not yet completed tasks. It keeps a tally of how many tokens they need to get to complete the task or behavior and how many they have gotten. The completed ones will show in green and not complete will be red. Down the bottom you have the option of copying a task and pasting it so you can repeat it. Notice in the screen shot the child has completed a task and gotten a reward, and the task has then been copied (by me, not automatically). I really like that feature.

Overall this is a solid reward chart app. Once again Grembe apps focuses on flexibility and usability rather than looks. Not that the designer in me wouldn’t like a more attractive interface, but this is a no nonsense reward chart which great flexibility and in the end, how it looks is of minimal importance.