Tag: Educational app »

With thousands and thousands of apps available for adults and children, there will be some great ones, some that are so-so and some that are poor. And, of course, an app that one person loves another person will not think is that great. This happens with food, books, TV shows, and, well, just about everything. This the way that I am going to review Kidz World Pro: First, let me tell you my overall thoughts about the app. Then, I’ll take the other side and find some positive things to say.

Kidz World Pro calls itself a “creative application” that will keep your children busy. Its description of the app talks about the “the love and feelings between a parent and a child,” “bliss” “euphoria,” “alphabets are the first thing children recognize before they speak their first word” and, finally, “we hope that you’ll find another memory to cherish with this application.” Based on this description, I thought that this app would provide a “blissful” way for parents and children to interact and learn together. This is great. I believe that there should be many more apps adults and children can enjoy with one another, instead of the child just playing or learning alone. Then I tried out the app. Basically, Kidz World Pro is the same as many library books for toddlers and pre-schoolers that show different pictures of letters, numbers and objects. I remember sitting down with my sons with some of these books when they were learning to talk. I pointed to the picture and said, “This is a ball.” When they were a little older, I pointed to the picture and said, “What is this?”

Kidz World Pro includes the alphabet with a picture for each letter, pictures of fruits and their names in no special order and the same with vegetables, numbers, shapes with the number of sides, and colors that do not show how mixing colors make another color. There is also a series of children’s rhymes and the Jungle Baby story with difficult-to-read type. There is no interaction with the visuals on the pages. I would much rather go to the library and get a word book and look at the pictures. This is especially true since some of the fruit and vegetable names are not correct in American English, such as “bilberries” for blueberries.

That being said, I promised the other perspective. This app would be educational to use when you go to the grocery store and are looking at all the vegetables and fruits. Your toddler or preschooler can look at the pictures and keep busy while in the grocery cart.
When my kids were young, I used our time together in the car as a learning experience. Your child can look at the app while you’re driving along, and you can count together, talk about the colors and what things he/she sees outside with the same color, or talk about favorite fruits or vegetables. There are lots of games you can make up using the app as an added educational tool. The app would also be helpful for people who are learning the English language either in the U.S. or another country.

What child would not want to make toys? That’s what I thought when I saw the name of this app. The app, itself, offers a number of different coordination and cognitive skills, but the title is misleading. The author says it was approved by his/her own toddler. Well, that toddler has a lot more ability than mine ever did! I would actually call this “Children’s Toy Factory” app rather than “Toddler” Toy Factory, because it has more abilities at the level of preschool and even kindergarten than toddler. In fact, the memory game in the “hard” mode could even be played by an older child or adult—admittedly, my memory is not the best, but I even had difficulty remembering where everything was in the “hard” mode. Best for a toddler’s age is the counting in the “Ship” room. I like the music that accompanies the app, it’s whimsical, and the sound effects add to the app’s entertainment value.

The Toddler Toy Factory does offer a good selection for long playing and learning time, and I like the fact that the child can advance upward from the “easy” mode as the skill is acquired in two of the rooms. In the first room, “Make,” the child reads the letter on the left hand side of the screen and chooses the correct letter from mixed up letter blocks on the right hand side. Then the letter is dragged over, so both letters match and then dropped into the toy machine. As each letter is dropped, it spells a word and out pops the toy that is spelled. The word is repeated, so the child knows what was made and how it is spelled. This is not an easy concept, either, and parents will need to explain it to the child. As the toys are made and piled on the factory floor, they can be tossed around and then back into the machine, if desired.

The “Find” room is an old-fashioned matching game, which is always fun and great for memory skills. The children will most likely be on the easy mode for some time. As the correct matches are made, the toys are dropped to the floor. Once again, they can be tossed around or put back into the machine’s spout to clean up the room. The toys are added to a number counter up top when the go back in. Adding a voice over counting the toys as they go in would add another counting skill. In the “Ship” room, the children drag and drop toys from the shelves into a barrel for shipping. The numbers are counted out loud until the last one is ready for shipping. The “easy” to “medium” to “hard” mode increases the number of items, so larger numbers are learned.