Brains My Body Review

Brains My Body is a very nice interactive app for children which teaches about basic anatomy and diversity and includes fun facts about the body.

The look of this app is crisp and clean, with colorful, textured woven fabric used as the background for these activities.

Also of note are the layered ambient sounds heard throughout, consisting of a beating heart, blowing wind and wind chimes - interesting choices I have enjoyed listening to.

Eight sections are included, four of which are puzzles that ask children to re-build the body. I do appreciate how this puzzle includes multiple levels of difficulty, seen in each of these sections as these puzzles become more in-depth.

The basic body structure is covered as one adds the head, chest arms and legs into an outline of a body, while a second level breaks down these parts into smaller ones while chunky parts like head, chest, thigh or foot still remain.

There is also a puzzle focusing on facial features, as at first the face is divided into strips such as hair, eyebrow, eyes, nose and mouth - pieces that must be placed back into a face template. In the second level, these features such as both eyes and ears need to be placed back where they belong independently as well as other areas of the face.

It is especially nice how in this face puzzle section, one can choose between a variety of faces, including diverse choices such as an Asian character and darker skin-toned non-Caucasian to re-build, adding to the re-play of this section as well as the diverse nature of this application.

The skeletal system has its own dedicated section, optionally narrating these bones as one places them back where they belong inside a body outline.

At first these skeletal pieces are large, consisting of a single piece for the trunk, arms, and legs, while later, in the second and third levels, breaking the spine, pelvis and ribcage into individual pieces, ultimately including each side of the rib cage as a separate piece, as are the hands and feet, upper and forearms, shin, and shin bone.

The internal organs are also touched upon here, as one needs to place the organs back into the body where they belong.

Again, during the first level of this game, these body parts are grouped together, such as brain and spinal column, lung and trachea, large and small intestines, bladder and kidneys, each of these pieces then separated into individual parts ultimately adding the nose and mouth cavity, as well as also including the pancreas, spleen and gallbladder.

Three other activities are included, such as an activity to tap various parts of the body to peel back a level, such as from the chest to the internal organs to then see an x-ray view of the bones. A variety of skin tones and different heads are included. One can also scroll through with a tap, creating an anatomical model of the player’s choosing.

There is also a chance to interact with a beating heart, as tapping in time to the beats will fill the body with blood, allowing children to see the coronary arteries fill, delivering blood throughout the body. A mistimed tap will remove blood. There are three levels to this exercise, increasing the speed of the heart being pumped, thus increasing the difficulty of this interaction.

One also has a chance to see a cross section of a body in order to view digestion at work. Do tap the hose included within the stomach as this adds necessary digestive juices needed to move the food through the body and out the other end, complete with flatulence noises - appropriate for this app.

A memory game is also included where one needs to turn over tiles in order to make pairs, with three levels ranging from twelve to sixteen tiles in play.

Each of these sections includes a magnifying glass that one can tap to read an interesting fact. A camera icon is also included to take and save a screen shot to the camera roll of one’s device.

The main note I have is that the organization of these sections could be arranged together - including the most basic sections as well as the more in depth anatomy puzzles.

This is a very nice, very stylized app introducing the human body to young children. I do see this app as a good choice for toddlers and early preschoolers and beyond as well as their adults who will enjoy this app a great deal, as these puzzles are reminiscent of multiple-layered wood puzzles I have always been interested in.