Friday, February 20, 2009

iPhone games for toddlers

There was recent news about how video games are good for kids.  This reminded me that I wanted to write how Avril enjoy playing games on the iPhone.  She started playing them before she turned three and by now she has tried a few.  Here are a few of those games and the experience of one three year-old girl:

Cute Math
This game is designed for small children and Avril really likes it.  Counting and addition of small numbers are easy for her and the cute animation and sounds are a lot of fun.  She also likes the game of shaking apples from a tree even though she doesn't really know subtraction yet.  Cute Math is better than PopMath for children who are beginning to count since it uses animation to show the result of addition and subtraction.

PopMath
Another game specifically designed for small children and we had it before Cute Math.  PopMath is for kids who already know how to count because it doesn't help you visualize the operations.  But once the child doesn't need visualization anymore, PopMath is better than Cute Math because it progresses from simpler math to more complex math and eventually lets you deal with slightly larger numbers and more operations (it lets you use the four basic operations) and it is more addictive because of its competitive aspect.

Drawing applications
There are many of those available on the iPhone and we tried quite a few.  Kids love them.  My recommendation is to try the free ones first before (if at all) paying for drawing apps.  Of the free ones, we liked Colors! Lite and DrawR.  You can see a longer list here.  We also ended up buying Y.Painter+ which Avril liked most of all the drawing programs.

MazeFinger
This game is great for small children because it starts with very simple mazes and it has appealing graphics.  I usually turn off the music though.

Rolando
This is an excellent game for grown-ups too.  I am really impressed with how well designed it is.  The full game is $9.99 but so far we just got the free Rolando Lite.  Avril can only complete the first two levels anyway.

Weather
This is a built-in application on the iPhone and Avril loves to check what the weather will be on the phone.

Clock
Also a built-in application.  I have set up a few cities in Asia, Europe and the US.  The app shows time for each of those cities and make the city dark or not depending whether it is night or day in that city.  Avril often checks this app and says that it is night now in Shenzhen or that it is day now in Poland.

If you know any other games that are good for young children, please let me know.

29 comments:

DarrenMurtha said...

Here's a description about a super game for 3 to 6 year olds:

"Shape Builder educates and entertains your little one (ages 3 to 6) with easy to move shapes that snap into place on top of silhouette puzzles. Each puzzle has 5 to 10 pieces and after positioning all of the pieces, the real image is revealed along with a professional voice recording of the word spoken by Jill Dews, a licensed speech therapist. Shape Builder encourages cognitive thinking and fine motor skills plus exposes young minds to new music instruments, animals, produce, objects and the alphabet in a fun and engaging format with LOTS of sound effects!"

Highlights:

Total of 120 puzzles!
24 Music instruments with sound effects
17 Fruits & Vegetables
37 Animals - most animals have sound effects
26 Letters - speech therapist sounds out each letter in a fun way
16 other fun items like Firetruck, and Police Officer
Random play resets after all puzzles are completed


Here's the website with some info:
http://www.touchscreenpreschoolgames.com/

The youtube video of my son demonstrating the game (funny because he sounds out the instrument sound effects before they happen):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxbD6IeLylw

and the iTunes link:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=306572986

enjoy!

Anonymous said...

I'd also suggest FlipFrog http://tropicalpixels.com/flipfrog-appstore a fun litle app for toddlers and kids. My 2 year old is addicted.

Simeon Peebler said...

Hello, I would recommend my game BLiP Bloink. The easy settings are perfect for children 4+ and the more difficult settings are fun for adults. go to blipfungames.com for more information

Patrick Allen said...

I wanted to add my game here also as it is geared towards pre-readers. Artsee Activities is a painting and shape recognition game. You can see screenshots at my site, BriteJar.com or at the iTunes AppStore: Artsee Activities.

Michał Cierniak said...

Thanks for app suggestions! I'm a little slow with Internet usage recently but I've tried the Shape Builder and Artsee Free. My daughter liked both. :)

I may try FlipFrog (99c) and BLiP Bloink Lite (free) as I get more time.

Michał Cierniak said...

Yesterday I installed FlipFrog. Avril liked this game from the start and today shared it with her friend Kyra at dinner. It looked like they both had fun.

Unknown said...

I would like to recommend an educational game that my 3 year old really likes Learn to Talk
He loves going through the colorful flash cards, listen to the words and repeat them. He has learnt a lot of new words for the past couple of weeks.

Anonymous said...

A new game that just came out that my little ones ADORE is called Jump! They don't have to touch the screen to play....just move the phone back and forth which is nice and easy....even for my youngest. I like it too.

Connie said...

Fairlady Media has recently released Whizzit Counting for preschoolers. This super-fun counting game features great music, fun sound effects, lively animations, and great graphics! Rather than just memorization of numbers, it teaches counting of true quantities. Developed by an Educational Psychologist and parents of preschoolers! Check it out:

http://whizzit.fairladymedia.com

Connie said...

Also, you may find this blog article interesting:

"If you give a toddler an iPhone..."

Unknown said...

The flagrant and repeated comment spam from someone obviously affiliated with Juicebox are pathetic.

Michał Cierniak said...

@futnuh: You're right. I haven't been visiting this post for a while. Let me delete these Juicebox comments.

@Brianna: Posting the same comment about your game to someone's blog is really uncool. You should really change your marketing strategy.

Ricky Vuckovic said...

If anybody is interested in a cute game that caters both for kids learning to spell, and those just wanting some fun, I'd like to recommend my recently released game - Pogg.

My 15 month old son is addicted, understood how to play (the "random" button and picture mode) very quickly and has learned a surprising amount of vocab by playing it with me. Older kids are having fun spelling with it, and it is receiving great reviews from parents and teachers.

http://www.rickyvuckovic.com

Penny Gamer said...

These games are for infants...not toddlers.

Anonymous said...

I babysit my 4 year old and 2 year old cousins during the week, and entertaining them can be challenging. One day, my 4-year old cousin took my iPod Touch from my purse, and started pushing buttons. This got me to thinking…if I could find some kid-friendly apps that are fun (and educational) I could probably keep them entertained for quite awhile. I did a search and discovered Robot Coloring book, which was perfect because both of them are quite into robots to start with. There are four themes to choose from: Friendly, Silly, Evil, or Wacky. This coloring book app is great and easy to use. All you do is choose the robot you want to color, touch a color, then touch the area you want to fill in. I think my cousins’ favorite feature is that you can save your drawings to the iPod. They love showing their mom what they’ve created. Overall, this app has given me a great new way to entertain my cousins. The only problem that comes up is that they need to take turns! :-)

Luke said...

Check out AWazDat, it's a great new app for toddlers with fun pictures, sounds, and colors!

http://www.awazdat.com

Unknown said...

My 3-year old son LOVES a game called Monkey Preschool Lunchbox. It's actually like 4 games in one - matching, counting, puzzle, and letter recognition. You even get to pick new "stickers" throughout the game for doing well. I'd definitely recommend it.

anusen said...

We have developed a handful of applications for kids and mainly focusing on education category.

Math Magic: Kids can learn as well as have fun with math. They can practice addition, subtraction, multiplication and divisions. Random problems will be shown to the kids and they need to choose the correct answer

Word Magic: Kids need to choose the missing letters for the picture shown. Best suited for kids from UKG till 2nd standard. http://wordmagic.anusen.com

Math Series: Kids need to identify the missing numbers. The numbers could either be in descending or in ascending orders. http://mathseries.anusen.com

Match Magic: This application is best suited for younger kids < 6 years. They need to match the pictures/colors/count the numbers by identifying and matching them. http://matchmagic.anusen.com

Count Magic: This application is also suited for kids < 6 years. This app helps to kids to learn counting. They need to catch the number shown. As they keep counting, audio voice will help the kids in counting.

Think BIG: This app is kids in 5 to 10 age group. A group of numbers are shown. They need to pick up the largest or smallest number.


All of our games have rewards and stickers and scores built to motivate and encourage the kids.

Please check them out at http://www.anusen.com and videos @ http://www.youtube.com/kidsiphoneapps

Anonymous said...

Try TowerSmash! Most of the supposedly kid-friendly apps still have little buttons sprinkled around that are too easy for kids to accidentally touch, and they bring up alerts or end the game or clear the screen or what not.

TowerSmash is simply a simulation of a favorite kid toy - wooden blocks. You tap to stack them up and tap to throw balls to knock them down, and that's it! Simple, educational, and toddlers love it! Even 6 and 8 years olds fight to play it :-)

http://brattonbrothers.com/towersmash/

Unknown said...

Great suggestions! Also, I recently released two iphone games for kids.

Jumbo Match
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jumbo-match/id338022199?mt=8
Jumbo match is a memory matching game with 10 themes to choose from.

Merry Match
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/merry-match/id343152878?mt=8
Merry Match, is a Christmas only version of Jumbo Match, with an expanded 40 Christmas themed game pieces.

Both games are for ages 4 and up and are fun for all ages.

Anonymous said...

When I was younger, my parents used a points system for keeping track of what chores my brothers and I completed around the house. Once you earned so many points, you got a reward, whether it was an increased allowance or choosing a restaurant to go eat at. We used a plain old chart with stickers, but I recently came across an app called Kid Point Tracking. This app is super-handy, and it is really user-friendly. The first time you open the app, it will ask for the child’s name, age, and give you the option to upload a photo. You can also customize the lists and rewards. You can add to the default lists, and change the point values. Once you’ve got everything set up, you just have to choose the child you’re recording points for, pick the category, and choose the action they completed to earn points. I love that you can take it with you anywhere you go, it’s so convenient! Plus, there’s a “Reports” button that allows you to see how many points each child earned per day or week. It will also tell you what actions they performed, which is handy. Overall, this is a great app, and so useful!

Anonymous said...

Kid Point Tracking - more blatant copy text spam from Juicebox software which was removed from this thread a while ago for automated spam. At least this time it reads like a real person wrote it and not a jarbled up spaminator.

Anonymous said...

I recommend LittleFish. It's optimized for ages 3 to 6, but my 1.5y old boy love to watch the cute fish.
It has no scores, it's just about finding the anemone by tilting the iphone or ipod touch.
Cute, nice, great!

http://itunes.com/apps/littlefish

Cheers, Andrea

Anonymous said...

we have developed a new fun app for kids.
ABC zoo is a teaching and developing iPhone and iPod touch application for your kids. Easy-to-use on a trip or whenever you are out with your children to amuse or keep them busy. A useful and funny app that lets your kid get used to reading. Your kids will learn alphabet while playing.
available here:
http://www.xoxol.net

Unknown said...

My son (two-and-a-half years old toddler) inspired me to create a small app I called Construct-o-Set.

It brings the idea of building block sets to the iPhone. We are planning to add much more sets, and options to download more. Currently there are 5 sets.

Have a look at http://www.polymorph.co.za/iPhone.html

Enjoy.

Anonymous said...

Talking about the best iPhone apps for kids I would like to mention about Kinder Hangman - http://sharkfuel.com/kinderhangman.html that is specially designed to improve vocabulary of kids and help them remember new words. iTune link is http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kinder-hangman/id375734517?mt=8 This iPhone app works to improve child's development and can be used to prepare kids for school. It is intended for kids of 4-6 years.

Anonymous said...

You'll also want to check out Toddler Trainer iPhone App. Great for the kids.

High Tower said...

I would also recommend parents to consider such educational iPhone app for their kids as Kinder Hangman It is an interesting iPhone game that is helpful for child development and allows kids to learn new words quickly and effectively. Learning process is organized as an interesting game with graphical themes and animations. Great app!

GooGoo app for toddlers said...

My son enjoys a lot GooGoo.

It's an interactive book for toddlers 1-4 years.
Link is
http://itunes.apple.com/app/googoo/id485282209?ls=1&mt=8