The iPhone Mom

Coloring By Pattern gives you a coloring page and then an example to copy. The app awards points for correctly following this example. It also keeps track of the number of taps and time it takes you to finish your coloring. To fill in the picture you tap on a crayon at the bottom of the screen and then tap on a section of the picture. If you make a mistake you can tap on the correct color and then tap on the section again. When you’re all done you can shake your iPhone to erase what you’ve done. To choose a new picture you’ll need to tap on the open book icon. Right now there are ten pictures to choose from, all with a beach theme. The colored example is shown in a small square at the top left of the screen. If you’d like to see it enlarged then double tap on the square. I found myself having to enlarge the example several times but my son didn’t have to do it once.

There are a few things that I think would be nice additions to the app. The first is a scoreboard. The app gives you points and keeps track of your time but older children might like to record that score and see how they improve. To be honest they’d probably also want to compete against siblings. Or is that just my house?? I also think the example square could be a smidge bigger and it would be nice if you could swipe the screen to switch to a new picture instead of having to back out to the coloring book pages. Lastly, the app could use more coloring pages. But overall, I like the idea behind Coloring By Pattern. The combination of memory, matching skills and coloring is fun and something different.

*There is a Lite version of the app available. It features two coloring pages.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Alis App

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

I think that Tap & Learn Animals is best suited for older babies and toddlers. It’s divided into two sections, “Tap and Learn” and “Choose and Learn”. In “Tap and Learn” you tap on a picture of an animal and then hear it’s name and sound. There are twelve animals to choose from. Six on the first screen and then swipe left with your finger to see another six. In “Choose and Learn” the app asks “where is the…” or “do you see the…” and you have to tap on the animal it asks for.  Tap & Learn is a simple app but it’s well done with cute animals and realistic animal sounds.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Anna Islamova

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

1 Little Boy is a storybook app that tells the tale of a little boy who goes for a skip down the country road and finds some friends along the way. Each time he meets a new friend the app counts them up…one little boy, two a royal toad, three a country mouse, etc. The little boy goes for quite a skip and ends up in all sorts of places. There are two types of pages/screens to this story. The first shows the little boy meeting someone new. On this page you can tap on the characters and they’ll do or say something. The second type of page is a screen where the boy and his friends are skipping down the road. At first the screen is blank but if you tap on it the boy and friends will appear, one at a time. The app will count them as you tap. When they’re all accounted for you can tap on them to hear what they “say”.

1Little Boy a cute story and I like the fact that it teaches counting skills. My only suggestion would be the addition of audio to the very last page of the story. There’s text to read but unlike the other pages in the app it’s not read aloud and it feels just a little bit disjointed at the end. Be sure to take a close look at the last illustration. It took me a minute to realize what I was looking at and it’s a cute twist involving the cast of friends the little boy has met throughout the day.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Touchoo

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

Nursery Rhymes are a subject where I’ve shortchanged  my children. They’re just not something that I read much of when my kids were little. I know that they’ve learned a few in school but I’d be surprised if they knew about Old King Cole and they’d be shocked to learn about poor Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater’s wife.  Well here’s an app that  can help out any other nursery rhyme deficient mothers out there. The Mother Goose Classics app currently features nine classic nursery rhymes. They are Humpty Dumpty, Jack Be Nimble, Jack & Jill, Hickory Dickory Dock, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Hey Diddle Diddle, This Little Piggy and Pat a Cake. There is also a free version that features three rhymes.

The characters from the nursery rhymes appear on your screen and you tap on the one that you’d like to hear more about. (Only three characters show up on the screen at a time so you’ll need to scroll to the left and right.) Each nursery rhyme is presented over several screens. Tap on the text to hear it read aloud. Each rhyme has some animation to it and if you tap on the screen you can watch more things happen.

If you’re looking for a good introduction to Nursery Rhymes this isn’t a bad way to go and the animations are humorous. Personally, $1.99 for only nine rhymes feels a little high to me. Hopefully more rhymes will be added in future updates.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Raizlabs Corp.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

Flash Bee is a flashcard app that features both math and word flashcards. It will allow you to create different “student” profiles so you can use the app with more than one child and I’m always a big fan of this type of feature.

There are several buttons on the bottom of the screen that will help you navigate through the app. “Words” will take you to the word flashcard section.  Choose your student’s profile and then tap on the button that says “word list”. Here you can choose the grade level for the words that will show up on the flashcards.  The grades go from Pre-K to Fifth Grade and each grade has beginner, intermediate and advanced lists. (Many of them will also have more than one list per difficulty level.) In the options you can get specific about which grades and lists you want to work with.  There are a few additional options that you can choose from including setting a limit on the number of flashcards shown, determining when a “helper phrase” for the word will appear, randomizing the words, repeating the list and some sound options. When you’ve figured all that out it’s just a matter of tapping “start” and you’re off. A word is displayed on the screen and when you’ve read it correctly you tap the “next” button and you’re on to the next flashcard. At the end of the flashcard set you’ll see a summary of how you did overall. You can always view this information on the “history” section for your student (found by tapping the “Students” button). The history will tell you what list your child worked on, how many cards they reviewed and how long it took them to finish. One last thing about the word section – I really like the font that the developers chose for the word flashcards.

The “Math” button takes you to the main math flashcards screen. First thing you’ll want to do is choose between addition, subtraction, multiplication or division problems. Choosing  what you want is as easy as sliding a button on the screen from on to off. There are also options about the number of problems in your flashcard set, the number range for the problems and a time limit for the review. Again, when you’ve completed the flashcards you’ll have a summary of results and you can view those in history too.

I also found that if you tap the button “Word List” at the bottom of the screen you can see all of the word lists available for use with the flashcards. Here’s the part I was surprised about – you can also add your own words to the lists. Great concept! From what I can tell you can’t create new lists, just add in your own words to the existing ones.  It would be nice to be able to create new lists for weekly spelling words.

I like how Flash Bee combines the words plus the math facts. It’s nice to have a combination in one app. I also like how you can choose what math facts to practice and which words you’d like to review. It’s great being able to set up student profiles for each of my children and their different ability levels.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: BizzyTime, Inc.

I’ve seen coloring book apps that are good and coloring books that are, well, bad. Ones that are so complicated you’d need to be a rocket scientist to color a picture of a rocket (ok, exaggeration) and some that are so simple your kids will be bored from the get go. 123 Color is different. Here, different is good. Very good. It’s filled with fun pictures to color but it also teaches number and letter recognition at the same time. Your children will be learning while they are coloring.

The concept behind 123 Color is to match letters/numbers in the picture with letters/numbers that correspond to different colors. It’s like the color by numbers that I used to do when I was in school.  Just to be clear that’s Elementary school, not college. You can choose to color in uppercase letters, lowercase letters or numbers. There is also a “creative expression” option. Each of these options is assigned a button on the main screen. Tap a button and you’ll have a coloring page that has letters/numbers scattered around it. Now, at the bottom of the screen you’ll see a painter’s palette. Tap here to see your colors. This is important – swipe to the left and the colors will scroll along the bottom. There are more available colors than the ones which show up on the screen. (Unless you’ve selected 7 colors, more about that in a minute.) Now you tap on a color and then tap it’s matching letter/number on the page. If you need some help, tap on the coloring page first and the colors at the bottom will adjust to show you the set that contains the letter/number you’re looking for.  As a grand finale when your picture is fully colored you’ll hear a familiar children’s song.

123 Color was developed by Steve Glinberg who is behind KidCalc. Like KidCalc, this app has some great customization abilities. Within each activity you can adjust the settings. There is no need to visit a separate settings section. You can change the learning activity (lowercase letters, numbers, etc.) no matter what button you selected in the beginning. You can choose to hear things said aloud in English by a man or woman or Spanish. Or you can opt for silence from the app. One of the features that I really like is the ability to adjust the complexity of the coloring pages. This means you can choose between 7 and 30 different colors. If you choose 7 then you will only work with 7 letters/numbers which is great for the younger kids. The last adjustment that I appreciated involved the songs. I’m all for a song but not necessarily every time my child finishes a coloring page. So for those days when there’s just not room for music in my heart I can turn off the songs. Or if I’m having a day where “The Muffin Man” is just right but “Yankee Doodle” is all wrong I can turn on or off certain songs.

Very briefly, here are a few other things to note about the app. You can save finished pictures to the camera roll or email them out. There is a “do over” button. The main page has a link to a demo video that can walk you through using the app. Finally, “creative expression” lets you color the pictures however you want. You don’t do this by coloring with your finger on the screen. Tap a color and then tap on an area on the page. The colors are filled in by blocks. This is my favorite way to do it for the younger kids because who can stay in the lines when you’re coloring with a finger anyway? I know that I can’t.

123 Color is a fantastic coloring app. My only suggestion concerns how you change to a new coloring page. Right now when you want a new picture you tap a frame icon at the bottom of the screen. My first instinct was to shake my iPhone and it took me a minute to realize what I was supposed to do. Kids might get it right away but I’m not sure. That is my only quibble with the app and it’s so very small and it certainly doesn’t affect how much I like it.  Currently there are 32 different coloring pages. Based on what I’ve seen Steve do with KidCalc I think it’s a good guess that he’ll add more in the future.

If you are looking for a coloring app and you want it to have a purpose (in addition to entertainment) then you really need to grab this one. It’s very well executed, runs smoothly, is fun for the kids and you’ll know that they’ll be practicing key preschool skills.

**I just got word that I’ve got two promo codes for 123 Color to give away. This app is absolutely worth you leaving a comment.  But that’s not all, I’ve got three codes for KidCalc. Again, another app that’s worth a comment. So here’s how we’ll do it. Leave me a comment that says “123Color” or “KidCalc”. (You can write more if you want but don’t have to.) If you want to enter for both then please leave two comments, that way I don’t have to go through and separate things out. I’ll leave it open through Monday and then randomly choose some lucky winners that evening. Good luck!

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Steve Glinberg

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

The folks at StoryBoy have released several stand alone ebook title. These are stories that you can find in iTunes instead of exclusively via the StoryBoy app. The story that I tried out is Erika Knows Green: Water Conservation. It does a nice job explaining water conservation on a child’s level. I was even reminded of a few things that I had forgotten. The book is read aloud to you but you can follow the words if you want to read along. The illustrations are fun and do a nice job complimenting the story and adding in humor. This is the first in a series of books that will feature Erika as she helps kids learn ways they can help the environment.

**I forgot I’ve got 5 free codes for this app. First 5 comments win them!

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: StoryBoy

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

My seven year old daughter uses the word “stinking” when she wants to give a phrase some extra oomph. It might be “stinking mad” or “stinking funny” or “stinking cute”. The last one makes no sense (because can something be stinking and cute?) but when it comes from her you know exactly what she means and that it’s the highest of praise. Now that I’ve explained let me tell you that “stinking cute” is the phrase that came to mind when I saw the animals in Jumble Zoo. I promise, it’s a good thing!

Jumble Zoo features flashcards of zoo animals. Each one is divided up into three body parts – head, middle and bottom. You can swipe your finger across the screen to change the different parts and make some pretty silly animals. When you’ve matched up the correct parts the animal is shown in it’s “habitat”. Now you can tap on the pull string (that doesn’t sound right but I can’t think of a better word) at the top left of the screen to see the animal on a plain white flashcard background. Here you’ll also see a microphone icon on the bottom right. If you tap that you can record yourself saying the animal’s name. From then on you’ll hear the animals name when you match up the body parts.

Right now Jumble Zoo features 9 different flashcards,  7 animals, 1 zoo keeper and 1 zoo visitor. I absolutely adored the graphics in this app. The app costs $1.99 and I’m hoping more animals are added in future updates. Because the world could always use more stinking cute zoo animals.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Stuart Eaton

Math Kingdom combines math facts practice with an adventure game. You are the hero who must save a captured princess and recover the Math Kingdom’s stolen treasures. To do this you’ve got to solve math problems and make your way through the castle. You are asked to solve a math problem and then write your answer on the screen. If you get the answer correct you break though a castle wall. After breaking down ten walls you’ll face a monster. (They’re meant to be monsters but don’t worry, they’re not very scary.) The monster will present you with a more challenging word problem. If you solve this one correctly you recover one of the lost treasures. As you progress through the app the math problems increase in difficulty.  Each time you begin or continue a game you are given five “lives”. When you answer a problem incorrectly you lose a life. When all of your lives are gone it’s game over but don’t worry, this is a friendly app. It gives you the choice of starting over at the beginning or continuing where you left off.

When I was playing Math Kingdom I did have a little bit of trouble with the app crashing as I was trying to load a saved game. I powered off and then restarted my iPhone and after that I had no problems. I like the way Math Kingdom jazzes up math practice. This app is a fun alternative to flashcards. I especially like the way it incorporates actually writing the numbers. This is fantastic practice for kids and the handwriting recognition works very well. It did a terrific job deciphering my sloppy chicken scratch.

Price when Reviewed: $.99    FREE

Seller: Acoco Interactive

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

There are no written stories in the app, Hidden Stories. What the app provides are pictures that you use as story starters. There are thirty pictures and they’ve been are grouped into three categories – jobs, animals and fairy tales. Each is represented by a button on the main screen. When you first select a picture it is hidden. Rub your finger across the screen to see what’s hiding. When the picture has been completely revealed watch for a subtle animation. Now it’s up to you to make up a story. Many of the fairy tale pictures will be familiar . There is also a button on the main screen with flowers on it. This button takes you to the photos on your iPhone. You can then choose one of those and turn it into a hidden picture. This is a fun feature.

Hidden Stories is an app that will require you to use your imagination. There’s entertainment in the discovery of what’s hidden in the picture but then it’s up to you to finish the story and create your own fun.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: SID On