The iPhone Mom

There are some children’s television shows (they shall remain nameless) that I just can’t stand. My poor deprived children go to school and tell their friends that they’re not allowed to watch them and they’re always at a loss for an answer when their friends ask them why. “Because my mom thinks they’re stupid” isn’t always the best answer. Thank goodness for clever shows that my kids like to watch that I don’t mind sitting through too. Super Why! is one of those shows. I love the colors, the characters and the way they’ve put a twist on classic tales. You can also actually learn something from watching it!

The folks at PBS Kids have been busy putting out apps and they do a good job of making sure they capture the essence of the shows. The Super Why! app is no different. It has four different games, each featuring a different show character.

-Super Why Story Saver: Here you help Super Why finish pages in a story by filling in the missing words based on an illustration.

-Wonder Red’s Rhyming Time: Wonder Red needs your help matching up some rhyming words for her basket.

-Princess Presto’s Wands Up Writing: This game asks you to help Princess Presto spell words. She shows you the letters and tells you the sound she’s looking for. When you choose the correct letter you use her wand to write the letter on the screen. This was my favorite game.

-Alpha Pigs Lickety Letter Hunt: Alpha Pig needs help spelling words too. He tells you what letters to look for and you help him find them on the path home.

While you’re playing the different games you’ll also be collecting stickers. You can visit your sticker book and use them to create sticker scenes. I think that the Super Why! app stays very true to the television show. It runs smoothly and does a nice job teaching preschoolers reading skills.

Price when Reviewed: $2.99

Seller: PBS Kids

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

I bought Gello Doodle last week based on the sheer absurdity of it’s concept. How could I not be intrigued by an app that’s built around Jell-O? Actually the app is called Gello and I’m sure that’s because there would be legal trouble if they called it Jell-O. But Gello is like Jell-O and it all wiggles and jiggles, which is part of the fun of this quirky app.

Gello Doodle is for everyone who’s ever wanted to play with their food. Seriously. That includes me. You begin by choosing a Gello mold. Right now there are 22 molds to choose from. Molds include a monkey, a basic oval and even a kangaroo. Now you make your Gello by tapping on the Gello box at the top of the screen. The app gives you color levels that you slide and adjust until your Gello is the perfect color. The next step is to pour it into the mold. I’ll admit that it took me a few tries to figure out how to do this. You have to pick up your iPhone and pretend to pour in the Gello. When your phone goes through the pouring motion it will slide out of the beaker, off the screen and into your mold. Make sure you pour it all in so your mold fills completely. You can also fill it part of the way, then change the Gello color and finish off the mold with a new color. When your mold is full  you can add in some doodads. That is the actual Gello Doodle word for it. Doodads are the things that you add into your Gello. In real life it’d be things like pineapple, pears or marshmallows. Here you have fruits, nuts, gummy things (frogs, worms, bears), cookies, candies and crackers. Then you’ve also got wacky things like flowers, bolts and shoes. You can even take a picture from your camera roll, select part of the image and add that to your Gello. Choose which doodad you like and then tap on the Gello mold to add it. You can add as many different doodads as you like.

When you’ve made your Gello you’ll tap on “Demold” and set that Gello free. Your Gello will wiggle around the screen as you move your iPhone. The next step is to play with your food. You can pump the Gello full of air until it explodes or slurp it up with a straw. You can also adjust the gravity and elasticity of the Gello.  If you put your finger on the Gello and move it around the screen it will twist and turn and follow your finger.  What’s included now is fun but I’d like to see a few more things included for playing with the Gello.

Gello Doodle is pure, mindless fun. My kids are getting a big kick out of their molds. As for me, I quite enjoy slurping the Gello off the screen. I’m not sure if it’s the noise or the fact that I get a clean screen when I’m done. Clean counts for a lot right now because thanks to my sweet refluxing baby nothing in my house is clean for long. Whatever the reason, I’m finding Gello Doodle pretty darn  entertaining.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Shoe the Goose

I saw the Wee Mee Avatar Creator in the “What’s Hot” section of the App Store this week and had to give it a trial run. I use the Wee Mee creator to create my Windows Live Messenger avatar. Alright, actually my kids are the ones doing the creating. They love to get on and change up my Mee’s hair and clothes. Not to mention all the accessories that can be added on. Right now she’s wearing a pink cowgirl hat, sparkly shoes and standing by a windmill and daschund.  Random, I know but somehow it works. There is a website for the Wee Mees called Wee World but we don’t use it. It’s more of a social networking type site  so we stick with the Messenger Wee Mees and everyone is happy.

I got off on a bit of a tangent didn’t I?  Back to the Wee Mee iPhone app. You choose a body (and yes, they do wear undies, albeit skimpyish ones) and head shape. You can customize your skin color and then it’s on to facial expressions and hair. That is my daughter’s favorite thing to choose for me. My own brown locks are so boring that having the endless possibilities of long, colorful, beautiful hair is irresistible to her. The app lets you pick clothes, accessories and backgrounds. There aren’t as many choices as you’ve got online but I’m hopeful more will come in updates. (Online there are oodles of choices, so just because I say there aren’t as many in the app doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty. Make sense?) Go through all the avatar options and it’s just a matter of tapping and swiping until you get THE perfect look.

So having the Wee Mee Avatar Creator can be fun, like elaborate paper dolls on your iPhone, but what can you DO with them? Well, once you’ve finished an avatar you can save it to a Wee Mee gallery. And then you can email it out or save it as a photo for one of your contacts. The next time my kids tell me that they are bored I’m going to let them loose with this app and have them create a Wee Mee for every one of my contacts that needs a photo. Can’t wait to see what they come up with!

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: WeeWorld

Any app that has “a-ma-jig” in it’s name is worth a look, isn’t it? Slide-a-ma-jig is an app that gives you creatures and then lets you mix and match their parts. It currently features 30 different characters, each divided up into five body sections. (Hat section, head, mid-section, legs and feet.) Pick a character, touch on one of it’s sections and then swipe to the left or right to switch to a new body part. Each time you swipe you’ll hear a cartoony sound effect. Zoinks! The original Slide-a-ma-jig creatures are something else all on their own but things get pretty wild when you start combining their bits and pieces. You can make some disturbingly wacky combinations if you put your mind to it. And if you’re in more of a random mood you can also shake your iPhone to get a creature that the app creates out of various creature parts. There are also 20 different backgrounds that you can use to really mix things up. My thoughts on Slide-a-ma-jig?  I think it’s silly, icky totally irresistible. My kids agree.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Lucky Radish Amusements

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

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.

Emily’s Girl Talk is a collection of games, some of which I played when I was (much) younger. It includes MASH, The Lemon Game, Cootie Catcher and Love. Back in the day I played them with paper and pencil but things have come a long way. Since my girls are the perfect age for this app I asked my 7 year old do the review. She gave me a great run down and what follows are her words. I put my comments in blue. Take it away Miss S!

Emily’s Girl Talk has four games that are girly. The first game is MASH. There are different categories that you have to fill out. (crushes, cars, cities, jobs, wedding dress colors and numbers) If you press the plus sign you can pick one of the words that are already there. If you tap on the line you can type in your own. (The app comes with a list of preset things you can choose from to fill in the categories. These are seen when you tap the plus sign. If you want to enter in your own tap on the line next to the plus and you’ll get the keyboard.) If you tap “Emily’s Pick” the app fills in the things for you. At the end you pick a number and it does something with that number and then makes a prediction. The prediction is of one thing from each category. It tells you who you’re going to marry and where you work and what car you have and your city and number of kids.

The Lemon Game – You type in girl names, boy names, body parts, cities and things you can do with a lemon. (Again, plus sign brings up preset list, tap on line to type.) Or click on “Emily Picks” and she picks things for you. Touch a lucky number. Like MASH it uses your number too but it takes your things to make a silly sentence. It’s kind of like Mad Libs. My sentence when I showed my mom was “Victoria will suck Kevin’s ear in Lima”. (I’m not so sure about that sentence!)

Cootie Catcher – Type in a question that you want a yes or no answer to. (There are no preset questions.) Then tap on a number on the cootie catcher, then on a color, another color and then you get an answer to your question. The answer is not always true. I like this version of Cootie Catcher. My girls can play it and now I don’t feel guilt because I threw away all the paper versions that were lying around the house. Plus there are no mean results.

Love – Enter your name and the name of your crush. I did my sister and Obi Wan Kenobi. It does some sort of calculation and comes up with your chance of love, like 23%, 38% or even 100%.

The Journal – The journal keeps track of everything (your results) for the games you’ve played.

Emily’s Sticker Album – When you finish a game it gives you a new sticker for that game.

Email Emily – You can email Emily by clicking on “Email Emily” on the front page.

Options – Has background music, sound effects, something called Twitter settings and a clear button for your journal.

Emily’s Girl Talk has been a big hit with my girls! I think it’s perfect for tween aged girls. I’ve been given two promo codes to give away, if you’d like one leave me a comment. The codes will only work in the US app store.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Broken Thumbs Apps

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

Preschool Connect the Dots is a HUGE collection of connect the dot puzzles for your preschooler. The app has more than 200 puzzles to complete and features a ton of customization. This app is perfect for preschoolers and it’s easy to connect the dots. Tap on the beginning dot and then draw a line with your finger to the next one and so on. As you touch the dots the number or letter on it is said out loud. When the dots are all connected the outline turns into a picture. The graphics are very well done.

In the settings you can really make this app your own. You can decide if you want to see connect the dots with numbers, upper or lower case letters. You can also turn on or off the ability to draw your own line from dot to dot. There is an autoplay feature that will start a new puzzle right after you finish one. Turn this off and you’ll need to tap an arrow to advance through the puzzles. The puzzles are grouped into five categories. In the settings you can turn off the categories that you don’t want to see in puzzles. Finally the app features three hint modes. Easy mode will automatically show you the next dot that needs to be tapped. Normal mode doesn’t show the next dot until you’ve tapped the wrong dot. Hard mode shows no hints at all.

Preschool Connect the Dots is very polished and put together. This app will provide plenty of entertainment for preschoolers and peace for mom. 

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Darren Murtha Design

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

Elmo’s Monster Maker wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I knew that it had something to do with creating Sesame Street monsters but I was expecting the monsters to be cartoons. Instead, I found “real” Sesame Street Monsters. The developers have taken video of the different puppets and used it in the app. The monsters move and talk just like they do on T.V. It makes for a very cool app.

Elmo introduces the monsters and explains how you play. First you’ve got to choose a monster as they walk across the screen and say hello. Each one has a different look and personality but they are all missing their eyes and noses. Once you tap on a monster then you’re taken to a screen where you can choose a hat, eyes and a nose. You do this by tapping on the monster’s face where his eyes would be. Each time you tap a new set of eyes will appear. The same is true for the noses and hats. When you’ve got your monster just right then you’ll tap on the triangle/play button at the bottom right of the screen.

Now Elmo asks you to play with your monster. There are three buttons on the bottom of the screen to choose from.  When you tap the camera button Elmo comes out and takes a picture of your monster. I didn’t realize what this meant until I looked in my camera roll and discovered pictures of monsters. When Elmo takes the picture it’s placed in a frame and actually saved to your iPhone. When you tap the button with Elmo on it then he’ll come play with your monster. When he’s done you can tap the button again and Elmo comes back to play something different. Finally, if you tap the music notes the background on the screen changes, music plays and your monster begins to dance. Each time you tap the screen the background and music change. Your monster will dance differently depending on what he’s listening to. You can also not tap any buttons and watch your monster do silly things. He’ll also react when you tap on his body

We’ve had a great time playing with Elmo’s Monster Maker. I love how the monsters interact with you, it’s like being part of a Sesame Street episode. The app is on the more expensive side but if you have an Elmo (or a monster) fan in your house you’re definitely going to want this one.

Price when Reviewed: $3.99

Seller: Sesame Workshop Apps

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

Clever, clever, clever and sneaky! Math Bumpies-Adventure on Math Island: Addition & Subtraction had me practicing my math facts while thinking that I was playing a game. And yes, I said me. I tried this one out because I can always use practice with my addition and subtraction. But you better believe I’m going to encourage my girls to try out this new “game” though. They’ll have their math facts down cold after a few go arounds with the Bumpies.

In Math Bumpies you choose a character to take you around Math Island. I chose Mister Chickenpants simply because he has an awesome name.  Next you choose your level, easy medium or hard. You also choose whether you want to play with addition facts, subtraction or both. And now you’re ready to journey around the island. You begin at Easy Street. The idea is to tilt your iPhone  and roll your character from left to right. As  you travel along you’ll see math problems in the sky. Solve the math problem and then tap on the screen when your character is under the correct answer. If you bump the right one you’ll score some points. When you reach the finish line you’re given your final score based on correct answers and the time it took you to finish. Then you’re off to the next round. The app allows you to create more than one player profile and you will select your level of difficulty and area of focus each time. This means that kids with different sill levels can all share the app and as they improve their skills they can continue to challenge themselves with more difficult questions. Math Bumpies also has a leaderboard that will keep track of individual player stats and high scores. Just a bit of friendly competition among siblings, right?

I thought Math Bumpies – Adventure on Math Island was a lot of fun for a math app! I loved the way it combines the math practice with the game. My only issue with the game was the voice over when you  bump into an incorrect answer. It’s really a pretty nitpicky thing too. Sometimes you hear “sorry” and sometimes you hear “whatever”.  “Whatever” is a phrase that I don’t particularly care for. I’ve never really liked it but I think I’m even more aware of it now that I’ve got a ten year old who tells me that with a “look” on a daily basis. I get the look and I can just read the “Whatever” in her mind. So I’m not that keen on having her (or my sassy seven year old) hearing that on a frequent basis. But it’s absolutely not a big enough complaint for me to keep them off Math Bumpies. The app is too fantastic for that and it even comes with a mute button. If you’re looking for a way to make math practice fun at your house this app will do the trick.  I’m hoping that there are multiplication and division adventures soon to come.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Rookie Labs, LLC

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

Madera & Figaro in The Rescue of Ginger is a truly interactive storybook app.  Madera & Figaro are a monkey and frog who are looking for Ginger, a lost kitty cat.  The app tells their story but you must tap on the characters and objects on each page to keep things  moving along.  There is no text to read in this story, instead you listen as it’s told to you through the different character’s voices. As you go through the story there are different puzzles to solve that relate to the search for the kitty. The puzzles work with colors, shapes and matching skills.  Each page in The Rescue of Ginger features mice. The mice are always doing silly things when you tap on them. At the very end of the story the mice will sing and dance. This is my son’s absolute favorite part of the app. He will skip ahead through the story just to get to that part again. And again. And again.

I like the way The Rescue of Ginger pulls you into the story through it’s puzzles. The characters and silly voices don’t hurt either! To me this feels like an app for older toddlers and preschoolers. I think that older children would enjoy the silly factor but might not listen to the story over and over again. But younger children who enjoy repetition can use this one over and over again and the silly mice are sure to keep them coming back.

Price when Reviewed: $2.99

Seller: Lyn and Line, LLC

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