Reviews of iPad/iPod/iPhone (iThing) apps

Early Learning Early Learning General Discussions
21

Surely it’s semi-foolish to give your children a “toy” this expensive and not watch them as closely as you should… :mellow:

My kiddos have done so good with this thing, I got too lax with my supervision today. Hubby and I were both in the room though so I cannot take full credit for this one, we are both at fault. I don’t know if it was my 1 year old or my 2 year old that was the guilty party. My husband saw it fall off the couch when one of them was playing near it and lost interest for a few minutes but it only fell about 2 or 3 feet. So I am not convinced it was the fall, but we don’t have carpet so I don’t know it’s possible. If I had to, I’d bet that it was my one year old son and an unintentional misplaced foot. We think maybe after it fell one of the kids accidentally stepped on the screen, we just didn’t see it happen? The glass had a nice big crack running through it, with the screen not as responsive as it should be. That’s how we noticed, the kids couldn’t get the screen to work properly. You could barely even see the crack initially unless you held it up to the light.

Apple wanted $369 upfront and then would refund any excess after the fact, so we had no idea of the real cost beforehand

Homeowners Insurance wanted a $250 deductible

We are choosing to repair it ourselves for $170 ordering the parts through Amazon and voiding the warranty. When my DH took off the screen, the pressure released and the whole screen cracked the rest of the way. Heartbreaking to say the least! (PLEASE do not attempt to do this yourself without a background in this this sort of thing-- I am NOT advising people to go out and void their warranties at all so do not misinterpret that.)

Anyway, I will be an example to the group…::sigh:: Yes, they are great [expensive] teaching tools, but monitor your children accordingly.

22

All I have to say TmT is ouch and I’m so sorry.

23

Exactly how sorry? :wink: …Sorry enough to replace it for me lol lol lol hahahah j/k

Expect a bill in the mail shortly, courtesy of Lily & Owen. :biggrin:

24

:blink: Sorry, its more of an empathic sorry feeling. Not sorry enough to foot the bill though. :tongue:

25

Thanks DadDude so much!! Karma to you! I just bought my son an ipad and after 3 weeks of waiting and looking at apps it is finally on the way!! Your list will save me alot of time!!
TmT I am so sorry about your ipad.

26

Somebody PLEASE list great educational App.'s for Android Users too!! :frowning:

27

Raising Ethan: which product do you have/are you satisfied with it? Have you compared it a lot with the iphone/ipad b4 buying an android based one? (Maybe we should move this discussion to another thread - where would it best fit in?)

Thanks Isa

28

Oh dear, TmT, I am so sorry to hear about your iPad :frowning: Good luck with any repair work.

I’ve been thinking about getting either an ipad or aome kind of android touchpad thingy (they are just soooo much cheaper - and TmT’s experience brings me out in a cold sweat - I can just see my DD hurling her ipad across the room at some point, just to see what happens… :ohmy: ).

So, would also be very interested to hear reviews about android apps, and whether there are enough at the moment to go with this option.

29

My hubby’s a techie so we have the Motorola Xoom as well, at least he has that to fall back on. There’s not nearly as much out for educational apps yet, but hopefully we will start seeing more soon. Let’s see how long it takes the kids to break that one. lol :mad: Will update as we find and add more apps though, I need to do a real hunt soon for some. Whoever starts compiling a list first can start the thread. We loaded a few but then reformatted it so I need to redownload them. The nice thing is that as soon as the 4G upgrade becomes available, we can send this one in for an automatic replacement. We’ll have to pay for the monthly data plan then, but it’s nice that we’re not roped into an old model just because we chose to buy early.

30

DadDude,

Thanks for compiling the list and for the helpful reviews. We got our iPad 2 a couple of weeks ago and Ella loves:

123 Color and 123 World - especially since she figured out how to save and email her completed pictures, she has been inundating her dad’s inbox with her “masterpieces!” lol

Teach Me Kindergarten

iWriteWords - She loves seeing the words in her own handwriting!

WatchKnow - The only thing that would make this app even better is the ability to save and organize your favorite videos.

Build a Word - There are 4 levels - short vowel words, long vowel words, Dolch’s sight words, and custom list. There is a practice mode and a quiz mode. I thought the quiz mode would be a little advanced for her but she has been playing with it a lot. It is a little more challenging than other spelling apps because it gives you more letters and duplicate letters to choose from.

Montessori apps by Rantek - These are a little expensive (as is anything Montessori) and limited in scope but Ella likes doing them. She especially likes the Geography ones.

For parents teaching foreign languages, here are some of the best (in our opinion) apps for learning Chinese, French, and Spanish:

Rye Studio multilingual storybooks - You can read and listen to the stories in English, Chinese (with the options for Trad or Simplified characters), French, Spanish, Dutch, German, and Japanese. Most of the stories have all the languages but some are still in development and only have English, Chinese, and Japanese, so check the available languages for each story first before you buy. These stories are perfect for us because Ella is learning French, Spanish, and Japanese. It is certainly much cheaper than buying books in each language, plus there is audio narrated by native speakers!

5QChannel (Chinese) - These are animated storybooks which are great for listening to stories in Chinese and learning about Chinese culture, myths, folktales, proverbs, idioms, literature, etc. The animation makes the stories understandable to kids and non-native speakers and, at the end of each story, there is an English translation for each page. Ella’s favorite is the 12-in-1 storybook bundle about the Chinese zodiac animals.

AppleTreeBooks (Chinese) - These illustrated audiobooks make Chinese classics like the Monkey King, Tang Dynasty poems, Three Character Classics accessible to children but at least some basic understanding of Chinese is required. For some reason, Ella has been captivated by these stories. There are lite versions for free to try out.

iLearn Chinese - the best app I’ve found to teach Chinese handwriting to kids (and non-native speakers). Good for practicing fine motor skills too.

play2learn Spanish and play2learn French - great for learning vocabulary and has a quiz mode in which you color in the picture as the Spanish/French word is called out.

Babblemania Spanish - not immersion as the instructions are given in English but Ella likes it.

Spanish Kids - game for learning Spanish words and phrases with lovely images similar to Rosetta Stone. Have not used this much yet but she seems to like it.

eFlashSpanish and eFlashFrench - I wouldn’t use this for English, but good for teaching/reviewing vocab in Spanish and French. Nice pics and they’re free.

Ana Lomba storybooks and Bookbox French/Spanish - downloaded the free books in French and Spanish and she likes them well enough but there are better storybooks out there.

24/7 Tutor - nice free app I’ve found for parents trying to learn another language along with their kids.

:slight_smile:

31

Dear Aaangeles
please do me the favour and tell me if the apps you mention are from DadDude´s list or new ones. Haven´t had a close look at them yet as don´t have an ipad/iphone yet.( Am looking at android machines as well)

Thanks in advance! Isa

32

The only ones from DadDude’s list are the first four. Those are the ones that Ella and I really like. I have a few more from his list but did not mention them anymore since he already did such a great job reviewing them. :biggrin: My lists consists mainly of apps for teaching Chinese, French, and Spanish.

33

Thank you all for the great list.
i would love to some apps that my 2 years old boy enjoys:

Shape Builder and Shape Puzzle for kids ( word learning game) Shape puzzle is always a hit with My boy, but not jigsaw puzzle.
Little Bella’s-I close my eyes-lite-animated children’s book
Alphabet Car by Baby CORTEX. Teaches spelling.
My first Puzzles snakes teaches to solve the puzzle by putting numbers in order.
Whimsy Lite .its a puzzle with reading practice .
Read ME stories very nice app where u can download a new story every day.

34

Hope this help.
Enjoy

35

Hi DadDude,

Do you have any recommendations for a children’s dictionary app for looking up new/unfamiliar words while reading ebooks on the iPad?

Thanks!

36

Dad Dude thanks for your review and ir looks very complete.
I am anxious to start using that technology. Nevertheless i know nothing about it. Can you or anyone who knows about this, give me a short description and the difference between the devices in the market right now (ipad, ipad touch, iphone, motorolla XOOM? They are all tablets or do they differ also in size? I have an IPOD which i use only for my music and think it is a little bit small to show something to a baby (3 month old)

Your thread started last June, its going to be one year old. WOW. I imagine a lot of changes have been given.

My son (on a trip at tis moment) know more than me and told me about Motorolla (much cheaper) but as i read here maybe we can not get that many apps for it? They are not compatible or some apps are?

Another question i have is 'How can anyone get all those apps? are they free? Besides the device (that is a little expensive) do we have to inveest a lot on the apps?

37

aangeles,

  1. since you started recently maybe you can recall more or less how moch are we talking about for the expensive one and the others?
  2. play2learn comees with both languages or you may choose only one? Not free?

I am ‘trying’ to learn some chinese (simplified) but find it very difficult. Nonetheless i would like to learn to read the symbols and maybe that app you mention can help me in that.

38

I actually haven’t looked for any children’s dictionary apps. I would assume they didn’t exist, but I could be wrong!

We simply use three different grown-up dictionary apps. One of them is a $0.99 (or was it $4.99?) app, and it is not really much worse than the two Oxford dictionaries we have. One of them is the Oxford American and the other is called the “Oxford Dictionary of English,” which is not to be confused with the enormous OED, the Oxford English Dictionary. They’re quite evil for not specifying this more clearly.

Just discovered this (!): http://www.apple.com/education/apps/

2010Bebes, I don’t know much about the other handheld types. All I’ve heard is that the iPad costs more because it’s better and has more apps. :slight_smile: Whenever you want to compare things, just type X “versus” Y in Google. In this case, search Google for “iPad versus Droid” and “iPhone versus iPad”. There’s little difference between the iPod Touch and iPhone, except the iPhone has a camera and a phone, which are very nice to have. The size of the iPad makes a huge difference, believe me–I had an iPod Touch for a year before getting an iPad, and the iPad was a revelation.

39

Thanks DadDude. I read som comparisons and have a lot to learn.
When you say Ipad is it the ipad2 ?

I think about what i read that if i buy know, it has to be ipad2 else i will have to wait for more apps.
Thanks again.

40

YESSSS!

Many parts in the mail and waiting around, it’s been successfully fixed! Apple wanted an arm and a leg but we saved $350 doing it ourselves. I warn you though, it was NOT an easy and DH knows what he’s doing. My advice? Don’t be like me and let your kids use it as a trampoline in the first place! lol Much easier (and cheaper) to be careful it to begin with.

Can’t wait to check out all these apps when I have a chance!