My Very First App

This app is based on the My Very First Books by Eric Carle.  Interestingly, the name of this vocab app was also my very first app downloaded for therapy. It was the app that taught me the lesson that there are far better free apps available. Now, I don't assume that there is a direct relationship between cost and value when it comes to apps.

The app I downloaded contains two learning games/options: colors and animal homes. Each of these games contains 20 pictures (10 colors and 10 objects, 10 animal homes and 10 animals). They are lovely hand-drawn, basic, clear pictures geared for the very young child. Both options offer 3 levels of play: easy, medium, hard. 

The easy level of each option presents a picture, one at at time, that needs to be matched with a color in the color game or an animal home in the animal homes game. The screen is divided in half. The pictures change by swiping the screen right to left or left to right. (I often had to swipe the top half of the screen 2 and 3 times before the picture would change.) Once one has swiped through all 10 pictures, continued swiping revisits each picture in the exact same order. One can swipe the top half or the bottom half of the screen. Tap on either half of the screen and the color or object is named and the written word is briefly flicked onto the screen below and to the left of the picture. The goal of this level is to match the color (top half of the screen) to the object (bottom half of the screen) or the animal (bottom half of the screen) to its home (top half of the screen).  

The medium and hard levels are essentially lotto/concentration games. The medium level has 12 "cards," the hard level 20. Tapping on a card turns it over to reveal one of the 10 pictures, colors, or animal homes. The goal is to match object and color or animal and its home. Once two cards are tapped they either remain open on the screen if they match or if they don't match, they turn back over, hiding the pictures.

The settings option offers the following:
Tap and Hold: This option requires that any button will need to held for a full second before leaving the game. This prevents a child from leaving the game (unless they figure this out on their own, which they probably will do pretty quickly since kids take to technology faster than their parents).
Match 10 Sets: When "on" a voice will say, "You did it," when all the matches have been made.
Auto-Match: When "on," a "happy"ding sound is heard when a match is made.
Auto-Narrate: A pleasant female voice names each picture that appears on the screen when turned "on." When turned "off" the screen must be tapped to hear the voice.
Language: One can select English, French, Dutch, British (amusing that it isn't British English and English isn't American English), Japanese, Spanish and German. The spoken and written word are presented in the language selected. I vote for British. I love the British accent.

Not all lovely, artistic books translate well into recommendable apps. Too bad that this is one of the them.

Suggested uses in addition to vocab: object parts, associations (animal homes game).

Ages: 2-3 years

Cost: $1.99

Rating: +

Website: Night & Day Studios, www.nightanddaystudios.com