Any geek parent knows that iPhones are great for keeping kids occupied for a few minutes, but some of us feel a wee bit guilty about giving young kids a bunch of screen time. So we look for apps with some redeeming value, telling ourselves things like "Well, at least she's learning her ABCs, right?" But the truth is, many so-called educational games aren't really teaching our kids anything except expertise with the interface. And, of course, many of the games that will actually teach something aren't much fun to play and your kids won't choose them voluntarily.
I've recently come across two app developers—each with an alphabet game and a number game—which are outstanding and unlike the rest of the crowd. They look different, they feel different, and some of them are even fun for adults.
Click through to read about No Monkeys (excellent apps for older kids and adults) and Montessorium (a different approach for educational apps for little ones).
Disclosure: I requested and received review codes for all four apps reviewed here.
No Monkeys is the developer of Alphabetic and Super 7, pictured at the top of the post. Both of these are fast-paced games which are great for older kids and adults. One of the things that sets them apart from typical learning-based games is the way they look—the graphics aren't your typical primary colors and cartoons. Yes, they're colorful, but they have a crisp, clean graphic quality.
Alphabetic isn't actually a new game, although it has had updates as recently as this summer. The idea is simple: tap on the letters of the alphabet, in order. The letters aren't just going to sit still and let you find them, however—they spin, bounce, fall, zoom and dance across the screen in dizzying patterns. Did I mention you have a time limit? Finding a letter gives you a little more time on the clock, and finding them quickly gives you more points.
Once you've played through the basic game a few times, there are challenge games which crank up the difficulty level, cap off the timer, or challenge you to find each letter twice or the alphabet in reverse. There's even a game for finding numbers instead of letters.
Although it's not designed for very young children (even on the easy level they may not be able to catch all the letters in time), if you tap anywhere on the screen that isn't the correct letter, the target letter will flash in the center of the screen, so my three-year-old was able to play this on her own—just not very well.
Fun value: 4/5
Educational value: 3/5
Alphabetic is $.99 or you can try out the Lite version for free.
Super 7 is a newer release, out this year, and it's a math-based arcade game. Little heptagons appear from the edges of the screen and float around. You can redirect them as they float, or draw lines to connect them and they'll be pulled together. Whenever two heptagons touch, they combine, adding the numbers shown. Add them up to 7, and they disappear, scoring you some points. Add up to more than 7 (or less than -7), and the game's over.
Easy enough, right? But just wait until you start getting negative numbers. And then multipliers, which can easily put you over 7. When the screen starts getting crowded with a bunch of 4s and 5s, you'll wonder why arithmetic isn't always so nail-bitingly intense.
Again, this is one that isn't for the wee geeklets, since they'll need to know addition, subtraction, and multiplication. It'd be nice to have adjustable difficulty levels, so you could set it on "addition only" or something like that.
Fun value: 5/5
Educational value: 4/5
Super 7 is $.99, and according to the stats page I've already sunk over four hours into it.
Montessorium brings the Montessori Method of learning to the iPhone and iPad. In case you're not familiar with it, the Montessori Method is a more child-directed approach to learning that focuses on different sensory experiences. In keeping with that, both of the Montessorium apps are gorgeous to look at, with a woodgrain look and a muted palette. The sound effects are also pleasant and not overbearing like some kids' apps. One of the exercises in both Intro to Letters and Intro to Math is tracing letters and numbers on the screen—this is supposed to develop the muscle control and muscle memory for writing. Real-life Montessori schools use sandpaper letters and numbers, so the iPhone version loses the tactile experience but reproduces the scratchy sandpaper sound while tracing.
The Montessorium apps are also a bit pricier, at $4.99 each, though it is a universal app that works for iPhone and iPad. It might have been nice to have a lower-priced iPhone-only version, but you do get several games on each app. Whether or not it's worth your money may depend largely on your attitude toward the Montessori method itself, but the implementation is impressive.
Intro to Letters includes five games which teach the alphabet in different ways. One of the differences in Montessori is that they start with the letter sounds rather than the names. So you would present the letter C by saying "kuh" instead of "see." This helps kids tie the sound to the letter, which is particularly useful in cases where the name of the letter doesn't indicate the pronunciation (e.g. H, G, or W). Children are presented with three letters in sequence, trace each one, and then they're asked to find a particular letter from the set of three.
A second game is similar, but with phonic groups like "oa" and "th." Then there is a game that teaches letter names, and then one that focuses on capital letters. The last game allows you to record and play back letter sounds but since I have an iPod touch with no microphone I wasn't able to try that one out.
One important feature is that the app doesn't require any reading skills—instructions are given verbally and visually, and my three-year-old was able to move around between the different games with only a minimum of instruction. It does help to turn the speakers up quite a bit to hear the pronunciations, though on some it's may still be a little tricky to hear.
Fun value: 3/5
Educational value: 5/5
Intro to Letters is $4.99 on iTunes.
Intro to Math has a number-tracing game similar to the letters version, but there are also several other options for learning numbers. One is a series of ten rods of different lengths—you shake to jumble them and then drag them back into place. They make wonderful marimba-like sounds as you drag them around.
Another game (pictured above) asks you to match small number disks to the rods of varying lengths, thus associating numbers with the different lengths. There's also a game that uses red disks to count out numbers. All of the games help kids learn the sequence of numbers but also ties them to their values visually.
It may be that my three-year-old is more mathematical and less verbal, but she seemed to enjoy this app better than Intro to Letters. I think there's a little more variety in the types of games and a wider range of sounds and actions.
Fun value: 4/5
Educational value: 5/5
Intro to Math is $4.99 on iTunes.
