Saturday, January 2, 2010

Toddler iPhone / iPod Touch Apps

Holly is almost 22 months now and for about 3 months she has been using my iPhone daily. We have about 30 apps for her which I will discuss below. Some are interactive songs like "Wheels on the Bus" other's are flash cards, some basic picture cards other's developed by speech therapists, some are the ABC's with animations of a word, some are animals that make the sound and say the name. Some are matching shape and color games, some are sounds and music, even a piano.



It is shocking to see her turn it on and navigate through the games, locating the icons and playing them with no help at all. She even has video's on there and watches them when she gets anxious and needs to remove herself. I'm thinking of getting her a iPod touch because it does all the things the iPhone does, but she has begun to call people now, and is always using my "phone" so one of her own with out the "monthly fee" fear of breaking it, and "crank calls" might be perfect.



Here are the apps I recommend.

The one developed by a Speech therapist is called "Learn to Talk" I paid 15$ for it and it was on sale for like $1.99 recently. This one is the "best" and Holly's speech therapist thought it was really good, as it categorizes "High Impact Words" and 1 or 2 word Phrases, so uses the same groupings that a Speech Therapist would use, the art isn't as nice, but the educational underlings are superior.



The other's Holly really likes (Better art and Animal sounds too) are: Voice Toddler Cards (Sai Services), iTot Cards (Toddler Flashcards By iTot Apps), Letter's A to Z (True Learning), Tapping Zoo (Tipitap Apps) These are all 99 Cents.

I would also recommend anything by Duck Duck Moose, they have a "Wheels on the Bus", "Itsy Bisty Spider", and "Old Mac Donald" that Holly loves. Also anything by 3dAL I have several of their apps which are like shapes, colors, music, sounds, animals, various games. These were all either .99 or 1.99 also.



The new one we just got is called "Little Cook" where you add ingredients to a salad or a pizza and "cook" something for your friend to eat, and she responds to it based on the ingredients you add. Another new one is BumbleBee Touch Book, it has a video or an interactive book, I think there are a lot like this. We also have one called "Pet The Animals" which was free and it vibrates when you pet them and has animals and sounds, there are "ads" because it was free but its worth a try to see if the little one likes it.

Another free one that is advanced for the kids, but Holly still likes it is "Shapes" by Toddler Teasers. It shows like 3 shapes and says, touch the circle, then after like 3-4 of these you win a sticker, and then it gets harder, like 4 shapes and touch the hexagon. When you touch the wrong one it says, triangle, try again, touch the hexagon (for example) She actually gets it in the first or second try like 75% of the time and its fun and Free.



The specific 3dAL ones we have are "Make a Martian" Her all time favorite App called Adventure, there is one called Preschool Music. I think Adventure might also be called "Preschool Adventure" officially, That one has 6 built in games, one shapes, one colors, one numbers, one "monkey" body parts and one animal sounds.

there are a couple of free baby sign language apps if you interested you can search for those, we have like 3, but she isn't that into them, but your kiddo's might be, and I sometimes use them for reference.



One in her top 5 is called PreK Safari I have the lite version so I think it was free, but I am thinking of upgrading, not sure what the difference is, but she likes it a lot too. Its the alphabet and safari animals on each letter.

She also uses a free "non toddler" app called Doodle Buddy and draws and uses the icons to make shapes and pictures, they have other ones too that are like white boards for "finger" drawing. She has some other coloring ones but isn't too interested yet.



You can also put video's on here, right now we have Yo Gabba Gabba on her own play list, which she navigates to and selects the episode she wants to watch. I plan to add the Baby Einstein and perhaps if I get them the signing times, but you could technically put any show your kids adore with the right techie help and know how.

She also has her own music play lists with nursery rhymes and kids songs.

4 comments:

Stat Mama said...

So. Cute. She is pretty amazing with navigating through everything like she does, how cool!

I think Sonne would love these apps. Thank you for all the great info, I am definitely going to check this out as an option.

Anonymous said...

It's a new world! I am so impressed with her skill at this. She can text WAY faster and easier than I ever could!
Love, Granny

Umma said...

This is adorable! My sister got and iPod for Christmas and Monkey was fascinated by it. Duhdee and I were discussing getting him one but it seemed...weird. I never would have imagined using it as a learning tool!

Sandie-Matthew's Mom said...

Thank you for posting such great info about the itunes educational kids apps for iPhone/iPod Touch.
I have a child who has Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum. He was tested for Fragile X when he was very young but tested negative for it. I recently purchased him an iPod Touch for downloading a specific communication itunes app called Proloquo2go. Then I discovered all the excellent kids educational apps that are made from itunes for download. Wow! I have several of the apps you talked about but thanks to you I now have more to go check out and explore with my own child. I don't have an iPhone but when we were looking at which one to buy for my child we chose the iPod Touch for the reason that there would be no monthly cell phone fee and also because I was concerned he might dial phone numbers. The iPod Touch has worked really great for him. I see now that they have the new iPad available.

Again, thank you very much. Your post is great and very helpful.