In these extremely hot summer days, it makes me feel cool when I saw an app title “Ice is Nice”.   This is a new app in the Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library series.  It is a nonfiction series that introduces basic science concepts of real life objects to young children.  Ice is Nice is about the animals and geography of North and South Poles. Sally and Dick visit the North and South Poles with the Cat in the Hat. … Read more

ABCmouse.com’s Search and Explore: The Grand Canyon is the first title of the ABCmouse.com’s Search and Explore series.  ABCmouse.com is a fee-based pre-school/kindergarten website with learning games and books.  The Search and Explore Series teaches young children about geography, national landmarks, and points of interest around the world through engaging stories featuring computer mice named as ABC, 123, and DoReMi. The mice inside the computer decide to visit Grand Canyon.  They travel to a computer in a ranger station near… Read more

Make a scene: Farmyard is a well designed interactive sticker game that fosters children’s creativity.  What I liked the most is the multi-touch feature, which allows more than one kid create an art together.  It is free for a limited time! Introduction from the App Store: Make a Scene Farmyard is a fun interactive game that engages children’s natural sense of creativity. It is aimed primarily at pre-school age children, but will provide hours of entertainment for children (and adults!)… Read more

Summer is a good time to visit some parks.  I found an amazing app about US National Parks – Fotopedia National Parks.  In the app, there are over 3000 stunning photos of the 58 National Parks in the USA accompanied with park information.  What is more amazing, it is FREE.  The only catch: It requires an Internet connection (either Wifi or cellular – edge or 3G) to operate properly. Introduction from the App store: Discover first the diversity of the… Read more

Does your child like to play in the kitchen, pretending preparing meal?  You may want to check out Toca Kitchen.  It is from the same developer who made Toca Doctor. Toca Kitchen lets the kids explore food and cooking, without mess in your kitchen. When kids start the app, they will see 4 hungry characters: a boy, a girl, a cat, and a bull.  Kids can pick any one of the 4 characters to cook for.  Then kids can open the… Read more

The Monster at the End of This Book is an app version of the classic Sesame Street picture book from the 1970s. In the book, the adorable Muppet Grover tries to stop children from turning the pages so they will never reach the end of the book, where he believes there will be a monster. However, it turns out that at the end of the book there is only Grover himself.  The app enables the interactive activities kids can have… Read more

Faces iMake is a creative art app and more.  It lets kids create arts with objects they see every day, such as brush, banana, plates, and buttons.  Kids can re-size, rotate, flip the objects they choose, and then put the pieces together to make a masterpiece.  There is no limit to the imagination. The app was developed with renowned artist, children’s book author and educator Hanoch Piven and is based on the creative workshops he conducted all around the world.  According to Piven, the… Read more

This is an app that helps babies and toddlers understand people all have different feelings and emotions.  By showing various pictures of people (mostly kids) with different emotions, it teaches kids to recognize different emotions. It has a play mode – the flash cards will be randomly shown and read to the kids.  You can also choose the game mode – the kids can play some matching games.  As parents, you can decide which card to be shown.  You can also… Read more

This app was released last week.  Currently, it is free.  It is available on iPAD only. Introduction from the App Store: Take the TV show viewing experience to the next level with the first in the appisode series, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse “Road Rally”. The appisode brings viewing and learning together in one interactive and cohesive experience! Touch, shake, swipe, drag and talk your way through an entire episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse right on your iPad. Participate directly in the storyline by… Read more

Summer is approaching, what are some good apps for summer? iGameMom has some suggestions on cool summer apps for kids – fun and educational. Kids will be away from school for 2-3 months in the summer. On one hand, you do want them to relax and enjoy some down time; on the other hand, you don’t want them forget study completely. School can take breaks, but learning should never stop. Based on this believe, we picked apps that are educational, and… Read more

I had always wanted to write about Fruit Ninja, but there were always something else came up.  Now it is the time.  Fruit Ninja is one of the first games my son and I played together.  We had a good time every time we played. It is a game for all ages, even little babies.  When the game starts, there will be all different types of fruits flying up from the bottom of the screen, you job is to chop… Read more

MindSnacks Spanish is a language learning app.  It does a great job at building the learning into game play, so the learning is fun. When you first start the app, you will have an option to take a Spanish test to find out your level.  You can also skip the test and start at level 1, which is “numbers”.  You will have a list of Spanish vocabulary to study before playing games.  Each word/phrase has a picture and an audio… Read more

A Jazzy Day is an app recommended by one of iGameMom’s readers. It is a music book app that teaches kids about jazz music and instruments via a very simple story: visiting the Big Band Hall. At the family’s visit, several musicians talked about the musical instruments. There are 12 instruments introduced in the app: bass, drums, piano, guitar, vibraphone, trumpet, trombone, alto saxophone, Baritone saxophone, flute, and clarinet. From the App home screen, you can choose “Learn”, which will… Read more

Toca Doctor is a medical-themed puzzle game for toddlers.  There are 21 mini-games in the app. To start the games, you move the robot doctor around the patient’s body.  Each time the robot doctor screen the patient, there will be several sick spots identified.  You go through the sick spots one by one.  Each spot is a puzzle game.  For example, if the mouth is the sick spot, you will be tapping on jumping germs in the patient’s mouth. If… Read more