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I am a techno-geek. I used to build and restore PCs years ago, and while I’m not as “finger on the pulse” as I used to be, I sure as ever like to keep up with technological gizmets. I hate the idea of being the parent with the kid who knows how to work the VCR (or whatever it is kids use today) while I flounder over how to set the timer on the cooker (which I figured out last month).
At the moment, Isaac has taken to swiping his sticky fingers across my MacBook Pro screen, convinced he can get it to interact by doing so. As for Noah, you can bet he squeaks with delight if he sees me scroll to the “Kids Apps” page on my iPhone. Both of them LOVE watching films, CBeebies, CarsToons on Youtube and even just listening to music on the giant iMac. Sometimes I have to wait patiently to use the things myself – the boys absolutely love them. Heck – they even have their own “pages” of apps.
Incidentally, most of these are current favourites, and it’s going to take a mother-of-all-apps to top the first 10 apps. I try to draw their attention to new ones by putting them on their favourites page so they’re not missed. Doesn’t always work.
This is the generation they’re growing up with though, isn’t it? This is the technology that, when they’re our age, they will look back on this stuff and laaaauuuuugh. I wasn’t surprised when I asked twitter for recommended iPhone Apps for The Smalls – my tweet stream went crazy. At the same time, I was lucky to be contacted by developers of an iPhone game aimed at pre-schoolers, and after seeing this article today about a 14 year old writing his own gaming app (which went on to be downloaded more times than Angry Birds??? OMFG.) I thought yeah why not? Let’s give it a go, can’t hurt for them to trial an app.
You may know the cartoon “Humf” as seen on children’s tv (mostly Nick Jr I think). On first glance I thought the app looked like it was going to be a lot of fun.
Activities included:
- Furry Thing – Combine different body parts and create new and familiar furry things.
- Painting – Help Wallace paint amazing and colourful pictures.
- Tidy Up – Help Humf clean his room by matching the toys to their correctly coloured boxes.
- Shadows – Different shapes cast different shadows. Children can try and match them correctly.
- Balloons – Help Loon fill the balloons with air, count them then have fun popping them with Humf.
- Dot-To-Dot – Join the dots to reveal different characters from the TV show.
- Music – Children can have fun making music with different instruments.
- Bath Time – Use the water pistol to shoot bubbles at the toys.
- Racing – Control the car by tilting the device in different directions.
Isaac was way too young to comprehend much of what was going on, so it was over to Noah to have a go with it. He liked the idea of a new app, and especially loved the balloons – though of course he wanted to make them pop or whizz around while blowing them up. He also didn’t mind the painting and had a go at Bath Time…but if I’m honest? He lost interest really quickly. I’m not sure why – maybe he was just marginally too young to “get” them, or was just too keen as ever to get back to his favourite games. I often find he does better with games where he isn’t presented with options screens like that above, but instead the games just follow sequence like in Monkey Lunchbok (2nd row, 1st app). I’m convinced however, that it’s a game he could really enjoy if he gave it a chance.
I suspect I’ll have to keep pushing it a bit to see if he is really interested, but he certainly has his faves, as does Isaac. And that’s very apparent when they are able to swipe my phone, unlock it, navigate to the correct page and open their game of choice. We’re just embracing the future, right?
The Humf iPhone app was sent to me for free to review on this blog.
The Humf App is available for £1.79 from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch
or at www.itunes.com/appstore.
Direct link: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/humf/id409314194?mt=8
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It's great seeing kids use tech at a young age. We think the best app for kids (and actually one of the best for adults too) is Talking Tom Cat. It free and soooooooooo funny, here is the iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/talking-tom-cat/id…
Heheh I've had Talking Tom sitting on my phone for a while – I had to hide it when Big Small took WAY too much pleasure in punching the crap out of him!!!! LOL!
Oh i have the talking Tom cat! I love it!!
Absolutely HILARIOUS
My sons favorite apps atm are: Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Plants vs Zombies, Pirates vs Ninjas, Lego Batman, Gamebox (which is like 30 games in 1), Sneezies and Ragdoll Blaster.
Ahhh how old is your son? There's a couple of my favourites in your list and I know my kiddo would never manage them!
Fab!!!! off to download now
Yeay!! It's a really good app, worth a download
I gotta be honest, mine aren't so keen on the Peppa Pig game, I think he gets bored to quickly. He starts with major excitement which then tapers off at astonishing speed. And the Chuggington one is even worse; blimey even I get bored playing that one…
Definitely recommend Humf though, has turned out to be a winner
Jacob has his own page too – but I don't think we have any of those. Is Peppa Pig any good? His favourite game is "birds get the pigs" and one where he can be a fireman. He'll love the Humf game
My eldest told everyone at nursery that he had a cat and was apparently very insistent that he did. We then worked out he was talking about Talking Tom. He loves the iPhone apps I've downloaded, especially Doodlebuddy which is free! Bonus!
LOL That's really funny!! I haven't seen Doodlebuddy, but will go have a look now, thanks for the tip
Oh I can completely relate! Sometimes my kids think they own my gadgets! Well, as what you've said, they grew up in this generation and technology comes to them naturally. Thanks for the app list. By the way, I'd like to share to you my current favorite app, Intuition. It's a free task management app for moms with features that are especially designed for us. I like that it can easily help me delegate some errands to my husband via email, Facebook or Twitter. Plus it looks cute and is really easy to use. You can check it out on http://www.iconapps.com/product.htm