After we realised Darius had learnt how to perform a sliding motion on our iPod Touch (see Darius’ Touch on iPod), we thought of introducing him to some educational applications. Coupled with bright colours, attractive pictures, sounds and interactivity, these free applications could grab his attention easily while he is learning and having fun. ^^

Elias Zoo/ABC

We started off with the Elias Zoo and Elias ABC applications. These applications consist of interactive flashcards which can be scrolled by sliding to the left or right. Touching the card will result in the picture on the card moving while its corresponding sound is made. In the case of the ABC flashcards, it will produce the sound of the alphabet on the card while for the Zoo, a realistic sound of the animal will be produced.

Using his sliding skills, Darius can easily scroll through the flashcards and touch on them to find out how each of them sounds. For the ABC app, we notice that he tends to click on the small letter on the upper left of the cards instead of just clicking anywhere on the screen. This means that he is aware of the letter’ location on each card.

We also make use of the ABC app to find out if he knows how to pronounce the letters. We would show him random alphabets and see if he tries to pronounce them.

KidCalc

The KidCalc is another interesting application for toddlers and it focuses on numbers and maths learning. The mathematical lessons are too advanced for Darius so we’re only using it for his numbers learning. Like the Elias applications above, this app introduces them in the form of flashcards.

Unlike the Elias apps though, the sounds of the numbers are automatically sounded out the moment each  card appears, i.e. without the need to touch them. In this way, Darius can focus on scrolling through the numbers, looking to the numbers and listening to their pronunciations without getting distracted by touching the screen. He tends to scroll quickly to the right till Number 7 (this free version only goes up to Number 7) before scrolling to the left with his right hand back to Number 0. He probably finds it fun scrolling through the cards.

There is also a bar on the top that reminds us of an elevator display, which may help him relate to the numbers he sees in our lifts at our block. There is also a button near the bottom which allows the colours of the cards to be changed, providing more variety and helping to keep Darius’ interests on the cards.

123 Counting

The 123 Counting application provides simple games that encourages the child to touch and count the items on the screen when they appear. The child then presses the correct answer at the bottom of the screen.

For example, a question may appear asking how many cows are on the screen. Darius can touch on each of the cow on the screen and the application will sound out the number on each touch, helping him to learn how to count.

We still have to help him tap on the individual animals though and tap on the final answer but maybe he might learn through this, how one counts things, by starting from 1 and onwards.

Booooly

Besides learning applications, we have also downloaded some free games suitable for his age. One of them is Booooly, where the objective of the game is to click on the coloured balls and they will explode if three or more same-coloured balls are linked to each other. It’s a simple but fun game where Darius can just touch away and go boooom!

He enjoys clicking on the balls and sees them explode one after another. We also noticed that he will make the ‘sssss’ sound whenever he sees the word ‘Start’ appearing on the screen. ^^

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