I still have not purchased an iPad. I’m working myself up to buying one, I really am. I mean, I can only drool over everyone else’s for so long before I finally break down. In any case, I have an official iPad app tester: My mom! 
She makes the perfect iPad app tester for me because not only does she have an iPad (yes, my mom is cooler than me) but she is also a retired teacher and continues to be a “teacher’s teacher” today. (yes, my mom is a workaholic like me) 
So it’s great when I have an educational app to have her test out because not only does she review it from the standpoint of how much fun an app is – but also how well it teaches concepts. To make things even better, she has many grandchildren which happily offer their services as test subjects. Here is her review of Number Sense HD:
The creators of PunFlay’s Mathomatix Number Sense for the iPad, outdid themselves from a technical and educational standpoint. As a child works her way through the 5 different games included in the application, she is having fun while gaining number skills and concepts that build on each other in a natural and pedagogically appropriate way. I wonder how many other apps have been checked against the National and California Standards for teaching mathematics to kindergarteners. Very impressive!
Booster Balls focuses on counting from 1 to 30. The child collects 10 balls at a time and then feeds them to a cute little monster. A child’s voice gives clear and easy to follow instructions and provides a model for the child to count along with. The game is simple and fun. My six year old granddaughter, Kayla, liked catching the balls and feeding them to the monster even though the game was clearly no challenge. Five year old Joey and 3 year old Leah really enjoyed counting along, and with each repetition of the game became more confident.
Do the Dotty is a “connect the dots” game with sets of 10 numbers up to 30. Now we are upping the ante. Not only do you have to be able to count, you have to recognize what the number looks like and follow the instructions, connecting the numbers in sequence to create a picture. Kayla, of course, breezed through, repeating the game many times, changing the colors of the completed pictures. Joey declared the game really fun, but required some assistance as the numbers increased. After a few tries, he began to recognize the numbers on his own. I could tell that playing the game over a period of time would improve his skills. Leah loved creating the pictures, but needed a lot of help following the directions and recognizing the numbers.
Recognizing the numbers in sequence is one thing, but finding them in random groups is another challenge. Numberella provides this challenge. The players are asked to pick out a specific number floating in a cloud to create a rain shower. Easy for Kayla, not so easy for Joey and Leah, but entertaining enough not to discourage repetition which leads to learning.
Now we come to the really conceptual challenge, using an understanding of what the numbers stand for to manipulate objects. Fishoonka and Toot Toot Train accomplish that brilliantly. Fishoonka emphasizes the concepts of ‘more and less’ by having kids move fish back and forth to create the requested pattern. Toot Toot Train takes it to the next level by requiring the addition or subtraction of cars to create the desired train length. Joey needed guidance to achieve this but began to get the hang of it. Even Leah began to get the idea and was very pleased with herself.
All in all, I give this app 5 stars. As an educator, I appreciate the careful crafting of the games from the concrete to the conceptual. This is a real learning tool as well as an attractive and entertaining game, a bargain at $1.99. Bravo, PunFlay!
Number Sense HD: $1.99*
(Screenshots are coming…)
*Price at time of this writing
Disclosure: We received a free copy of this app for review purposes
In case you’re not familiar with these titles: in The Big Brag, a rabbit thinks outloud to himself about he thinks he’s the best animal of all, at which point a bear listening nearby disagrees with him and boasts that he is the best of all animals. So they put their skills to test against each other, the rabbit trying to hear as far away as possible, the bear trying to smell as far away as possible. They are then interrupted by a worm who says he can see so far, he sees around the world and back again to two fools who have nothing better to do than argue who is better than the other.
In Yertle the Turtle, Yertle is king of his pond, and all he can see, but he is greedy and wants to be king of more – to do so he needs to see more. So he orders his poor loyal turtle subjects to come and make his thrown higher and higher. They obey, but one turtle complains that it isn’t fair. Yertle ignores his pleas and continues to order more and still more turtles over so he can sit on them. Finally the complaining turtle sneezes and makes the huge turtle tower crumble to the ground, sending Yertle into the mud and freeing all the turtles.
It’s always so thrilling when something I treasured from my childhood still exists to become a treasure for my own kids. 
When I was a kid, since both my parents were teachers, summers usually meant we went traveling. When I was in kindergarten we drove across country. In later years, we often drove up to go camping in Maine near Bar Harbor (We lived in New York). Sometimes we’d head south towards Washington D.C. One trip we would make at least once (usually a few times) during the summer was to head to the beaches in New Jersey, our preferred location was Seaside. So I remember lots and lots of long boring car trips. 
With two older brothers, this would mean we would either be trying to entertain each other with any games we could invent. And when that got boring we’d just fight with each other. 
Baby Explorer was a real winner with my neighbor’s seven-month-old grandson, Elan. The App features brightly colored activities that are virtual representations of the traditional “busy box”. Elan could choose from wheels to spin, butterflies to slide, buttons to push and sounds to change. Although putting the iPad in his mouth was something he found really appealing, it is not recommended. 
My Numbers is designed to help a preschool child master numbers from 1-10. The visuals are slick and beautifully crafted. The buttons are big and easy for a child to navigate while having a very satisfying three-dimensional, tactile quality, seeming to actually depress and click realistically. A color wheel allows the child to change the colors of the buttons on the screen. A number of pleasant melodies (even to the ears of an adult) can be selected to accompany the game as well. Another set of buttons provides a choice of objects to count (fish, birds or flowers) which appear on the screen when the corresponding number button is depressed.
In line with The Cat in the Hat story, Up With a Fish is a fun game where you tilt the phone side to side to catch various falling items onto the top of the The Cat’s hat. It’s ok if you miss a few items, except for the fishbowl. Miss too many of those and the game is over. Also, watch out for Thing One and Thing Two, they’ll knock off all the items you’ve collected.
It’s kind of funny that a children’s story would become a classic graduation gift, but when you’re talking about Oh! The Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss, then it’s no surprise. The story is great for children as well as adults – an inspiring view of life’s various adventures. The advice and encouragement the book gives is timeless. Released in time for Graduation, the ebook has three options: read the book yourself, have the book read to you (and you manually turn the pages), or put the whole thing on autoplay and have the book read to you and pages turn automatically.
Oceanhouse Media has created a slew of Dr. Seuss books for the iPhone/iPod/iPad, and all of them are well done and fun to read, have read to you and interact with. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish is no exception. This certainly is one my son’s favorite books and despite the fact that we’ve read it enough times that we could probalby recite it back by heart, my son requests this book very often. Now that we have the eBook on the iPhone, he can read it (or rather have it read to him, since he’s not at reading age just yet) as often as he likes (or at least as often as he gets his hands on my phone) 
