This month, kids can go on a charming adventure to gather ingredients for a tea party with Teacup Mobile. Younger kids can create fun and imaginative animated shorts with Movie Adventure, and they can practice learning letters and words with Learn to Read — Duolingo ABC. Finally, those who need more letter puzzles can combine their fun with learning new words with Vocably.
Garry Froehlich
Jellybean Tunes
Teacup Mobile
By Whitethorn Digital
Teacup Mobile has the feel of a children’s book, but the story is told through a classic adventure game. A frog named Teacup is hosting a tea party, and sets out on a quest to gather all of the ingredients she needs for her teas. This is accomplished by exploring the map, meeting interesting anthropomorphic animals, and solving not too complex puzzles (such as a Tetris-like block puzzle, or a simple timed-sequence of movements). There is always someone to talk to or something to explore. The conversations are not narrated, so reading ability is required. The graphics evoke a storybook feel, although they are perhaps a little too pixelated, and the music and sound effects have a peaceful feeling. Overall, Teacup Mobile is a charming and wholesome title suitable for middle school kids and older.
Movie Adventure
By Fox and Sheep
Movie Adventure lets kids create short animated cartoons using a built-in cast of characters, backdrops, music and special effects. Kids can choose from farmers, animals, fire fighters, vehicles, and even insects, and set them against various well-drawn and detailed backgrounds. The app records the screen as kids move their characters around, and can optionally record the microphone if kids want to add their own sound effects. The characters animate as they move and each has a special animation when tapped on. In addition to the professionally drawn characters, there are doodle style characters looking like they were drawn by kids, but unfortunately I couldn’t find a way to draw or add your own characters. Movie Adventure is an easy way for kids to create short and imaginative cartoons, and comes with a good amount of content. Some additional characters and effects can be purchased through in-app purchases, but it is not required.
Learn to Read — Duolingo ABC
By Duolingo
Learn to Read, from the creators of Duolingo, is a colourful , polished, English reading app. Lessons start at recognizing letter sounds, associating those with words and the letters themselves, and moves up to phonics and full words. The app packages activities into short lessons, and these activities are varied enough that they don’t feel too repetitive. Activities include dragging letters into words, tapping on letter bubbles, matching letters to words and word images, letter tracing, and more. Learn to Read also takes advantage of speech recognition, so kids are given a chance to say words and letters to help improve their understanding. There are daily jokes, and a large library of stories that kids can read at any time. Learn to Read encourages you to create an account, but thankfully doesn’t require one.
Vocably
By Naweed Akram
Vocably uses the Wordle formula to help expand your vocabulary. The game gives you six tries to guess a five letter word, and uses colour to provide feedback on whether or not individual letters are in the word. After each puzzle, Vocably shows you the word, along with a definition (good for kids who may not know the word). There are 2,700 puzzles and you can play as many of them per day as you like. Vocably is free with no advertisements and a sensible privacy policy.
