With the Barbie movie coming to theatres, kids can relax, colour, and create their own Barbie experiences with Barbie Colour Creations from StoryToys. Plus, progress from pre-coding to visual programming with the jam-packed Code Land from Learny Land.
Garry Froehlich
Jellybean Tunes
Barbie Colour Creations
By StoryToys
Barbie Colour Creations is a relaxing colouring and sticker book. Kids choose one of the dozens of characters and scenes, and are given friendly art tools to colour and decorate as they choose. Tools include the usual markers, fills, and pencils, but also make-up brushes and lipsticks. Plus, the image can be zoomed and moved to help with those finer details. The colouring tools are the main draw of the app, but for those wanting a pre-coloured character, a special brush will fully colour them with a few finger swipes. Sticker book scenes (called design challenges) have kids colouring and designing their characters and props, then adding them as stickers to create the scene. All images can be saved to your device’s photos to show off later. There are currently only a few scenes, but more are being added. Barbie Colour Creations offers a seven-day free trial and then requires a subscription for continued use.
Code Land – Coding for Kids
By Learny Land
Code Land starts out like many pre-coding apps, getting children to guide a character along a blocky path with simple arrows, but impressively progresses into visual programming. Kids begin in Logic Land solving simple puzzles such as guiding a fire truck to put out a fire, or making a conveyer belt go in the right direction. They then progress to pre-coding activities, moving robots and vehicles, and learning basic coding concepts. Finally, they move on to an actual programming language, much like MIT’s Scratch, where they apply the concepts they’ve learned. Kids can also experiment in a more free-form way in competitive games that get the child to write a program, then see how the program performs in the game. There are further sections that let kids make simple platform games, machines, or dance parties, and grow a garden. Code Land is packed with activities and comes with a 7 day free trial, after which a subscription is required.
