This month we present apps with a certain festive theme. Yes, Christmas is almost here. Avokiddo has added holiday-themed content to their jam-packed app, Thinkrolls. Kids, or parents, can add Santa to their photos with Catch Santa Claus in My House. Catch presents in the fast-paced game Christmas Castle. Finally, grab some hot chocolate and relax while enjoying the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Garry Froehlich
Jellybean Tunes
Thinkrolls: Games for Kids 2-8
By Avokiddo Ltd
Thinkrolls challenges kids to solve puzzles, answer math problems, do pre-coding activities, or even create and share their own puzzles all with cute rolling round characters. The main activity has kids solving logic/physics puzzles by placing objects (such as snakes that can extend or crackers that can be crunched) into a maze that their character must traverse. Once they’ve planned out their solution, they can interact with the maze to actually complete it. Even better, kids can exercise their creativity by making their own mazes and puzzles, or playing ones created by other kids. Thinkrolls has been updated with Christmas activities including sorting presents, and playing hide and seek. Plus, there are a ton of other activies, such as pre-coding with the aptly named Pirates’ Code, or practising numbers, shapes and sequences. Thinkrolls requires a monthly or annual subscription but comes with a one-week free trial.
Catch Santa Claus in My House
By Dualverse, Inc.
Catch Santa is a simple photo app that lets you take a picture and add Santa, elves, and of course reindeer to the image. You can choose to take a photo or use an existing one from your photo library, plus you can do basic contrast adjustments, straightening, cropping and erasing to make the Santa stickers better fit your image. Catch Santa lets you prove to your kids that Santa was there, or to teach them about photo manipulation. Several stickers are free with the remainder sold as relatively inexpensive packs via in-app purchases, and purchasing one also removes ads.
Avocado’s Christmas Castle
By Traditional Animation LLC
Avocado’s (no relation to Avokiddo) Christmas Castle is a simple but fast-paced game that asks kids to sit in a castle tower and catch falling objects in a basket. Kids catch candy canes, presents, ornaments and more, along with power-ups that freeze time or stop things from stacking. Anything not caught piles up at the bottom of the tower, and the game ends if the stack gets too high. The app does contain a link to the Avocado the Puppet YouTube channel that parents might want to check out before handing this to their kids. The game is simple, fast, fun and free without ads.
A Charlie Brown Christmas
By Loud Crow Interactive Inc.
This is probably my favourite Christmas app, so I couldn’t not include it. A Charlie Brown Christmas takes the classic TV special and turns it into a pop-up activity book narrated by the (now grown up) actor that voiced Charlie Brown himself. The story includes word highlighting, features voices and music from the original special, allows kids to interact with almost everything, and even invites them to decorate a tree for the Lights and Display Contest. The app hasn’t been updated in a while, but it still works and is still a classic.
