This month we have a new and stylish Peekaboo book for the younger kids full of surprises and words to learn. For the older set, Matexo offers a fun take on puzzles to keep your math skills nimble. Finally, discover the waterways that used to flow all over Vancouver and some of the signs that they left behind.
Garry Froehlich
Jellybean Tunes
Peekaboo Baby & Toddler Books
By Lidwien Veugen
Lift the flap books are a staple for young kids. Lift the flap, see what’s behind it, close the flap, lift it again, and continue until the page gets chewed on or the flaps tear off. Peekaboo offers a stylish take on the concept, with fun graphics and animations, voiceovers and written words. There are seven books with seven pages each, and on one item hidden on each page. One book is available for free, with the others unlocked with an in-app purchase. Better still, the objects hiding on each page change, so each pass through the book is slightly different, and there can be a surprise each time. Peekaboo is a beautiful, fun app and is ad-free.
Matexo
By Logis Studio Inc.
Often, math apps are simply multiple choice quizzes with cute graphics. Matexo changes that by turning math into puzzles. On the surface, Matexo turns equations into slickly designed paths, and asks you to drag number and operations onto the path to turn one number into another. If you are given 2 and 4, you drag +2 onto the path and, congratulations, you’ve solved it. Not so fast though. There are multiple equations and multiple paths that all need to be solved, and those paths can cross, so placing one number affects more than one equation at a time. Mix in multiplication and division, and puzzles get tricky, but in the best brain-teaser way. Matexo is definitely worth a look for puzzle aficionados. The app is ad supported, with an in-app purchase to remove ads.
Vancouver’s Lost Creeks
By Ryan Froehlich
Yes, this was made as a school project by my son, so I can’t not feature it here. Vancouver (the one in Canada) used to be covered in creeks that were rerouted underground, diverted, or simply vanished over the years. Sometimes there are still traces of these creeks, if you know where to look. Fortunately, there’s now a handy app that superimposes the lost creeks over a map on your phone and lets you go hunting for them. Plus, our intrepid developer has already visited and photographed some of the sites and included them in the app.
