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Monday, December 12, 2011

Free Christmas Apps for Kids {Review}



My Story Time

My Story Time allows kids to construct simple stories or messages using an assortment of pictures and words. Designed for children 6 years and older, it is the perfect way to motivate early readers to practice their reading and writing skills. And not to mention that My Story Time is also a fantastic way to encourage kids to explore their creative sides.

Key features:
•12 different animated holiday pictures
•Selection of appropriate words to create custom messages
•Lets you save your stories or email them to someone
•Encourages kids to explore writing





It took me a while to figure this one out and didn't know what to do because the ad banner bar was covering the functions and I couldn't see the buttons. I couldn't make a story with the ad in the way at the bottom. If the ad banner could be minimized by swiping it off the page or if it could've been placed somewhere else, it would've been better. Brandon and I later figured out there were more stories by swiping the boxes to rotate to a new picture. The lovely animated illustrations are adorable. The app is for the older kids who can already know how to read and write. I read the story to him and he was okay with that.

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12 Days to Christmas

Features:
•12 in 1 pack of Christmas activities and stories
•Good mix of stories, activities and games to sustain kids’ interest
•Cheerful holiday interface
•Games that help in developing eye-hand coordination
•Heart-warming holiday stories
•3D Clay animated interactive book
•3D animated video book






Brandon and I like this app the most. Another free app so there are ads. The banner bar only showed a black rectangle and wasn't showing any ads. It was still a bit distracting because it was blocking over the text of the story books at the bottom. The app has various fun activities and game to keep him interested. He loves the watching the Candy Fish Christmas animation video. And we got to decorate a gingerbread man, design a wreath, and even do some coloring. This one is quite a fun app.


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Jerricho the Elf

The star of this story is Jerricho. Little Jerricho has been chosen to be one of Santa's elves this Christmas. However, poor Jerricho loses his lucky hat as he sets out to catch the bus to North Pole. This is when things begin to go terribly wrong! Join Jerricho in his adventures as he chases a goblin and braves an avalanche. Find out if he accomplishes his mission.








There's an option to purchase the ad-free version. This is a nice animated storybook. It has interactive features where kids can touch and drag to move objects within the story. This is kind of like a surprise where we find out what tap actions and gestures does what. We had fun experimenting with the actions actions around each of the pages.

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My Xmas Tree

This app lets you share your decorated Xmas tree with your friends, but the most exciting part is that the tree grows in real time even when the app is closed.

Features:
• Xmas Tree that grows in real time and will grow fully on Xmas (but you can set the time –earlier/later)
• Get gifts as you water the tree
• Daily alarm to remind you to water the tree so that you don’t miss on your gifts
• To the point graphics giving a visual treat
• Share with your friends through facebook and e-mail





Brandon quickly got bored with this app. I'm still a little bit confused with the countdown. Not sure if it is a glitch or mistake, but the Christmas countdown is wrong. It was Dec. 10th and the counter is reading 350 days till Christmas. And I wasn't able to set the time. All it did was sow the full Christmas tree with decorations after I pressed that function. Another problem is that all the gifts we've collected (from watering the tree) had disappeared after I closed and reopened the app again.

My suggestions for improvements: getting the countdown fixed, animation of tree growing, and perhaps implementing touch and tap interactions

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