You cannot walk past too many tables in a restaurant or down an aisle in a store without seeing a little one on some kind of smart device (iPod, iPad etc...). I must admit that I too am guilty of occasionally handing a fussy toddler my phone or the iPad out of my purse. There are a multitude of games out there for smart devices that little ones should NOT be playing. I am glad that companies like Talking Fingers, Inc. make toddler friendly games like the Talking Shapes iPad App.
The Talking Shapes iPad App is geared toward Pre-K –K aged children, although my two year old enjoyed it just as much as my three year old. The app is available for $5.99 in the iTunes Store.
Talking Shapes tells a fictitious but fun story of how the alphabet came to be.
From the beginning, my little ones loved listening to the stories and then “drawing” the letters from each of the stories. Drawing the letters consists of tracing the letters with a finger but really is more of just filling in the desired space. Both my little ones scribbled with their fingers over the designated letter space until the letter was fully formed.
The Read to Me option offers three different books, all of which contain different letters.
Book One- The Fat Cat covers letters A, C, T, S, F, H
Book Two – The Silly Hen covers letters P, N, M, E, L
Book Three- The Dancing Pig covers letters I, B, G, J, W, D
Each of the three books also comes with three different (total of 9) games.
The three different games are: Find the Shapes, Find the Letters, and Draw the Letters
Find the Shapes consists of picking and dragging the correct picture to spell a chosen word. The picture above shows a screen shot of this game.
Find the Letters is a bit more advanced, the kids have to find the correct letter to spell the words without having the corresponding pictures. For example, instead a snake as an option, it would only be a letter "S".
Draw the Letter was my littles' favorite game. It’s kind of a middle ground game. They pick the correct pictures to spell out the chosen word but then also have to trace the correct letter on the picture.
At the end of each of the games there is a final round where the kids pick the correct word to fill in the blank in sentences. This was difficult for my little ones since they cannot read. However! Popping the bubbles to guess at the words was great fun for them.
My babes did have a great deal of fun helping me review the Talking Shapes iPad App and still request to play if often. My three year old is barely three so he isn’t quite ready to begin writing his letters yet. His motor skills just aren’t there. That being said, my two year old is able to identify more letters since she has been playing the app. She will point out random letters in stores or on signs. They are both learning and picking up more and more letter knowledge but I think they are too young to get the most out of the app just yet. I would recommend the app for 3 ½ years old and older.
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