When I was in grade school, I was a tomboy. (Heck, sometimes I still feel like a tomboy!)

One of my favorite toys was a little green metal sports car.  (This was in the pre-Matchbox cars days.)

It was a one-seater sports car. I thought it was the neatest thing ever. I loved playing in the dirt with it. (We didn’t have a sandbox.  I grew up on a farm and the whole yard was far better than a sandbox any old day.)

When I was recently asked if I would review the iPhone app Cars in Sandbox, I just had to say yes. The app spoke to the tomboy side of me.

This app has eight different types of construction vehicles. The object of the game is to select a vehicle and ‘play’ with it in the sandbox by having the vehicle ‘pick up’ or ‘move’ other toys and items in the sandbox.

For instance, load the dump truck with a beach ball or a rocket and dump it into a box. The road grader scoots a tennis ball, soccer ball, and basketball and into a tube. With the claw of the crane, you pick up blocks out of one box, drive to another box, and drop the blocks in the second box.

When you successfully accomplish a task for the vehicle, you get a star. If you want to ‘play’ with another vehicle, you can easily switch to a different one.

There are many things about this app that delight me. When you press on a vehicle, a realistic sounding motor starts. I love this! The motor sounds different when you ‘drive’ the vehicle forward from when you drive backwards. It idles when the vehicle isn’t moving.

You can open and shut the vehicle’s door. turn on the headlights, and lower the stabilizer jacks. I especially love honking the horn. (I honked it so much my husband got rather annoyed . . .)

Here are some screenshots.

Here are a few of the things I like about this application:

• I love the bright colors.
• I am extremely impressed with the graphics. The vehicles are very realistic and well-drawn.
• I think it’s funny that you bump into another toy when you get to the end of the sandbox.
• This app kept my attention for a long time! I absolutely love it. I can’t wait to show it to my grandchildren.

While the game creators state that this game is for children over 1-2, I think that isn’t quite right. Yes, while children that young can move the vehicles back and forth, they won’t have the dexterity to manipulate the vehicle and the other items in the game. I think that this app would be better for children over 4 years old.

The app costs only $1.99. Check it out. I think this is definitely worth buying! It’s fun. It’s challenging. It’s colorful. And, I think children will really enjoy this app.  I sure did.

Giveaway

I would like to give away 2 copies of this app.  Woot!  Woot! All you have to do to enter is post a comment here about your memories of playing in the sandbox or a favorite toy that you had as a child.

Good luck!

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this application. However, that did not influence my opinion of the product.

A while back, I wrote about the series of books My Grandma Could Do Anything.

The author, Ric Dilz, contacted me with a special offer that I can share with you, Dear Readers.  You can get a FREE ePub or PDF copy of the book. Woo hoo!

All you have to do is ‘like’ their Facebook page.  It’s that simple.

If that link won’t work for you, go to their website, Jibber Jabbers Books. Click on their Facebook link on the right-hand side of their page. After you like their page, you will see a link at the top where you can download your free ePub or PDF copy of the book. Sweet.

(While you are on the Jibber Jabbers page, check out their toddler t-shirts. Way fun.  I love the one that says “Don’t make me call grandma” and “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”)

This is a wonderful gift from Ric!  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

If you get the ePub version, you can read it on a Nook, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, the Sony Reader, Android, and Blackberry phones. If you select the PDF file, you can read it on those devices in addition to computers.

Well, pardon me.  I’m off to download the ePub version and install it on our iPad.

Toot-a-loo!

The other day, I was thinking about just how far we have come with technology. Back in September, I saw a video that demonstrated what Corning is doing. I wonder how soon those technologies will be commonplace in our homes.

I have seen computers start as room-sized behemoths. Now, their are itsy bitsy hold-in-your-hand size.

For the last twenty years, children started learning keyboarding skills in grade school.  (I didn’t learn how to type until I was in the 9th grade.) Now, with the advent of the iPad (and other technologies that are copying Apple), children learn touch and swipe skills.  Much easier than typing for wee fingers to learn, don’t you think?

And in today’s world, there are educational apps galore.  When my children were growing up, books, flashcards, and Sesame Street were the options.

These apps make learning way fun for children, parents, and grandparents.  For instance, take the app Pre-K Letters and Numbers by BrightStart.

With this app, pre-kindergarten children learn their upper case and lower case letters.  They learn common phonemes (letter combinations such as ‘ch’ and ‘sh’) and numbers.

As you can see by the picture to the left, the app displays numbers that give direction as to the correct way to ‘write’ it. Your grandchild simply follows the number and traces the letter with her finger.

When she successfully completes it, a corresponding picture is shown.  With the uppercase letters, the pictures are of fruit. Lower case letters show pictures of animals.

The app displays an assortment of items when your grandchild works on numbers and phonemes.

Here are two of my favorite pictures in the program. (That’s because I love elephants and I love cherries.)

This app teaches and reinforces visual recognition of letters and numbers. It helps children develop their fine motor skill. Their counting skill is reinforced.

I like the soft pastel colors of this app and the pictures for the numbers and the letters.

I do have a small concern. Some of the examples used are not common. How many children are familiar with xiguas or narwhales or wildebeests? (How many parents and grandparents are??)

Parents and grandparents are probably familiar with newts and huckleberries but these items are not common for children in the pre-k age group. I know how hard it is to find example of words for letters like q, x, and z. However, I would suggest that the developers see if they could replace their uncommon examples with something a little more familiar.

Another suggestion I have is that it would be nice to be able to choose different melodies. The same one over and over and over gets a tad annoying. (I wonder if children would get tired of hearing the same tune all of the time . . .)

You can have up to 5 users for this game. You can register (for free) and then see a report card for them. The report card tracks total plays and time spent on the game. It shows the rate that a child successfully ‘writes’ the letters or numbers. It identifies spots where children have struggled. (I have a problem keeping my fat fingers within the lines when going around curves…) It even shows how many tries it took to complete the letter/number.

I really like the report card. Parents and grandparents can see where a child is struggling and then have the child practice more on the problem spot.

There is a free version of this app but it only has a few numbers and letters.  For only $0.99, you can get the complete application.

I would give this app 4 stars out of 5.

This app works on an iPhone or an iPad. It would be a great little Christmas gift to give to your grandchild’s family.  Or put it on your own iPhone/iPad for your grandchildren to play when they come for a visit.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this application for reviewing purposes. However, that did not influence my opinion.

The other day I was contacted by a sweet Russian mother, Irina, who has a 7 year old son.  She shared with me how her son sometimes had nightmares from the stories she read him at bedtime. She didn’t like that so she decided to do something about it.

She co-founded AppGrade, a company that develops applications for the iPhone and iPad. Their team of writers, artists, and developers from around the world (Russia, Holland, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the U.S.) developed Clever Tales, a collection of 40 tales (with original artwork) for children.  The stories are divided into two groups — one for preschool age and one for children 7 years and older.  The stories teach good values such as cooperation, kindness, working together, and selflessness.

My favorite story was The Two Chefs.  Here is a screen shot of the story and some accompanying pictures. (I love the pointy nose on the skinny chef!)

Here is a screen shot of A Tower of Bricks.

Here’s a screen shot from a story about hedgehogs. Our youngest son was enamored at one time with hedgehogs.  He wanted one for Christmas.  Hedgehogs were not available in the local pet stores.  (What a relief!)  I think he would have enjoyed me reading this story to him!

This application also has music to accompany the tales.  You can put it on sleep mode.  After you finish reading, the gentle music will play for twenty minutes and then shut off.  I really like this feature!

You can bookmark your favorite stories for easy access.  You can personalize it: change the size of the font, set it for day mode or night mode (which has a dimmer light so the light isn’t so bright), have larger sized images, change the background color, and the theme.

I think that the stories for younger children should have a wee bit more images.  I personally think that it’s hard to hold the attention of preschoolers with lots of text and not very many pictures.

If you have an iPad or iPhone, this would be a fun application to have when your grandchildren come for a visit.  Especially if they are spending the night with you!

You can get it for $4.99 in the Apps Store in iTunes.

(Disclaimer: I was given a promo code so that I could review this application)