Attention Parents! Looking for iPad apps to do with your child? - Three apps to consider for children birth to 3 years-old
By: Kelly Hopkins, EC-SEAT Scholar
Life can get crazy and you are not always going to be able to be right next to your child, but finding the time to co-view apps or videos with them is an important part of parenting today. Media and technology are everywhere, and it is important to use the technology we allow our children to play with as an educational tool, and remember technology should not be used not a babysitter. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) suggests that “co-viewing” is critical to the development of a young child if they are going to be exposed to screen time. Here are a few apps that would benefit your child’s development and parent-child experiences.
Touch and Learn Emotions By: Brain Parade, LLC
This free app helps children read body language and understand emotions by looking at pictures and figuring out which person is expressing a given emotion. While in the app, an emotion is described. The child then has four choices to choose from to identify the emotion given. The child then touches an image that represents the emotion that was described. The app provides twenty different emotions to choose from. This app is user friendly. This app does have some of images that look similar and a child could be confused on which image is the right answer, leaving the child feeling unsuccessful or confused. To help with this, the app allows you to add pictures and voices of someone familiar. I think that this app is a simple way for children to work on identifying emotional concepts through facial expressions and body language. This also always a parent to play along and then work on facial imitation of different emotions as well as labeling feelings.
Couple Additional Resources on Interactive Media and Young Children:
Mobile and Interactive Media Use by Young Children: The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown - article from Pediatrics by: Jenny S. Radesky, Jayna Schumacher, and Barry Zuckerman (2015).
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Life can get crazy and you are not always going to be able to be right next to your child, but finding the time to co-view apps or videos with them is an important part of parenting today. Media and technology are everywhere, and it is important to use the technology we allow our children to play with as an educational tool, and remember technology should not be used not a babysitter. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) suggests that “co-viewing” is critical to the development of a young child if they are going to be exposed to screen time. Here are a few apps that would benefit your child’s development and parent-child experiences.
Connect The Dots For Toddlers by: Rohn Media GmnH
This app teaches your toddler to draw and hone in on their visual spatial, and fine motor skills. Instead of using a pencil, crayon, or maker a child can use a stylist or their finger to practice tracing lines. The app prompts the child by connecting dots, when they touch the blue dot, the next dot pops up and guide your child around the animal. When all the way around the animal the color fills in. You and your child can sit down and take turns making pictures with your finger. The pictures range from farm animals to ocean creatures. As a parent you can model the different sounds the animals make, how they move and begging concepts of color awareness. This app would be useful for a children requiring a mulit-sensory approach to learning. This app can support children with disabilities by allowing them extra practice with hand eye coordination This app does require in-app purchases and may make your iPad run slower.
This app teaches your toddler to draw and hone in on their visual spatial, and fine motor skills. Instead of using a pencil, crayon, or maker a child can use a stylist or their finger to practice tracing lines. The app prompts the child by connecting dots, when they touch the blue dot, the next dot pops up and guide your child around the animal. When all the way around the animal the color fills in. You and your child can sit down and take turns making pictures with your finger. The pictures range from farm animals to ocean creatures. As a parent you can model the different sounds the animals make, how they move and begging concepts of color awareness. This app would be useful for a children requiring a mulit-sensory approach to learning. This app can support children with disabilities by allowing them extra practice with hand eye coordination This app does require in-app purchases and may make your iPad run slower.
Nursery Rhymes # 1 by: My Digital Touch
This app provides toddlers and preschoolers with a fun sing along with interactive moving elements. This would be appropriate for any child to encourage rhythm, fine motor, and exposure to nursery rhymes. Co-viewing this app would help you and your child learn songs together and help you as a parent carry over the rhythm and rhyming throughout your day when the iPad is not being used. You can sing the song while washing your toddler’s hands, in the car, playing in the bath or while taking a walk. Because the app offers text to speech to sing aloud the song, children needing auditory and visual input for language access would benefit from these features. Again this app does require in-app purchase and might slow down your iPad.
This app provides toddlers and preschoolers with a fun sing along with interactive moving elements. This would be appropriate for any child to encourage rhythm, fine motor, and exposure to nursery rhymes. Co-viewing this app would help you and your child learn songs together and help you as a parent carry over the rhythm and rhyming throughout your day when the iPad is not being used. You can sing the song while washing your toddler’s hands, in the car, playing in the bath or while taking a walk. Because the app offers text to speech to sing aloud the song, children needing auditory and visual input for language access would benefit from these features. Again this app does require in-app purchase and might slow down your iPad.
Touch and Learn Emotions By: Brain Parade, LLC
This free app helps children read body language and understand emotions by looking at pictures and figuring out which person is expressing a given emotion. While in the app, an emotion is described. The child then has four choices to choose from to identify the emotion given. The child then touches an image that represents the emotion that was described. The app provides twenty different emotions to choose from. This app is user friendly. This app does have some of images that look similar and a child could be confused on which image is the right answer, leaving the child feeling unsuccessful or confused. To help with this, the app allows you to add pictures and voices of someone familiar. I think that this app is a simple way for children to work on identifying emotional concepts through facial expressions and body language. This also always a parent to play along and then work on facial imitation of different emotions as well as labeling feelings.
Couple Additional Resources on Interactive Media and Young Children:
Technology and Interactive Mediaas Tools in Early Childhood ProgramsServing Children from Birth through Age 8 - A joint position statement of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and
the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College (2012).
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