Toddler Teaser Shapes is an iPhone App that can be played by both toddlers and preschoolers to help be able to recognise and name shapes.
Overview of Toddler Teasers Shapes
My toddler (2.5 years old) has only just started playing some games on the iPhone. This game shows him three shapes with the word of one shape written at the bottom. The audio then asks him to “find a rectangle”. At this early stage my toddler doesn’t know shapes yet, so he just tries to tap any shape. If he touches the wrong shape, it simply names the shape, eg triangle and asks him to try again.
Once he has identified 4 shapes correctly, he receives a sticker. You can turn the reward stickers off or adjust the number of completed quizzes they need to complete before they receive a sticker.
In the settings (which you get to by tapping three times on the start up screen) you can also adjust the type of shapes they have to identify. You can increase the degree of difficulty by adding the advanced shapes. And they are quite advanced, so would easily suit a preschooler. My school kids have actually learnt some new shape names from this game! They have shapes like ellipse, heptagon, parallelogram, isosceles triangle and more.
Technical Skills Needed By Toddler / Preschooler
Toddler Teaser Shapes requires very minimal technical skills, which makes it a great introductory game for toddlers. The child simply needs to tap the screen to play the game.
Learning Opportunities For Toddlers / Preschooler
This is a great way to reinforce shape naming and identification that you are doing with your kids at home. As the game is simple, the child can focus on the shapes alone and start to recognise them. They do need to listen to the game, so they know what shape to look for, so it also helps with their listening and interpretation skills.
Download iPhone App from iTunes
Link: Toddler Teasers Shapes
Cost: Free
MSO Learn is a new iPhone and iPad App from Melbourne Symphony Orchestra introducing the kids to musical instruments. Learn about the inner workings of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and its musicians.
Overview of MSO Learn App
This iPhone is not a game as such but allows preschoolers to explore:
- what is an orchestra
- what are the different instruments in the orchestra
- more about the musicians who play these instruments
Older children will be able to navigate this app with ease, but preschoolers will need a guided tour first. The sound of the app is impressive and the graphics are professional and enticing. There is a lot of text describing sections like those on the musicians. While older kids could read this themselves, it would be great to have an audio reading of this info for younger kids.
Technical Skills Needed By Preschooler
MSO is very much an exploratory app, so preschoolers just need to be able to swipe the iPhone and make selections by touching the relevant parts of the screen. Once you have given them a guided tour the iPhone app is easy for preschoolers to navigate and explore the orchestra.
Learning Opportunities For Preschooler
My kids have only a small amount of knowledge on musical instruments, so it was an excellent tool to introduce them to the concept of the orchestra and the types of instruments that make up an orchestra.
As you get to hear in fabulous audio the sound each instrument makes, we talked about the families of instruments, the type of sounds they made (high/low) and how you play them (blow, strum, etc).
After only a couple of sessions exploring MSO Learn my 5 year old and 7 year old have significantly more knowledge on musical instruments of the orchestra. The favourite for the 5 year old was:
And for the 7 year old it was:
Prior to using the app neither of them would have recognised these instruments by sight or have been aware of the music they make.
Download iPhone App from iTunes
Link: MSO Learn on iTunes
Cost: Free
