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| Elephant Song (Age 1+) | |||||||||||
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Having kids may be making me a bit soft. When I think of “Elephant Song” words come to mind like “endearing”, “gorgeous”, “heart-warming”. The song just has that innocence you don’t come across these days as much as you would like. The child who interjects correcting all the mistakes just makes the song.
The app is based on a YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yihq8BIhL9c) which has now had over 6 million views(!). I saw it as an iPhone app first however. The app does add a bit of interactivity on top of the video.
If you are a bit of a softie for cute kids, get this app for yourself even if you don’t have young children! (Its free at the time of this review.) You might not keep it for too long, but have a listen if only once and I don’t think you will be disappointed.
I now make up little songs myself at times and Big-T gladly jumps in with “no, no, no” and starts correcting me (like in the song). He loves it.
The Application
There are two phases to the app. First there is a song with synchronized graphics, then there is a simple jigsaw like puzzle. While the song plays “Elephants, I like Elephants. They swing through the trees…”, a cute boy interrupts and corrects the singer all the way through. A synchronized cartoon image builds up for each animal then unwinds as the singer corrects themselves and moves on to the next animal. If you hit the pause button you can interact a bit with the animal on the screen (a few simple animations). The second phase is you are given a page with pieces that you can move around to form the picture of the Elephant yourself.
The Good
- Its an absolutely delightful childrens song.
- The interrupting boy is very cute and innocent.
- It has a jigsaw like puzzle afterwards so you can make your own Elephant.
- The song teaches characteristics of several animals.
- You can interact with the animals by pausing the song.
The Bad
- The song phase can result in the child watching more like a music-video – you sit and watch (and listen). More involvement from the child to me is important.
- I suspect this app will keep the interest of young children for a relatively short time. Its a single song.
- The puzzle at the end (form your own elephant picture) has some very small parts that can be hard to move (such as the eye-brow).
- I found Big-T worked from the top down only to discover the torso was too low on the page and he could not get the legs on. He then had to start moving all the pieces higher one by one, which he quickly tired of and just exited the app instead.
Educational Value
The song describes a number of different animals and their characteristics. It also shows a cartoon image of them. To be precise, it describes each animal incorrectly with the little boy correcting the singer – but it achives the goal of teaching about animals. I found Big-T listening closely the first few times for some of the animals he was a bit less familar about.
The puzzle like stage to form your own picture of the elephant adds a reward to listening to the whole song, and does develop some pattern matching skills. You have to move all the pieces around to look like the little sample image. But not a huge educational value for this phase.
My Score
4.5 stars. I was sorely tempted to give this a 5 star rating because of its appeal (and being free) – just to make sure people got the app. But its not really 5 star educational merit (its good, but not perfect). And there are other lower scored apps that I would still recommend regardless. I find Big-T does tire of apps (particularly after mastering a skill), so having a range of different apps to continually challenge I think is a good thing.
Get it in iTunes
More information, screen shots, and user reviews can be found in the iTunes store.
Other Suggestions
- Animals: I Hear Ewe – Animal Sounds for Toddlers, Peekaboo Barn, Preschool Adventure, Animal Farm, I See Ewe – Animal Sounds for Toddlers, Clara
- Jigsaw Puzzle: Shape Builder – the Preschool Learning Puzzle Game, iPushFit Jigsaw
- Matching: Memory Match, Preschool Adventure, Shape Builder – the Preschool Learning Puzzle Game, ABC Match, iPushFit Jigsaw, Animal SNAP!
- Singing: MPB: Spaghetti, Wheels on the Bus
- Story Book: MPB: Spaghetti, Wheels on the Bus, Little Bella’s – I Close my Eyes, Postman Plum Interactive Kids Book
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