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Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Kidloland Educational Toddler App Review

Before I had bub I wasn't keen on iPads or letting her have one. I constantly saw kids in prams at the shops glued to their iPad and thought I'll never let my child do that

But, like a lot of things I thought pre-kids, that all changed. I've realised iPads are actually a great learning tool for kids, and with most primary schools insisting children have their own iPad from grade 1, they're going to become a firm fixture in their education in the future, so why not embrace them early.

I bought T an iPad for his first father's day and once bub got to about 18 months old she quickly took ownership of it. Poor daddy. Instead of being filled with random sci-fi adventure games, it's now loaded with a heap of educational games for toddlers. She really enjoys the educational apps and they support other learning activities we do on a daily basis, so when I was asked if I'd like to review the Kidloland educational app for toddlers I knew bub would love the chance to test it out.

KIDLOLAND


Kidloland is an educational app that combines nursery rhymes, educational songs and educational activities to help make learning fun for toddlers to 5 year olds to prepare them for prep and kindy. The app covers a diverse range of topics including the alphabet, numbers, colours and shapes, fruits and vegetables, months and days, animals, sounds, vehicles and transportation. The app includes over 250 nursery rhymes and songs and 100 activities split into 16 easy to navigate components.

Kidloland toddler app sections - insects, lullabies, animals, abc, shapes, games.

When I first downloaded the app I started going through all the sections myself to check it out. The first part I looked at was the nursery rhymes and I was excited to see quite a few classic ones from my childhood. I started playing incy wincy spider and that immediately got bub's attention from across the room {even though she's never heard that nursery rhyme before}. From that point on she's been hooked with the app.

NURSERY RHYMES AND EDUCATIONAL SONGS


A lot of the sections {not just the nursery rhymes} are song based with interactive background scenes that support the songs being played. Every animation on the screen becomes interactive when touched. Bub is totally fascinated by it. As she touches each character they either do different actions, make noises or move around the screen. Having the interactive characters supporting the songs definitely holds her attention longer and also makes her go back and play the songs over and over.

Kidloland app five little speckled frogs nursery rhyme


Without a doubt the songs are bub's favourite part of the app. What I love about them is that the nursery rhymes are the full version of the songs and not just the main verse as they're sometimes sung. Thanks to this app I now know the second verse of twinkle twinkle little star. Playschool was holding out on me all these years.

Kidloland app - one potato, two potato, three potato, four nursery rhyme

A lot of the other educational songs, like the fruit and veggie ones, are made up to familiar nursery rhyme tunes just using different words. I think this is great because it makes them sound familiar to kids which grabs their attention. I also love that the words to all the songs are highlighted across the bottom of the screen as they're being sung, which will allow for added learning once we get up to reading.   

PUZZLES AND GAMES


The app also includes a number of games and activities which cover all of the same areas as the songs. The games include puzzles, shape sorting, joining dots, colour sorting, feeding animals, shadow matching and line tracing. Bub particularly loves the puzzles and shape sorting. I can see her little mind ticking over as she contemplates where to put the pieces and then she gets so excited when she gets it right. She literally jumps up and down on the spot and shouts yay I win, I win {not kidding}. Its so wonderful to see the look of accomplishment on her face when she works them out.




Before this app bub had never done joining the dots activities, but after only a week and a quick demonstration from me, she has mastered them. She kept practising over and over until she worked it out. Its a testament to how the app makes learning fun because normally she would just get frustrated and give up.

WHAT DO WE THINK OF KIDLOLAND?


Kidloland is a great all in one educational app for young children. It covers a diverse range of content topics and makes learning fun and engaging through songs, bright colours, cute animations and interactive scenes. As well as the educational components, the app helps children with developmental skills including cognitive skills, hand eye co-ordination, speech and language and early literacy skills. It also provides children with fun, independent learning activities which can complement hands on activities you do with your children.

The only downside of the app is that it requires you to download all of the individual components which can take a little while in total. I would suggest downloading them all before giving it to your kids to play with. We hadn't downloaded everything before bub started checking it out and when she opened some of the ones we hadn't downloaded yet she got quite frustrated with how long it was taking to download so would click back out of them quickly. The good news though is that once the components are downloaded you can use them all offline any time anywhere {which is great when you're out and about with no wifi connection}.

The free version of the app includes 24 different songs and nursery rhymes, with the other components available via a 6 month or 12 month subscription. The Kidloland app is designed for both iPad and iPhone and can be downloaded from the Apple app store

Would you like to comment?

  1. Twinkle twinkle little star has another verse? This looks like a great app for Sophie to try, something new that no one else knows how to use.

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    1. I always thought it had another verse, but never knew what it was. Apparently kids apps can teach adults new things too :)

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  2. The power of the iPad...and the apps! As a grandma/teacher I love many of the ways in which modern tech like this assists learning. Used in moderation (the parents are in charge LOL) then it's great. Glad your little one is enjoying this too. Denyse #teamIBOT PS we got to #ibot each other this week!

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    1. I think iPads can be great learning tools if they're used with the right apps {and in moderation haha}.

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  3. I think Ava would really like this. She loves songs and anything that she can read at the moment.
    There are so many great apps out there but it's hard to find good ones that aren't expensive. Reviews like this are so handy for that.

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    1. Yep I always look up reviews before buying any of the paid apps.

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  4. I would totally try this with my toddler! Entering to win. Thanks!
    fabgabblog@gmail.com

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  5. I'm working on getting my 3yr old Kindy ready & this covers a good range of topics. He's a spirited little thing & struggles to sit still for anything except nursery rhymes on my ipad! This app appears to be nursery rhymes based & would be just the perfect educational tool to keep my little boy engaged. curiouslittlepeople@gmail.com

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    1. It's very nursery rhyme based Rossa. Congratulations, you have won a subscription, I have passed on your details to Kidloland who should be in touch shortly.

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  6. This looks like such a fun app - anything with Five Little Speckled Frogs gets my vote!

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  7. Great comp would love to try it out with my kids arballantyne@dodo.com.au

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  8. My girls would absolutely love, love, LOVE this app! It is exactly the kind of app they love. Anything with songs (especially nursery rhymes) and puzzles/games grabs their attention. We have two iPads which I've loaded the same apps on to and the girls often sit together and play the same app on each iPad and talk and laugh about what they're doing, they have races to see who can finish puzzles first or Punky helps Zee if there is a tricky bit. So in our house, more often than not iPad time is also a social, working together time for the girls and it's lovely to see them working and playing together and Punky helping Zee and I know this app would just extend that.

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    1. Congratulations Kylie you have won a subscription, I'm sure the girls will love it.

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