Lots of weeks ago my friend Elizabeth asked if I could share some of the math apps that Poppy’s been using on her iPod. And then I got distracted and wrote about brisket, beans and pickles instead. And then last night I remembered that I never answered Elizabeth.
Instead of focusing just on the math apps, though, I thought I’d just go ahead and tell you about all of the edu-apps on Poppy’s iPod. And so here we are, and here they are.
Educational apps for a 7-year-old girl
GeoDash: Wild Animal Adventure is from National Geographic, so it has to be good. It’s free, but (as Poppy notes below) additional “chapters” cost extra.
“You get a little animal called Geo (he’s a robot), and he’s trying to go through a portal,” Poppy says. “You need a key. There are special powers like the Cheetah Power that makes you go two times faster. I think it’s a great game for someone who really likes National Geographic, except you have to pay for the chapters in the Amazon rain forest. You get facts and cards to help you learn about the animals.”
Playing Go Car Go makes me laugh out loud. I like to build cars that do ridiculous flips and smashups, though, so I don’t think I’m playing it as it’s meant to be played. It’s 99 cents.
“It’s a game sort of like Bad Piggies, except you don’t have a pig,” which doesn’t clear up a thing for me, but that’s how Poppy describes it. “You’re trying to build a car that can get to the finish line without stopping. If you stop for a certain amount of time, an octopus comes and takes your car apart. I think it’s a very good game for someone who likes to build things.”
Motion Math: Wings is the only math app Poppy has continued playing. It’s $7 for every level.
“Motion Math: Wings is the same company who made Hungry Fish (we have it on my Daddy’s iPad). It’s a very fun game for learning math,” says the girl. “You tilt the device to steer the bird. I like that you get to collect feathers and twigs and bird blasts.”
I think Poppy has learned more from Presidents vs. Aliens than from any other app on her iPod. She knows all of the presidents by sight now, which is more than I can say for myself. (And also you get to fling presidents at aliens.) It’s 99 cents.
“This is a very good game for learning about the presidents, but here’s a part I don’t really understand: When you answer a question right, you get a president head that you shoot at aliens. That’s very weird,” says Poppy. “I would recommend it for someone who’s trying to learn about the presidents and especially for someone who doesn’t know much about them but would like to learn more. I found some presidents I didn’t even know had been president, like William Henry Harrison and Harry S Truman.”
Poppy has gleaned a lot of info from Stack the States, too. It’s worth the 99 cents.
Poppy says: “Stack the States is from the same company as Presidents vs. Aliens and Mathamateer and Stack the Countries. (We’ll talk to you about that later.) Stack the States is a game where you answer questions about the states. Every time you get a question right you earn a state, and you have to make a stack of states to reach a goal. I think it’s good for someone who wants to learn about the states.”
Stack the Countries is a relatively new addition to the iPod, so I can’t vouch for its efficacy just yet. Poppy seems to like it, though. It’s $1.99.
“This is like a huger version of Stack the States,” she says. “It’s kind of like you get huger states, only this time they’re countries. This would be good for someone who’s learning about the world.”