This is a sponsored post for Kids’ Academy apps. Regardless I only post honest reviews. Any opinions expressed are my own.
My son started 4 year old Kindergarten this year. He rides the bus to school, it’s an all day program, 5 days a week, it’s a part of the elementary school. A lot of people I talk to assume it’s not really school since a lot of schools in our area don’t have a 4 year old kindergarten program even close to ours. My son did 4 yr old preschool last year it was only 3 days a week for half a day at the local daycare. I try to reinforce the teaching of the 4 yr old kindergarten. I also tried to do this when he was in 4 yr old preschool.
One fun and easy way to do this is to incorporate appropriate concepts in a fun way. My son loves to play on my phone. I use the apps from Kids Academy as one way to do this.
1. BINGO ABC’s alphabet phonics song from Kid’s Academy has the familiar song we all know and love with fun colorful graphics. There is a free version and a paid version. I tried the free version first. The free version only let’s you go so far until it prompts you to buy the full version. The free version is a great way to test the apps though to see if it’s something that engages your child.
The little girl that’s sitting on the back of the truck is singing the song. The characters are all moving and the scenes change as the song goes on. As she says each letter they appear on the screen reinforcing the letter recognition with your child.
2. Kid’s Academy Alphabet Phonics Montessori app has 3 learning activities for kids. One is a counting game with letter tracing, one is for learning the alphabet with letter recognition . For instance, when they show the letter “A” there is an alligator. There are also things in the background your child can touch to light up like “anchor” and “apple” that reinforces the sounds of the letter. This is also a letter tracing activity. The only thing I don’t care for with the letter tracing activity is how spot on you have to be for it to recognize your child traced it. If you venture even a little off the dotted line it makes your child start all over again. Could be a little frustrating for a smaller child.
Again the free version that i tried only let’s you go so far with each learning activity until it prompts you to buy the full version. This is a great way to see if these learning apps would be a good fit for your child though. The activities offer bright colors, sound and letter/number reinforcement, and cool graphics for a preschool app.
3. Kids’ Academy Preschool Kindergarten Learning app also offer 3 different learning activities. An easy maze activity. When the kids successfully complete the easy maze they are rewarded with a cute little animation. A Rhyming words activity where you drag the dog ball to the object that rhymes shown in the dog’s thought bubble. In the example below, the dog is thinking of a pen so of course you drag the ball to the hen. I do wish they would say the object in the thought bubble though. There was one with a picture of what looked like a trophy. None of the objects rhymed with trophy so you think “award” maybe? So my son dragged it to random objects until it matched the dog. It was supposed to be a cup that rhymes with pup. I think saying the object would help my son problem solve and match it to the correct object.
I reviewed the free version that allowed my son to try a couple mazes, make it to the letter C in the tracing option, and try a few rhyming activities. He probably liked this app the most out of the 3. Kids’ Academy does a great job with the colors and kid friendly characters.
