Do you like Disney movies? Do you have Disney Movie Rewards? This Disney Movies Anywhere app review and how to stream Disney movies to your TV using Chromecast is for you.

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Have you heard… Disney took a huge step in the world of digital movies this past month when they released a new app on iTunes. Disney Movies Anywhere actually syncs with iTunes, so if you purchased a Disney movie digitally through iTunes or you registered a digital copy with your Disney Movie Rewards account, you now have access to them through the app and/or iTunes. You even get a free movie (The Incredibles**) for signing up! How cool is that?

To take this exciting app further, a couple weekends ago we tried it out using our Chromecast system to watch Frozen and Mary Poppins on our TV through our Disney Movies Anywhere account using my laptop to “cast” through my Chrome browser. The days of even buying a DVD and/or Blu-Ray are soon going to be a distant memory.

Check it out, definitely a simple and easy way to get more use from your digital Disney movies.

Disney Movies Anywhere

I have but one question about this move to digital for Disney. When movies come out or move back into the Disney vault, how will Disney capitalize on the next wave of digital advancement if movies are already in high definition? Just like we have to get the latest version of Bambi or Pete’s Dragon on Blu-Ray, even though we may have it on DVD or, if you’re really holding on to your copy, VHS, what will be the next wave to replace this new digital version we will own? Time will tell, but for me, I love this new digital era and you can consider me an early adopter when it comes to less discs in house which equals less clutter in our lives while still sharing the magic of Disney with our own kids.

*You must have a Disney Movie Rewards account to make this work, but it’s a free account and you can earn points to enter vacation sweepstakes, use points to purchase Disney memorabilia and/or Disney experiences.

**The Incredibles movie offer is listed on the Disney Movie Anywhere website as for a limited time and the free movie can change at anytime to another movie or end altogether, so act quickly if you hope to “cash in” on this deal with a free movie.

“Disney is in talks with other platforms – such as Android – about carrying Disney Movies Anywhere,” reports the Los Angeles Times, but for now, it is only available through iTunes or through the Disney Movies Anywhere website.

What: Disney Movie Anywhere app

Where: iTunes and Disney Movies Anywhere website.

When: Act now or any time. Act now and receive a free copy of Disney Pixar’s The Incredibles.

Need to know: Can synchronize with iTunes purchases and Disney Movie Rewards digital copies.

Extra Extra: Log into the Disney Movies Anywhere website with the Google Chrome browser on a laptop or WiFi accessible connection and you can Chromecast the movie to your television.

Website/Contact Information: www.DisneyMoviesAnywhere.com.

Get your own Google Chromecast today!

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In the High Tech Kids segment series we will share our favorite apps and child-friendly technology. Today, we review the JumpStart® Blast-Off Early Reading app for iOS, Android and Amazon Kindle devices.

[pinwheel_dark_organge position=’left’ title=’Dark Orange Pinwheel’]We focus a lot on early reading in our house. Our children do not really have a choice since their mom is a literacy specialist. We have Bob Books, we have early reading books, and we have alphabets and all kinds of other things around our house to help our children learn to read. I am always on the hunt for new early reading apps for the kids to work on their skills. We know the hard work is paying off because our Kindergartner recently got her second quarter report card and she is flying high with her reading scores. She surprises us every day as she gets better and better. She is even starting to read the words all around us, the guide on the TV, billboards, street signs. I guess our days of spelling things out as parents are officially over. But hey, we get to look forward to the next step, right? Let’s review the JumpStart® Early Reading App

When the folks at JumpStart® contacted us again (we reviewed their Madagascar App here) to look at two apps for kids in Math and Early Reading we jumped at the chance.

Upon first starting this app, you are asked to log in. This is to be able to “save” the data from your child’s activity. That being said you can play as a guest. Once you get to the menu screen you do need to help your child the first few times playing, as the menu is a list of options. You choose which skill you want the child to work on, what curriculum level (each level would be equivalent to a grade level, 1 is late Kindergarten and early first grade and so on) and then you have to choose if you want easy, medium or hard game play. When all those options are chosen, you can also choose if you want to play left handed or right and it shows you how to deal with the joystick or tilt.

Once in the game, you begin to navigate your spaceship, make sure your volume is on here as the narrator tells you what letters/words, etc. you are looking for. Working the spaceship through the game is pretty exciting for a five year-old. Our daughter was really into it and the sound effects started pretty quickly for her. She cracks me up how looking at how into the apps she got.

The app did require a lot of parental help for us because she is only five years-old. That being said, I can easily see her being able to quickly pick it up and an older child would do very well with the app. Similar to video games, you have to really use both hands to manage the controls, which is another reason it can be tough at first for younger children and may require parental participation.

We will continue to use this app in the future to practice her early reading skills and improve her confidence with those skills. Overall, I am mostly happy with this app, but would love to see the introduction menu be a little more kid-friendly perhaps, with pictures and less options on one screen.

From the developers:

Help your child learn key early reading skills! Perfect for your 6-8 year old!
Explore a mysterious cavern packed with reading skills and fun with your child in JumpStart® Blast Off: Early Reading! Armed with their brains, jetpack and blaster, your child will blast through correct answers and zap away the incorrect ones as they race for top score. Beware of the pesky punk punks that are out to stop your child.

With 19 lessons designed to teach key early reading skills, this educational game will help children master the skills to excel in school.

Equip your child with a strong reading foundation. Your child will develop key educational skills such as word recognition and sounds, early grammar classification, and more. Through listening and interacting with words, elementary school learners will enjoy a comprehensive reading and learning experience found only through JumpStart® Blast-off: Early Reading!

Game Features:

• 19 lessons focusing on beginning phonics and early reading so your young learner can get ahead!
• Key educational skills your child will learn:
  • Word recognition and sounds
  • Early phonics with key emphasis on word pronunciation
  • Grammar classification and usage
• Many progressive levels of game play for your young learner to master!
• Amazing 3D graphics and catchy music that your child will love!
• Choose Tilt or Joystick controls so your child can pick up and play immediately!

JumpStart®, a key children’s educational publisher, has created learning games such as JumpStart® Blast-off: Math, Madagascar Math Ops, Math Blaster, JumpStart® Pet Rescue and more!

Where: iTunes App Store Google Play, and Amazon.

What: JumpStart® Blast-Off Early Reading

Need to know: This app is designed for children as young as Kindergarten. However, it may require some parental guidance in getting to the game play.

Extra Extra: Check out JumpStart Moms for parenting tips and ideas to printable worksheets and fun activities for kids.

Website/Contact Information: www.jumpstart.com.

But wait… There’s more.

In celebration of the Blast-Off Series of apps, we at Windy Pinwheel, in conjuction with JumpStart®, are giving away a download code for both Blast-Off Math and Blast-Off Early Reading apps for your children to enjoy. Just enter the giveaway below and be sure to come back every day before 8:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time Friday, March 7, 2013 to enter.

This giveaway contest is open to residents of the United States and Canada only. You must be 18 years-old to enter or have your parent’s permission. Void where prohibited.

Sponsor this article for $1.00

Enter sponsor title and e-mail.

Enter website URL. Sponsor title will be hyperlinked with this URL.

By sponsoring this article, your sponsorship will display for a period of 180 days (6 months). If, for any reason, and it is up to the discretion of the authors of Windy Pinwheel, we feel content linked to or the name provided does not coincide with the objectives of this site for our audience we will issue a refund and pull the sponsorship of the article. This action does not limit you from sponsoring an article on our site again. However, by sponsoring again, we will issue the same review criteria as the prior sponsorship and if it fails, we will follow the same process as before and issue a refund and pull down the sponsorship. We truly appreciate the support of our audience and hope you can help offset our costs of operating this site by sponsoring our site articles.

For all reviews, please exercise discretion. If the sponsor of the article is in conflict of the topic of the article, we will pull down the sponsorship to remove any conflict of interest with the article at-hand. For instance, there is an article about a hamburger restaurant and a competing hamburger restaurant sponsors the article; we will pull the sponsorship and issue a refund.

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In the High Tech Kids series we will share our favorite apps and kid friendly technology.

Our Kindergartener recently got her second quarter report card and along with her report card came a “Math Award” we were so incredibly proud of our little girl, she is testing beyond where she is expected to be in math. When the folks at JumpStart® contacted us again (we reviewed their Madagascar App here) to look at two apps for kids in Math and Early Reading we jumped at the chance, because as an educator myself, who spends most of my work hours on the Common Core State Standards implementation and a parent of a young child who is currently learning these early skills, we love any chance to help her improve her them and to share great apps with our friends who have young children as well.

Upon first starting this app, you are asked to log in. The reason for logging in is to “save” the data from your child’s activity in the app. That being said, you can play as a guest as well. Once you get to the menu screen you do need to help your child the first few times playing, as the menu has a list of options. You choose which skill you want the child to work on, what curriculum level (each level would be equivalent to a grade level, 1 is late Kindergarten and early first grade and so on), then you have to choose if you want easy, medium or hard game play. When all those options are chosen, you can also choose if you want to play left handed and it shows you how to deal with the joystick or tilt.

Once in the game, you begin to navigate your spaceship, make sure your volume is on here as the narrator tells you what numbers/shapes, etc. you are looking for.

Working the spaceship through the game is pretty exciting for a five year-old. Our daughter was really into it and the sound effects started pretty quickly for her. She was cracking me up just watching how into the app she got.

The app did require a lot of parental guidance for us because she is only five years-old. That being said, I can easily see her being able to quickly pick it up and an older child would do very well with this app. Similar to video games, you have to really use both hands to manage the controls, which is another reason it can be tough, at first, for younger children and may require parental participation.

We will continue to use this app to practice her mathematics skills and improve her confidence with those skills. Overall, I am mostly happy with this app, but would love to see the introduction menu to be a little more child-friendly perhaps, with pictures and less options on one screen.

From the creators:

Help your child learn key elementary math skills! Perfect for your 6-8 year old!

Explore a mysterious cavern packed with math skills and fun for your child in JumpStart® Blast-Off: Math! ! Armed with their brains, jetpack and blaster, you child must find the correct answers to help them race for the top score! Beware of the pesky punk punks that are out to stop your child.

With 28 lessons designed to teach key elementary math skills like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, this game is the perfect way to help your child master and in a fun, cool way.

Equip your child with a strong math foundation JumpStart® Blast-Off: Math. Your child will develop key educational skills such as math operations, shape and number recognition. Elementary school learners will enjoy a comprehensive math learning experience found only through JumpStart® Blast-Off: Math

Game Features:

• 28 lessons of fun math skills for your young learner to get ahead in elementary school!
• Key educational skills your child will learn:
  • Math operations: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division
  • Shape and number recognition
• Many progressive of math game play for your young learner to master!
• Amazing 3D graphics and catchy music that your child will love!
• Choose child-friendly tilt or joystick controls so your child can pick up and play immediately!

JumpStart®, a key children’s educational publisher, has created learning games such as JumpStart® Blast-off: Early Reading, Madagascar Math Ops, Math Blaster, JumpStart® Pet Rescue and more!

Where: iTunes App Store Google Play, and Amazon.

What: JumpStart® Blast-Off Math

Need to know: This app is designed for children as young as Kindergarten. However, it may require some parental help in getting to the game play.

Extra Extra: Check out JumpStart Moms for parenting tips and ideas to printable worksheets and fun activities for kids.

Website/Contact Information: www.jumpstart.com.

But wait… There’s more.

In celebration of the Blast-Off Series of apps, we at Windy Pinwheel, in conjuction with JumpStart®, are giving away a download code for both Blast-Off Math and Blast-Off Early Reading apps for your family to enjoy. Simply enter the giveaway below and be sure to come back every day before 11:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time Friday, March 7, 2013 to enter.

This giveaway contest is open to residents of the United States and Canada only. You must be 18 years-old to enter or have your parent’s permission. Void where prohibited.

Sponsor this article for $1.00

Enter sponsor title and e-mail.

Enter website URL. Sponsor title will be hyperlinked with this URL.

By sponsoring this article, your sponsorship will display for a period of 180 days (6 months). If, for any reason, and it is up to the discretion of the authors of Windy Pinwheel, we feel content linked to or the name provided does not coincide with the objectives of this site for our audience we will issue a refund and pull the sponsorship of the article. This action does not limit you from sponsoring an article on our site again. However, by sponsoring again, we will issue the same review criteria as the prior sponsorship and if it fails, we will follow the same process as before and issue a refund and pull down the sponsorship. We truly appreciate the support of our audience and hope you can help offset our costs of operating this site by sponsoring our site articles.

For all reviews, please exercise discretion. If the sponsor of the article is in conflict of the topic of the article, we will pull down the sponsorship to remove any conflict of interest with the article at-hand. For instance, there is an article about a hamburger restaurant and a competing hamburger restaurant sponsors the article; we will pull the sponsorship and issue a refund.

By clicking the button below, I agree with the Terms & Conditions.

Tiggly Shapes: Tiggly Christmas is an iPad app for children 18 months to 4 years-old. It’s learning about shapes with a holiday twist.

View in iTunes

Recently we, at Windy Pinwheel, posted a review about Tiggly Shapes, a spacial learning tool for the Apple iPad designed to improve motor skills, creativity and language development of toddlers between the ages of 18 months to 4 years of age. We, at Windy Pinwheel, were invited by a representative at Tiggly Shapes to try out a set of these shapes for ourselves and as luck would have it, our children are just about in the correct age range for this product so we agreed to test out the product for ourselves; 5 year-old daughter, 3 year-old son and a newborn (born December 31, 2013). “Tiggly Shapes are the first interactive iPad toys designed for toddlers. We collaborate with educators and parents to design toys and games that are developmentally appropriate for children between 18 months and 4 years old.” – Tiggly.com The shapes sell in the range of $30 – $45 at places like Amazon.com, The Apple Store, The Grommett, Grand St., and Nordstrom.

Along with providing us with a set of Tiggly Shapes, Tiggly also provided us with a code for their most recent iPad app, Tiggly Christmas.

As you can tell from the information above, my wife and I welcomed a new addition into our family on December 31, 2013 and we were preparing for her arrival. As such, we are a bit late for the 2013 Christmas season to inform you about the app prior to the holiday. However, we hope to keep you updated about this app during the 2014 holiday season when shopping for new apps to take a look at by talking about it now. For the most part, if your little ones are anything like ours, Christmas is a holiday without end. Our children will play with this app whether or not it is in December and have a great time learning with it either way.

To briefly review, there are four apps that pair with the physical Tiggly Shapes, Safari, Stamp, Draw and most recent, Christmas. Each app has vibrant colors and as you can see in the video below, a child can interact by using a specific shape to find out what animal will be revealed after matching a given shape or used to create a picture of their own creation to either save and share with friends and family (with mom and dad’s help, of course to send/save the image) or just make picture after picture using each of the four shapes.

And now about Tiggly Christmas

Tiggly Christmas is a rather enticing app taking you through a festive house duing the holidays. You are first taken over by a tree in the room and given shapes to match with your Tiggly Shapes. Each shape makes an ornament that you can move anywhere you like on the tree. Once enough ornaments are placed on the tree, you then move to a location in the room where you build a train out of your shapes. It comes together before the child’s eyes. Finally, you are able to build a shape above the fireplace mantle that ultimately becomes a picture frame. The app then gives a limited amount of time to take a picture with the iPad’s camera of your child and inputs that into the picture frame.

Finally, when the kid has taken the picture, a digital post card is created to save to your iPad Camera Roll or to share with friends and family (*with mom and dad’s help).

My first completed post card, when using the app for the first time, is below. I know, I look pretty handsome, right?

The app is great for a child in the suggested age range for using Tiggly Shapes. However, the there are some tings that could be improved with the app. First, is the forced movement throughout the app. A child always has to start at the Christmas tree and then to the train and then to the picture frame, in that order. If the child were given free reign to choose where they wanted to go first, it may make for a more dynamic in-app game play experience.

Second, letting the little one choose when the picture is taken is also something worth noting. The app counts down when the picture will happen whether or not the little one is ready for it to happen. To be able to retake the picture, the kid will have to start the app again and get through the Christmas tree, train and picture frame before they have another chance at a picture. I can see why the app developers chose to handle the picture this way, however. It is becuase young children may not know how to work the camera right away and this is there to assist them in making sure the camera takes a photo.

Overall, this app is perfect for the young developing genius in assisting them with learning about shapes. It has the potential for repeat game play for anyone 18 months-old to 4 years-old. The colors are vibrant and even though this is a holiday-specific app, I can see kids ignoring that fact and being willing to play with their Tiggly Shapes all year-round.

Other Tiggly Apps Available in the iTunes App Store

The final thing I want to note, as I did not mention it on the Tiggly Shapes review earlier is that my kids have the tendency to switch apps quickly. As such, keeping the Tiggly Shapes out may only be for a short period at a time because with so many apps, if your kids are like mine, they will tend to move on to the next app very quickly. That is not to say that they won’t return to this one or the other Tiggly Shapes apps, but make sure that you are there to clean up and store the shapes once your toddler or little one decides to move on to the another app that might not be made to interact with Tiggly Shapes.

Here is a video review about Tiggly Shapes:

Where: iTunes App Store.

What: Tiggly Shapes: Tiggly Christmas App

Need to know: Tiggly Shapes is rated for toddlers 18 months-4 year-olds. Any older and the entertainment value is “limited”. This app moves from one part of the scene to the next in a specific order. There is minimal independent game play.

Extra Extra: Tiggly has a great blog discussing a wide variety of topics related to children, the parent’s role in educating their children, and the intersection of technology and education.

Website/Contact Information: tiggly.com.

Sponsor this article for $1.00

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Enter website URL. Sponsor title will be hyperlinked with this URL.

By sponsoring this article, your sponsorship will display for a period of 180 days (6 months). If, for any reason, and it is up to the discretion of the authors of Windy Pinwheel, we feel content linked to or the name provided does not coincide with the objectives of this site for our audience we will issue a refund and pull the sponsorship of the article. This action does not limit you from sponsoring an article on our site again. However, by sponsoring again, we will issue the same review criteria as the prior sponsorship and if it fails, we will follow the same process as before and issue a refund and pull down the sponsorship. We truly appreciate the support of our audience and hope you can help offset our costs of operating this site by sponsoring our site articles.

For all reviews, please exercise discretion. If the sponsor of the article is in conflict of the topic of the article, we will pull down the sponsorship to remove any conflict of interest with the article at-hand. For instance, there is an article about a hamburger restaurant and a competing hamburger restaurant sponsors the article; we will pull the sponsorship and issue a refund.

By clicking the button below, I agree with the Terms & Conditions.

Welcome to outerspace… Zorbit and his friends are going to take you on a math adventure on their planet.

The iPhone/iPad app, Zorbit’s Math Adventure Preschool – Learning. Reimagined. hereafter known as Zorbit’s Math Adventure is a great game for preschool-aged children. The game begins by helping Zorbit’s mom wake him up. Zorbit is a sound sleeper and you have to complete several math related tasks (early math skills). One task is to pop balloons to be “loud enough” to wake him up. What little kid doesn’t like popping balloons? After you have woken Zorbit up you head to the next part of the app where Zorbit asks the child to help him count gum balls, which Zorbit then proceeds to eat. Our daughter loved watching the bubbles pop on his face. Eventually, you wind up with a friend of Zorbit’s who needs help feeding her pet, this also consists of the child who is playing Zorbit’s Math Adventure to count and choose certain shapes to help feed the pet that looks like an alien dinosaur. The game goes on to a few other areas and along the way the child collects stickers that they can place on several images of the game. Also, once the player completes a level, they receive a star. Stickers and stars are all very exciting prizes for the 3-6 year-old set.

I can say, from watching my five year-old play with this app that it’s engaging and exciting. On the day we started playing it, she needed just a little bit of help to get it started when waking Zobit, this was because the mother character was trying to give her hints on what to do and she had her volume turned down. Had it not been for that, she would have been able to completely navigate this app on her own. So fair warning, you do need the sound on for this app.

In the words of our five year “Zorbit is cool, I like it and it was fun to make a rocket ship”. I guess that’s really all the review we needed.

We enjoyed Zorbit’s Math Adventure and it was fairly simple for our five year-old to complete the tasks. However, the math level was a bit below what the State of Nevada expects for Kindergarten Math Standards, but it was a great reinforcement for her and a confidence booster for her math skills. This is definitely a preschool app and a wonderful addition to good math apps for preschoolers, especially boys who will enjoy the alien characters. They also have a “light” version that you can try out to see if you like it.

Next year the company does plan to add Kindergarten and First Grade levels.

Overall, we really enjoyed this app, we are working with our two year old on the app as well to help him begin developing those early math skills. This app has the Windy Pinwheel Stamp of Approval!

Where: The iTunes App Store.

What: Zorbit’s Math Adventure

Need to know: Zorbit’s Math Adventure is rated for preschool-aged children.

Extra Extra: Sign up for the Zorbit’s Math Adventure mailing list and get access to a free activity.

Zorbit’s Math Adventure covers all the skills a preschooler needs to be prepared for first-year school math, including the following:

Counting and Number Awareness

• Counting objects up to 20
• Ordering numbers (ascending)
• Ordering numbers (descending)

Identifying Shapes

• Recognizing circles, squares, and triangles
• Distinguishing between squares and rectangles

Sizing Shapes and Objects

• Long and short
• Tall and short
• Wide and narrow

Subitizing

• The precursor of estimating (for more)

Characterizing Colors

• Red, yellow, blue, orange, green, purple, brown, and black

Comparing Amounts

• Identifying more and less

Recognizing Positions

• Inside and outside
• Left, middle, and right
• Above and below
• Top and bottom

Classifying Objects and Groups

• Same
• Different
• Same and different
• Classify by colour

Separating and Matching

• Recognizing group commonalities and differences
• Pairing similar objects

Website/Contact Information: www.zorbitsmath.com. Be sure to sign up for the Zorbit’s Fan Club and get access to a free activity

Here is a video about Zorbit’s Math Adventure:

Bonus Giveaway

As an added bonus to this review, we at Windy Pinwheel, in conjunction with Best Boy Entertainment, the creators of the app, are holding a giveaway. We want you to share in the fun and excitement that this app has to offer. That’s why, when Best Boy Entertainment reached out to us we suggested a giveaway for our Windy Pinwheel community.

Here’s what we’re giving away:

• Prize: 1 Zorbit’s Math Adventure app download.

*Please note that the Zorbit’s Math Adventure app is available only on the iPhone/iPad. You must should have access to an iTunes account if you are selected as the winner. Also, this giveaway is available only to United States residents, 18 years or older or with a parent’s permission and void where prohibited. Winner must supply email address associated with your iTunes account to receive the app download code.

Giveaway deadline is 11:59PM Pacific Daylight Time on October 18, 2013. Enter today and come back every day for a chance at daily entries.

Sponsor this article for $1.00

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Enter website URL. Sponsor title will be hyperlinked with this URL.

By sponsoring this article, your sponsorship will display for a period of 180 days (6 months). If, for any reason, and it is up to the discretion of the authors of Windy Pinwheel, we feel content linked to or the name provided does not coincide with the objectives of this site for our audience we will issue a refund and pull the sponsorship of the article. This action does not limit you from sponsoring an article on our site again. However, by sponsoring again, we will issue the same review criteria as the prior sponsorship and if it fails, we will follow the same process as before and issue a refund and pull down the sponsorship. We truly appreciate the support of our audience and hope you can help offset our costs of operating this site by sponsoring our site articles.

For all reviews, please exercise discretion. If the sponsor of the article is in conflict of the topic of the article, we will pull down the sponsorship to remove any conflict of interest with the article at-hand. For instance, there is an article about a hamburger restaurant and a competing hamburger restaurant sponsors the article; we will pull the sponsorship and issue a refund.

By clicking the button below, I agree with the Terms & Conditions.

In the High Tech Kids series we will share our favorite apps and kid friendly technology. Today we review Moose Math by Duck Duck Moose

“Mommy, I am leaning math!” – A., 5 years-old

In our first High Tech Kids review we looked at several of the Duck Duck Moose (DDM) Apps, check it out here, we also followed up when we reviewed DDM’s “More Trucks”

In early August, DDM came out with a new Kindergarten mathematics app. This could not have been better timing since our daughter was about to embark on her own Kindergarten journey in less than two weeks. I was actually overwhelmingly excited because I have it in my mind that I need to really ensure that, as a girl, she knows mathematics can be fun and she can be successful in mathematics. As an educator, I know all too well that by the time you move on beyond grade school, girls tend to shy away from upper division mathematics courses. We spend a lot of time on grade level mathematics skills together. We downloaded Moose Math shortly after it came out. Then, unprompted, we got an email from our friends at Duck Duck Moose asking us to review their new app. We, of course, agreed because we love their products and had not had a chance to play with it yet since the start of school had kept us fairly busy.

While playing with the app, we mainly focused our five year old Kindergartner on the app. I do think our nearly three year-old would be able to play the app with a lot of assistance. This app is better suited for the five year-old.

“Teachers take note: App number 17 from Duck Duck Moose is designed specifically to cover early elementary (Kindergarten and First Grade) math by way of some solid counting, sorting and classifying games. Each game lets children playfully master skills that will provide an excellent foundation for later math learning, and the games are paired with an individualized record keeping system, that stores progress and profiles for each child. Math educators will appreciate the fact that this app is 100% flashcard free, yet still manages a good deal of leveled practice.” – Children’s Technology Review The app takes you to a world completely new to DDM apps. The land of the “Dust Funnies” is a place that is entirely made up of found items. As you go further along in the levels of each area you get to “build” onto your store fronts making your city bigger. What child doesn’t like building things and exploring?

There are five areas of activities to practice and enhance your little one’s mathematics skills.

• Moose Juice: Makes smoothies while practicing counting, addition and subtraction;
• Paint Pet: Match the pets by counting the number of dots;
• Pet Bingo: Solve addition, subtraction and counting problems to get BINGO;
• Lost & Found: Learn and sort through shapes and colors; and
• Dot to Dot: Help the Dust Funny find his way home by joining the dots

We spent a lot of time with the Moose Juice area. The increasing difficulty and various mixtures were really fun and engaging for our daughter. She also very much loved the Pet Bingo area and felt very empowered by being able to do addition and subtraction.

The Paint Pet area was not her favorite as the early stages seemed a little boring. When given a variety of colors to “paint,” she wanted to paint more than just dots. Lost & Found and Dot to Dot were the last two areas we explored.

The Lost & Found area kept her guessing because each problem was different, one screen would ask her to identify three circles and the next asked her to identify the longest pencil. I really appreciated this area from DDM because it kept her wondering what was next and she never tired of it. The Dot to Dot area is actually something we have been practicing outside of this app. Making sure she can recognize the order of numbers is incredibly important. She liked it because she got to “make” something. A win-win in my book!

Overall, at first this was not my favorite app from DDM until we really got into it. Then we started to have a lot of fun and couldn’t put it down. I think our initial hesitation was the new “Dust Funnies” group and the app looking very different from all the previous DDM apps. In the long run, I highly recommend this app for children in Pre-K through 1^st grade. It is very clear that DDM consulted with an educator who has an expertise in early childhood education as well as employed the mathematics practices and skills described in the Common Core State Standards.

Where: The App Store and on Google Play.

What: Moose Math by Duck Duck Moose

Need to know: Moose Math is rated for 3-9 year olds, but a three year old would need quite a lot of help and a nine year old might be beyond this skill set.

Extra Extra: Duck Duck Moose has a great mailing list and consistently sends out information about new apps, coloring book pages, notifications when of apps go on sale, etc. all the time.

Moose Math features:

• 5 activities that teach counting, addition, subtraction, sorting, geometry and more; all of the activities are aligned with the Common Core State Standards
• An adaptive “helper” character; YaYa the bird, acts like a child’s personal tutor offering helpful hints and encouragement
• A Report Card section allowing parents and teachers to follow progress; the Report Card can track an unlimited number of users per device, making Moose Math a great app for teachers to use with their class
• A new Learning Portal with free downloadable worksheets for additional skill-building – great for teachers looking for fun, engaging offline activities

Website/Contact Information: www.DuckDuckMoose.com. Be sure to sign up and get on their email list to ensure you are in the know about app sales, etc.

Here are two Moose Math videos, a trailer/overview of Moose Math and one featuring the new set of characters in the app — the Dust Funnies!

Bonus Giveaway

As an added bonus to this review, we at Windy Pinwheel, in conjunction with Duck Duck Moose are holding a giveaway. We want you to share in the fun and excitement that this app has to offer. That’s why, when Duck Duck Moose reached out to us we suggested a giveaway for our Windy Pinwheel community.

Here’s what we’re giving away:

• Grand Prize: 1 set of Moose Math temporary tattoos and 1 Duck Duck Moose app download* of your choice.
• One Runner-up Prize: 1 set of Moose Math temporary tattoos.

*Please note that the majority of Duck Duck Moose apps are available only on the iPhone/iPad. You should have access to an iTunes account if you are selected as the winner. Also, this giveaway is available only to United States residents, 18 years or older or with a parent’s permission and void where prohibited. Winner must supply email address associated with your iTunes account to receive the app download code. Winners must supply physical mailing addresses to receive the set of Moose Math temporary tattoos by Duck Duck Moose

Giveaway deadline is 11:59PM Pacific Daylight Time on September 20, 2013. Enter today and come back every day for a chance at daily entries.

Madagascar Preschool Surf N’ Slide and learn at the same time.

The latest in our High Tech Kids segment series comes to us from JumpStart and Dreamworks Animation. Today, we review the Madagascar Preschool Surf n’ Slide iOS and Android app.

A representative from JumpStart games approached us, here at Windy Pinwheel, recently and asked that we take a look at another fun and exciting game called, Madagascar: Preschool Surf n’ Slide available on iOS, Android, Kindle and Nook devices. Of course, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to share an app with our children that would help them to learn and grow, so we happily said yes to check out the app the only way anyone should, through the eyes of a child.

Once you have paired your selections you get to surf down several scenes; from a half pipe of a storm drain/sewer (as a city landscape would appropriately have as a part of the scenery) to an antarctic frozen half pipe (perfect for the Madagasgar penguins). Along the sides/half pipes, various characters are there to cheer you on along the way. My favorite is the lemur. That character cracks me up. The goal of the half pipe is to collect as many stars as possible to earn stickers. Once you have collected several stars, you come to a character holding balloons who presents a challenge in the form of a quick quiz.

The quiz is verbal and asks the kid to identify a part of a pattern, like a zoo animal amongst farm animals or the other way around or maybe a letter that is in lower case, a colored shape or even a number. This is where the learning side of the app comes into play. My daughter just whizzed right through these questions as she likes to think she’s a smart cookie, but where she really enjoyed the app were the stickers.

After each round of quiz questions in the Madagascar Preschool Surf n’ Slide app the player gets to select from one of three options of the stickers they want to keep for their collection. Then the app flips over to the sticker side. The kid can then place stickers on one of four different backgrounds and just released, a new update to this game allows players to take their own pictures and use them as backgrounds in their sticker book. How cool is that? “This feature really takes learning to the next level – customization and ownership is such a growing trend with children, and JumpStart wanted to bring that to every preschooler’s learning experience with this new update to Madagascar Preschool Surf N’ Slide,” says Stephanie Song, Public Relations for JumpStart.

Overall, the Madagascar Preschool Surf n’ Slide app is very useful in educating children while letting them have fun in shredding it up in the half pipe. The replay potential is high on the Madagascar Preschool Surf n’ Slide app because children love stickers and the quiz keeps my children engaged. I would recommend this for preschool-aged kids up to about age 6 or 7 years-old. Beyond that, boredom could set in quickly for anyone older who can quickly pass the quiz and the repetitive nature of the half pipe area.

Currently at $2.99 in the iTunes App Store, this is a sweet deal to keep your preschool-aged kids entertained while they learn and grow.

Where: The iTunes App Store, Google Play, Kindle and Nook marketplaces.

What: Madagascar Preschool Surf n’ Slide.

Need to know: This app is focused on preschool-aged children.

Extra Extra: Check out the “Parent” customization tab in the lower left-hand corner from the launch screen to select what types of “lesson” quizzes your child will interact with and register to get up-to-date news about JumpStart right inside the Madagascar Preschool Surf n’ Slide app.

Website/Contact Information: www.jumpstart.com

Check out there blog at www.jumpstart.com/Blog.aspx

Here’s a game play of the Madagascar Preschool Surf n’ Slide app courtesy of Stela Appes:

As an added bonus to this review, we, at Windy Pinwheel, in conjuction with JumpStart would like to give away a download code for a copy of the app for your family. Simply enter the giveaway below and be sure to come back every day before 11:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time Friday, September 13, 2013 to enter.

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