Disney AppMATes (my son's favorite Christmas gift)

This year's biggest hit seems to be the Disney Cars 2 AppMATes app & toy cars for the iPad. From what I saw in Toys R' Us, they sell sets with Lighting McQueen and Holley Shiftwell, Tow Mater and Finn McMissile, and Lightning McQueen individually. I got the set with Lightning and Holley right before Christmas for $19.99 and download the accompanying free app after my son opened up his gift. Let me just say that he absolutely LOVES it. He loves it so much that I can just threaten to give it back to Santa to get him to do what I want. (Just kidding! Well, sort of ...)

It's been over a week since Christmas and my son has gotten to try pretty much most of his presents. Thankfully, most have been hits with very few misses this year; it  sucks when you get them something and turns out they don't really care for it—what a waste of money, right?


In a nutshell, the child can use the toy cars to interact with the app. They place and move the toy cars on the surface of the iPad and "drive" around Radiator Springs, compete in races, and play various mini games. While the screen of my iPad is dirtier by the end of the day, I haven't noticed any damage caused by the toy cars. (Although I've had to occasionally warn my son to be more gentle, as he sometimes gets too excited and taps on the screen a tad too hard for my liking.)

So as a fairly tech-savvy adult, I find the whole idea fascinating—why didn't anyone think of this sooner?! But to a fairly tech-savvy four-year-old who loves all things Cars? It pretty much blew his mind and would probably spend all day playing if we let him.

You can download the app to try it out before buying the toy cars—it comes with built-in "paper" cars that the child can play around with. While my son did try these out, the experience of using a physical toy with the iPad is what he has really enjoyed.

Pros: Fun, innovative, has plenty of different mini games to play, free app.

Cons: The toy cars cost $15-$20, and they sometimes have trouble being recognized on the iPad.

Give the Moon to You

Occasionally, my son says some pretty random things to which my immediate response can only be to stare and blink at him. Things like, "I wanna wissen to Wady Gaga!" or "My butt 'tinky. Peas fix it!"

Lately, kiddo's been talking about going up to the moon in a rocket ship — undoubtedly inspired by a children's story app I recently downloaded on my iPad called Moon Secrets (iTunes link). In the story, there's an astronaut that sits on the moon to eat a sandwich. Maybe it's just coincidence, but ever since I got this app, my son's been saying, "I gonna fwy up to duh moon and bwing duh moon to you!"

It makes absolutely no sense and I can't even really say how he came up with it, but it's one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to me.

Apps For Kids: Monkey Preschool Lunchbox

Opening screen.

Monkey Preschool Lunchbox, by New York-based game developer THUP, is a collection of seven educational mini games for preschool-aged kids. That said, my son has been enjoying the app since he was around two years old.

While far from a new title, this is, hands down, one of the best app purchases I have made. (It's only 99 cents!) My son has been playing with it since late 2009 when I first got it for my iPhone, even though he was still a little too young to understand what he was supposed to do. Regardless, he was immediately attracted to the crisp, colorful artwork and variety of interactivity. The music and voices were lively, not obnoxious — a perk for mom! Even now, at almost four years old, my son still loves to play with this app. Bonus points to THUP for making the app Universal, making it playable on our iPad without an additional purchase.

Colors game.

The seven mini games focus on matching, counting, puzzles, shapes, finding differences, letter recognition, and colors. Each game is quick, simple, and straight-forward. After starting the app and pressing the Play button, a random game starts immediately. You can't choose which game to play; they just cycle through one after another, in what seems like a random order. There's no menu or "home" button, and no settings button — it makes the app sound really basic, but when you have a young, curious child, sometimes the less options there are, the better the experience is.

The games are:

• Matching: flip over eight cards to match pairs of fruit.
• Counting: count the number of fruit on the screen.
• Puzzle: place four puzzle pieces to put the fruit back together.
• Shapes: find and touch a specific shape from the choices given.
• Differences: find and touch the fruit that is different from the rest.
• Letters: choose the fruit that starts with a specific letter.
• Colors: find and touch all the fruit corresponding to a specific color.

Counting game.

Each game screen has written instructions at the top of the page ("Count the fruit."), and voice instructions are given at the start ("This monkey wants six raspberries.").  The monkey responds to the child's action by either cheering for correct choices, or shaking its head for incorrect ones, as well as jumping for joy at the end of each game. After every three games, there is a "reward" page where the child gets to choose a virtual sticker to place on the screen before continuing on.

As I mentioned, this app was really easy for my son to pick up. Even at around two years old, he could easily "play" the counting game because all he had to do was touch each fruit and the app counted for/with him. It's been fun to watch him grow with this app for the last couple of years — I remember how he struggled a bit while placing the puzzle pieces in the right places because his hand-eye coordination was still very young — and now he just loves working on more complex puzzles and matching games. The sticker reward page is also a nice touch, since it helps give him incentive to play for a while and collect stickers.

Earn stickers!

Monkey Preschool Lunchbox (iTunes link) definitely gets two thumbs up from both me and my son. The engaging yet uncomplicated gameplay, the good graphics, and the very low price makes this app a must-have for iParents with young children. For all the time my son has spent on this app, the 99 cents has been more than worth it!