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!