ABC Wildlife
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ABC Wildlife
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A Lot or a Little?
The parents' guide to what's in this app.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that ABC Wildlife is an innovative teaching app about animals from A to Z. The app links to YouTube videos that are curated by the Peapod Labs staff and are chosen to be interesting and safe for kids. The app teaches the alphabet using images and videos and allows kids to jump to new words by tapping the letters. There's also an iPad-specific version.
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What’s It About?
Kids choose letters and see several wildlife animals that start with that letter. They choose a square for one of the animals -- like aardvark, agouti, alligator, ant, or anteater for A -- and then see the word spelled out. Kids can scroll through several pictures of the animal and watch a video about the animal, watch a video of the animal in its habitat, or interact with a picture of the animal. Kids can also choose a different letter in the word to go to a screen showing animals that start with that letter.
Is It Any Good?
ABC WILDLIFE is an innovative app that teaches the ABCs. The app starts with a grid showing letters of the alphabet and at least one word for each letter. Tap on a letter to bring up an animal starting with that letter, or tap a specific animal name to jump to that animal. Each animal is accompanied by a photo, the word (with letters held up by little cartoon people), and a voice reads the initial letter and then the word itself. After a brief pause, another little cartoon person pops down holding a screen, which the child can tap to watch a video about that animal.
Tapping any of the letters held by the people jumps to another animal that starts with that letter, and the process repeats. Also, tapping the "abc" button jumps back to the alphabet grid, and the grayed-out squares are replaced by thumbnails of the images already viewed. It's a fantastic app that allows kids to learn the alphabet while watching entertaining videos and exploring links. The app is self-contained and doesn't present any options or settings screens, making it very kid-friendly.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about animals in real life. Ask your kids to list animals that might live in your area's habitat and see if they can spot one.
Ask your kid what their favorite animal is. Why? Take a look at some animal charities to see if that fave animal needs help.
App Details
- Devices: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad
- Subjects: Language & Reading: letter or word recognition, naming, vocabulary
- Skills: Communication: listening
- Release date: January 28, 2011
- Category: Education
- Publisher: Peapod Labs LLC
- Version: 2.3
- Minimum software requirements: Requires iOS 3.0 or later.
- Last updated: August 22, 2016
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