Parents' Guide to BubbleBud Kids Universe

Though there's a lot of great intention with this wide-ranging collection of early learning activities, there are so many areas for improvement that it's hard to find the gems. One of the better stories is about a little girl who learns that pancakes are made from eggs, milk, and flour, which take work and help from animals to produce. Kids follow along to gather the ingredients and then mix them all up to make pancakes. However, there are many aspects of BubbleBud Kids Universe that distract, don't work quite right, or just seem off. For instance, just to get to a preschool learning activity, kids sometimes have to tap through six screens, each with its own loading time. And sometimes, instead of loading up an activity the app just crashes, which kids are sure to find frustrating. The activities themselves are not particularly inspired or creative (think classic memory games, put the puzzle together, drag apples to count them, and so on). Their presentation is also sometimes confusing, as in a number game in which random numbers appear on the screen that have nothing to do with any target number involved in that round. Or an addition activity that doesn't actually explain anything about addition. Instructions throughout the mostly odd interactive stories aren't always complete and may leave kids confused about what they're supposed to do next. Instead of trying to do so many things at once, BubbleBud Kids Universe might be better off focusing on doing one small set of things really well.