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Curious Playground
By Amanda Bindel,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Empowering tool lets you create personalized activities.
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A Lot or a Little?
What you will—and won't—find in this app.
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Curious Playground
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What’s It About?
CURIOUS PLAYGROUND starts by asking the question, "Are you a player or a creator?" It's not intended to be a deeply philosophical question, and, with this customizable app, kids can be both player and creator. It's preloaded with more than a dozen puzzles, including famous art such as the Mona Lisa; five memory games; words from categories such as math, music, and the human body; math including fractions, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; geography, including capitals and countries; music with songs such as "Are You Sleeping?" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"; and a word search game. Kids and parents can create custom activities using their own photos, words, or songs as well.
Is It Any Good?
Although the content covers a broad range of information (flags from different countries, geography, multiple levels of math, music, art, and words), the activities aren't as engaging as apps that focus on one skill. Each activity is basically a mini-quiz, and kids earn trophy cups for completing activities. There's nothing too exciting about the cups -- just a number on the screen.
What will engage kids is the creation tool with which they can design their own activities to complete themselves or share with others. They can create their own puzzles or memory games using the device's camera (it won't pull already-taken pictures from the camera roll, though), write their own songs, and enter their own words. The developer's target age range is 3 to 7, but the challenge on some activities spans higher -- math includes division up to four digits, for example. The activities automatically level up after kids successfully complete a level, but kids or parents can adjust the level manually, too, for kids who want to start at a more challenging level. The options for content are pretty limitless with the creation tool, making Curious Playground a good choice.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about what kinds of activities kids would like to create on the app. The ability to create your own challenges is empowering!
Create a custom word game using your child's name, street name, and city to help preschoolers learn to spell their names and addresses.
Make word games from spelling lists for elementary school-age kids.
App Details
- Devices: iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad
- Subjects: Language & Reading : letter or word recognition, spelling, vocabulary, Math : addition, division, fractions, multiplication, subtraction, Social Studies : geography, Arts : improvising and music analysis, music
- Skills: Thinking & Reasoning : memorization, solving puzzles, Creativity : combining knowledge, producing new content, Self-Direction : academic development, Tech Skills : using and applying technology
- Pricing structure: Free to try, Paid, Free (Both the paid and the free versions of the app have in-app purchase options ranging from $1 to $3.)
- Release date: January 8, 2014
- Category: Education
- Publisher: Curious Hat
- Version: 1.3
- Minimum software requirements: iOS 6.0 or later
- Last updated: August 17, 2016
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