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Parents' Guide to

Drawing Academy Games for Kids

By Mieke VanderBorght, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 5+

Guided drawings come alive, but too many ads.

App iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad , Android , Kindle Fire Free to try Education
Drawing Academy Games for Kids Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this app.

  • Drawing Academy Games for Kids App: Screenshot #1
  • Drawing Academy Games for Kids App: Screenshot #2
  • Drawing Academy Games for Kids App: Screenshot #3
  • Drawing Academy Games for Kids App: Screenshot #4

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Privacy Rating Warning

  • Unclear whether personal information is sold or rented to third parties.
  • Personal information is shared for third-party marketing.
  • Personalised advertising is displayed.
  • Data are collected by third-parties for their own purposes.
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What’s It About?

Browse through the available drawings in DRAWING ACADEMY GAMES FOR KIDS, organized by themes such as forest, pets, or transport. Tap on the choice to start the drawing game. A narrator and an animated hand guide kids in making the drawing step by step. Once it's finished, the drawing launches a mini animation; for example, the cat meows and stretches. Kids can then move the drawing around on the screen, or, for some drawings, tap buttons to start the mini animations. ABC and 123 categories present drawings that demonstrate and introduce each letter or number. Access completed drawings to play with them again.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

Animations and movement are wonderful additions to this guided drawing collection, but the visible locked content and ads drag it down. Drawing Academy Games for Kids offers structured and directed drawing. The included drawings are cute, simple to re-create, and super kid-friendly. Because kids must follow a template, their finished drawings will end up looking pretty good, which may please some kids. However, as this is not an open-ended forum for creative artistic expression, Drawing Academy Games for Kids doesn't allow kids to experiment. There aren't even that many colors to choose from. The biggest delight in this app comes with the animations. Kids can have fun interacting with their drawings as they move them around the screen and make them do things like eat a flower or stretch and turn around. Too bad kids can't also record the drawing moving around as they tell a story about it. Some content doesn't seem entirely thought out, like when the narrator continually refers to the airplane drawing for the letter "A" as a "plane." The limited content with free download model is pretty common and therefore not too surprising, but it's a big disappointment that the ads don't disappear after purchasing full access. Kids can easily get caught tapping on ads as they try to choose a drawing to make, and seeing the locked content isn't a great model for kids.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the drawings kids make with Drawing Academy Games for Kids. Encourage kids to tell stories about the characters they create.

  • Talk about all the ads in the app. Why are they there? Do they distract from what the app does? Develop strategies and family ground rules for dealing with the ads.

  • Draw together! Practice drawing on the screen and on the paper. How do the two experiences feel different? Do you prefer one to the other?

  • Talk about art. Discuss how drawings are simply a system of lines. Look at art together and think about the artist's process in creating it. Try to draw something you see without the help of a template.

App Details

  • Devices: iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad , Android , Kindle Fire
  • Subjects: Language & Reading : letter or word recognition, Math : numbers, shapes, Arts : drawing
  • Pricing structure: Free to try (one-week trial then to unlock all content make in-purchase of $3.99/month; $18.99/year; or $36.99 one time purchase for unlimited access)
  • Release date: January 16, 2019
  • Category: Education
  • Topics: Numbers and Letters
  • Publisher: Bini Bambini
  • Version: 1.0.1
  • Minimum software requirements: iOS 8.2 or later; Android 4.1 and up
  • Last updated: March 12, 2019

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