Common Sense Media Review
By Ana Beltran
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Play with animals, puzzles, patterns, colors, and sequence.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 3+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Download
Videos and Photos
Smart Grow: Educational Games
What's It About?
SMART GROW: EDUCATIONAL GAMES offers kids 16 games to choose from. They include games like Feed the Animals and Drawing Shapes that require kids to use their fingers to trace lines and move objects from one point to another. Other games, such as World of Animals and Amazing Space, require kids to move pictures into a matching outline. Remember the Animals is a digital picture card memory game. What Comes Next gets kids thinking about patterns, while Join the Dots gets kids thinking about number sequence. Home Decoration and Happy Coloring allow kids to be creative and explore different designs and color combinations. Clap Hands will require another player and is a digital form of hot hands, a game where one player tries to slap the back of the other player's hand before they move it away. All the games are played to the same catchy tune and vocabulary for the pictures that appear on screen are reinforced through audio. There's an option to turn off the sound. Parents can adjust the difficulty levels of some games.
Is It Any Good?
The experience offers a variety of options and games that toddlers can grow into as they get more familiar with virtual play. The games are simple enough for little ones to navigate with ease. The guiding hand that pops up after a few seconds of inactivity makes the games more user-friendly. The virtual version of common games, such as puzzles and sorting, provide more options and various levels of age-appropriate difficulty. Smart Grow: Educational Games helps young kids build their vocabulary by naming the images that appear on the screen, both through audio and in writing. It's particularly handy in encouraging animal vocabulary. Although activities such as coloring and tracing are better off-screen, the wide variety of options is really great, and little kids will have fun exploring games without realizing they're developing key skills.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about animals around the world when playing Smart Grow: Educational Games. What sounds do animals make? How do certain animals move? What animals are common in more than one continent? What animals are particular to a certain place and why?
Talk about real life patterns. Challenge kids to find patterns around the home or create their own patterns with objects or when drawing.
App Details
- Devices : iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad
- Subjects : Language & Reading : naming , vocabulary , Math : numbers , patterns , sequences , shapes , Science : animals , astronomy , Arts : drawing , painting
- Skills : Thinking & Reasoning : logic , part-whole relationships , solving puzzles , Creativity : imagination
- Pricing structure : Free to try (optional in-app purchases from $.99 - $11.99 and subscription $4.99/mo.)
- Release date : September 24, 2018
- Genre : Education
- Topics : Numbers and Letters , STEM , Animals ( Wild Animals )
- Publisher : Apps Ministry
- Version : 1.1.2
- Minimum software requirements : iOS 9.3 or later
- Last updated : September 30, 2025
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