Here’s the thing. I hate traveling in school holidays. Airfares multiply threefold, accommodation rates double, and places are crowded. My eldest has only started school this year so I am just working out how to handle this. Taking him out of school for a week or two for short trips, or for just a couple of days to be able to afford to travel seems to be the best approach. We did this for our recent trip to Tasmania after discussion with his teacher who suggested he create an art journal of his trip to present for Show and Tell when he returned. Using mobile technology that facilitates his burgeoning literacy while traveling and taking a little time off school is also a winner as far as I am concerned. So, when I was asked whether I was interested in reviewing one of the ABC Reading Eggs apps I jumped at the chance. My son was already familiar with ABC Reading Eggs – a program designed by educators for 3-13 year olds who are learning to read. He uses it in class at his State Primary School and he has also used it at home on our desk computer. This was the first time he had used a ABC Reading Eggs App. We trialled Eggy Snap on our iPad mini. Eggy Snap is an app that is suitable for children aged 3 and up. The app facilitates the learning of 180 words over 9 different topics. We really liked a few things about Eggy Snap:
- The kids already know how to play traditional card Snap – so they were able to engage with the game immediately.
- There are single player options – flash cards and playing Snap as well as multi-player options (up to four players).
- A combination of snap possibilities including picture-picture, audio-picture, audio-word, word-picture and word-word are included in each game. This enabled my pre-literate 3 year old to play with his older brother and not always lose.
- The whole family could play together.
- There are three difficulty levels so there is room to progress.
- My son really like collecting the rewards.
Really the only limitation we found was that the boys liked playing snap with the pirate cards over and over – it may be difficult to move them to other topics and therefore extend there vocab.
Eggy Snap four player option
Eggy Snap single player option
There are various operating requirements to access the ABC Reading Eggs Apps, and an active trial or subscription of ABC Reading Eggs is required. Overall though – we are very happy with this one an plan to download others prior to our next trip.
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We loved reading eggs when we tried it (a couple of years ago – it was great but then P hit a plateau, we should try it again especially now T’s in range). At that stage I remember looking for apps and not finding many good ones from them, so it’s nice to hear they’ve invested a bit in that side of things. Always great when they can play on something portable!
The other thing I liked about it was there were not tricks to get you to buy extra features like so many of the kids apps.
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