Baby Games for One Year Olds

Children aged around 1 year do not need to have their achievements logged and monitored in the way that other games may do. This app is unstructured and children can easily select which activities they like and practice these. Parents can understand which areas of the app have engaged their child and find ways to reinforce these skills in everyday life.

The app itself is colourful and engaging. Some parents found the sounds irritating but these can easily be turned off in the ‘Settings’ section.

There are 12 games on the opening page as part of the ‘free’ app, each set out as icons. If children are using the app and parents so wish, they can purchase further games. These are currently £0.79 each with 12 choices.

Games on the free app:

1.            Phone game

2.            ABC

3.            Faces

4.            123

5.            Street scene

6.            Animals

7.            Rattles

8.            Music keyboard

9.            Bubbles

10.          Paint palette

11.          Shapes

12.          Baby dressing game

Phone Game:

This is a basic simulation of a phone. The child can select ringing sounds and numbers. When a number is selected an animated picture appears in the screen of the phone, unfortunately this does not correspond with the selected number (i.e. if you choose 3, 3 cats don’t appear – just one cat). Strangely if a child selects zero, no image is shown. The educational content of this game is limited by this as it is unclear to a child what the number they are pressing means.

ABC:

An alphabet game with corresponding animated images. The pictures are clear and engaging. There is a musical note button which allows the child to listen to the whole alphabet song (in a rather grating American accent!) All of the letter sounds are correct phonetically except Z (Zeebra) and I (Ice-cream) when the long letter sounds are used. This may conflict with how children are taught letter sounds later in their education when short letter sounds are used e.g. ‘I’ sound like it does is ‘image’ rather than Ice-cream.

Faces:

This is an unusual game which allows a child to click on one of 6 faces and hear a word or a sentence from that person. There is a boy, a Daddy, a clown, a baby, a sleeping boy and strangely a boy passing wind! Although one year olds might find this amusing I don’t think it is of much educational use.

123:

Numbers 1 to 10 are listed with corresponding animated pictures which the child can touch to rehear the number or count along with. If the child presses the musical notes icon the numbers are counted one to ten, showing the pictures as they go. This is a useful introduction to numbers and sequencing.

Street Scene:

A road scene with cars, boats and planes which a child can touch to hear the sound they make or the name of the vehicle. A good way of improving hand / eye coordination and for children to learn how to use touch technology.

Animals:

6 animals are shown which can be selected to hear their name and the sound they make together with a small animation. The names given to the animals are very Americanised such as birdy, kitty and rooster.

Rattle:

This is another good way for children to develop their understanding of touch technology. 4 rattles are shown and children select one to see a simple animation of objects which can be touched or rattled around by gently shaking the phone or tablet.

Music keyboard:

A landscape orientated keyboard consisting of 8 notes (an octave) which children can press to create their own music. The sounds are - do, rae, me, fa, so, la, te, do. There is a musical note option which gives a background beat or tune for children to play along to. Oddly the bottom and top note make the same sound which may be confusing to the budding composer!

Bubbles:

A good, simple game that children seem to find very engaging. Floating bubbles move up the screen and children can touch these to pop them. Another good way to develop hand eye coordination skills.

Paint palette:

Orange, blue, red, green, purple (looks like pink) and yellow crayons which can be touched to show an animation of a picture in that colour. It would have been nice if children could ‘colour in’ the image using the crayon but the game simply shows what that colour looks like. In the paid options, there is a finger painting game which may be a good next step after this game.

Shapes:

This is quite a dull game which allows children to see named shapes and touch them to hear their names spoken aloud. There is little opportunity for interaction.

Baby dressing game:

Children can touch items of clothing to ‘dress’ and animated baby. If the item is touched again it is removed. This is again rather Americanised as items include a diaper, a pacifier, a cap and undies.

Overall this app is a nice introduction to some basic skills but there are some short fallings such as the American terms used and the missed opportunities by the developer as further educational content could have been easily included.