Highlights™ Shapes

The Highlights Shapes is an app that aims to help children learn shapes and colours. It is available in both the Google Play and the Apple store. It consists of 3 packs; the first one is free and the rest two are paid. Parents have the option to choose between two languages: English and Spanish, activate/deactivate voice and music, and learn more about the app in a password-protected link.  The app is suitable for young children aged 3-6 years old.

 

Children navigate a fox in its journey through the jungle (first pack: Ancient Jungle Puzzle), the deep sea (second pack: Magical Underwater Puzzle) and outer space (third pack: Mysterious Space Puzzle). To complete the fox's journey, children are asked to solve a number of puzzles by matching, sorting and categorising shapes and colours.  For example, in the fox's journey to the jungle, the children are asked to match a triangle, a square and a circle with the corresponding shapes of leaves by dragging shapes to the right position. If the matching is correct children hear the name and colour of the shape e.g. green square. If it is wrong, the chosen shape moves back to its original position indicating to children that they should try another shape. A correct matching often unlocks items such as a snake coming off a pot and brings up new items such as a pyramid.

 

Children can see a map of the entire journey and the position of the fox at a given moment. Yet, they are not allowed to move forward unless they have completed all previous puzzles. They can only move backwards and restart the journey. Each journey and each pack have a progressive level of difficulty which helps children stay focused and interested in the puzzle activities.

 

The first pack features 4 shapes and 8 colours, the second pack 7 shapes and 11 colours and the third pack 11 shapes and 11 colours. Overall, the app is well-designed and enjoyable and benefits children in a number of ways, including learning new vocabulary (shapes and colours), practising problem solving, and developing motor skills through dragging and dropping. Yet there are instances when the colour of shapes does not fit the environment within which shapes match such as colourful shapes as missing parts of a grey stone. It would be more realistic if the puzzle activities were better integrated into the fox's  journey and did not appear as a layer added on top of the journey. In other cases, the size of a chosen shape did not fit the matching shape e.g. it was smaller. Such activities may lead to confusion as to what the correct answer might be.

 

The app would benefit children further if it provided some flexibility in terms of how to progress through the fox's journey e.g., moving backwards and forwards and choosing which activity to complete first, second etc.  Also, it would be really helpful if the app maintained progression after it is shut down so as children can carry on a given puzzle when they re-enter the app. Towards this direction, it would be useful if the app provided scores for each successfully completed puzzle.