Exploring the World on your iPhone

Disclosure

My kids are constantly trying to get my attention when I am happily engaged reading status updates on my iPhone’s Facebook app. Tati even likes to yell: “MOM MOM MOM!” then grab the phone and smack me on the nose if I don’t answer her… Oh yes, I forget you were sitting there, darling. Sorry.

I guess the solution is to come up with a way to engage the kids with my beloved technology… and one great way to do that is with educational iPhone apps, just for them.

I tested Lola’s Flag Adventures this week, a memory and trivia game for kids 4 and up. It’s gives kids the chance to learn flags of the world while honing their memory and fine motor skills. The Memory portion is simple “card turn” game that my 4-year-old twins loved. The Trivia game was also a memory game, but this time it was a multiple choice Q&A. Requires reading skills, or at least Mom and Dad there to read the questions to them.

I wasn’t super keen on the sliding-answer tool on the Trivia side– it was a bit sticky at times. Not a great feature for impatient kids. However, I think this game is a great tool for occupying little hands and minds, for $1.99. Certainly it teaches them more than Bejeweled ever will. I know when I played it, within minutes I learned 10 or so flags that I hadn’t known before.

I look forward to more fun games added to it– perhaps a way to drag your finger over a globe and see the maps interact with the locations of the countries! Probably geography info will be more relevant than just knowledge of the design of the flags.

Overall, worth the 2 bucks, especially if you like to share you iPhone with the kiddos.

Update: Lola’s Flag Adventure is no longer available but you can find several apps from BeiZ, such as Lola’s World, in the App store.