Let’s Bead Friends

Make virtual friendship bracelets on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Grade: B | Age rating: 3+ | Price: $0.99

Let’s Bead Friends allows crafty kids of almost any age to design simple or elaborate friendship bracelets and send them to their loved ones via Facebook or email.

What’s Hot:
Real crafting is messy!  With this app you can have all the creativity without the chaos.  Sometimes that’s exactly what you need as a parent.  Choose from five bead shapes, nine colors, and ten designs every time you add a bead, then finish your opus off with a personalized charm or two.

What’s Not:
This app is fun, but it probably has limited replay value for kids over 8.  It definitely provides creative enjoyment, just probably not hours of creative enjoyment.

The Bottom Line:
A nice, simple outlet for your kids’ creativity.

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We tested version 1.0, which is compatible with the iPhone (OS 3.0 or later) and the 2nd generation iPhone touch. Developer i-itch Inc. Read our disclosure policy.

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Sound Touch

An addictive sound app and recognition game for babies and toddlers

Grade: B+ | Age rating: 1+ | Price: $1.99

Sound Touch is the most addictive app my one and a half year old daughter has played since Itsy Bitsy Spider. There are six different themed menu screens, each holding clip art pictures of animals, household items, means of transportation, etc.

Touch an object and then the screen flashes over to a real life picture of the object as it plays the real life sound the item would make. From cows to a knock on the door, children can develop sight and sound recognition.

What’s Hot: I think it’s great that there are four different real life pictures and sounds for each object. So as the child keeps touching the elephant they get a different sound and different looking elephant each time.
Read more…

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ABC by Paul McDougall

A sweet, eye-catching alphabet book app with a charity angle

Grade: B | Age rating: 2+ | Price: $0.99

ABC by Paul McDougall is an alphabet storybook app with adorable, not-so-scary monster characters and witty prose.  If you’ve got to learn the alphabet (and you do), this is a good way to do it.

You can feel good about buying this app too, because profits are being partially used to donate print copies of the book to libraries and hospitals in need. This is what we in the iPhone and iPad app reviewing business call a win-win situation.

What’s Hot:
The quirky monsters and color palette are very appealing, as is the writing (“C is for Chelsea, the charming young carrot” for example, and “D is for Dana, the dog who loves donuts”). Read more…

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MathGirl Number Garden

Don’t look now, but your daughter is doing (and liking) math

Grade: B+ | Age rating: 5+ | Price: $1.99

MathGirl Number Garden is a sneaky educational app masquerading as a fun game tailor made for girls.  They might think they’re earning points to redeem for rainbows, flowers, and bunnies, but really they’re practicing arrays (a visual, right brain math exercise).

What’s Hot:
The garden theme and pastel colors are so darn cute.  Girls will be falling all over themselves to play for points and then redeem them in order to decorate their gardens.  We especially liked “unlocking” the various high ticket items like soccer balls, tire swings, and ponds.  Read more…

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Space Crayons [Free Promo Codes]

A fun kinetic robot drawing app for the iPad

Age rating: 4+ | Price: $1.99

Space Crayons for the iPad allows pint-sized robot lovers to create their own robots with digitally charged crayons and then bring them to life with simple animation.  And you know what’s even better?  Two kids can collaborate on a single design for twice the fun and none of the fighting.

From time to time developers give us free promo codes to share with our readers.  We do this on a first come first served basis.  If these U.S. only codes don’t work, somebody beat you to it. Better luck next time!

If you score a code, please do the developers a favor and leave a review on the iTunes App Store. Not sure how to redeem a promo code? There’s a link for that.

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