Let me start by saying what I a HUGE fan I am of ALL of the apps from Sago Mini. {Yes, I think I own every single one!} I use them with my preschool students during therapy sessions AND with my 2 1/2 year old son, Landon. They have beautiful graphics, fantastic content, engaging sounds, and are very reasonably priced. These apps are absolutely perfect for toddlers and preschoolers. Some of my favorites include: Friends, Monsters, Ocean Swimmer, Pet Cafe, and Bug Builder. You can check them all out in the App Store.
I was super excited when the wonderful people who run
Sago Mini asked me to do a review of their NEWEST app, Robot Party. This app is available on both iPhone and iPad for only $2.99 (WHAT A STEAL!) Keep reading for a chance to win a FREE copy! Now let’s get to it!
ROBOT PARTY BY SAGO MINI
The first part of this “party” is building your robot! The possibilities are endless with so many colors, fun body parts, accessories, and more. Your little ones will have a blast scrolling through, “tossing out”, and exploring all of the exciting options their very own robots.
The first screen you are brought to allows you to choose the robot’s body. This is a perfect opportunity to work on labeling (
What color body did you pick?) and identifying colors (
Find the pink body). You can easily target labeling and identifying shapes as well just on the first screen!
Next up is choosing the body parts and accessories for the robot. Start by asking your little one what body parts the robot need. When using this app with Landon, we started with choosing a head for his robot. You can easily grab and place the head on the robot or “drag” it away to see other options! Once the “perfect” head was added to the robot’s body, I was able to ask questions like,
How many eyes does he have?, Does he look happy or sad? We also worked on labeling parts like eyes, nose, and mouth. This is a great chance to ask some “WH” questions as well…
Where do his legs go?
I personally loved watching Landon scroll through and make choices to create his robot! Your students/child will continue creating their robot by adding arms, legs/shoes, and a shirt! There are plenty of different colors and designs to choose from which is awesome. This again allows for lots of language opportunities like labeling colors and objects, expanding utterances, and describing with adjectives (What color shirt did you pick?
I picked a green shirt. What is on his shirt?
It’s a lightening bolt!) For preschoolers, this is a great time to ask things like “why does he need shoes?”
Time to charge up your robot and get ready to PARTY! Your little ones will have a total blast cranking and spinning the lever to charge him up. It’s so much fun watching him go from tired to arms up and excited! The graphics and sound effects are perfect.
What’s a party without yummy treats?! This next part of the app is super fun. Your child/student can press the pink button on the left side of the screen to add brightly colored icing to the cupcakes. Perfect time to work on labeling those colors as well as following directions (Try pressing the button on the left!) They will get a kick out of making their cupcake bigger and bigger. They can also pull the lever at the bottom of the screen to move the cupcake over and start working on “decorating” a new one. Ask them to press the button on the right and watch out for a surprise…Confetti!! Who doesn’t love confetti at a party?! Touching and moving the cupcake also gives way to another surprise…It explodes! Landon loved that part.
It’s time to dance and make some music. Kids will have a blast hitting and moving the instruments to listen to the different sounds! An added bonus is to see which arm, leg, or even if the robot uses his head to play music. What a perfect opportunity to label the instruments/objects and take a guess as to what sound they will make.
How many hits will it take to break the piñata?! Push to swing or tap to hit the piñata. Will the robot use his legs, arms, or head to hit it? All of these adorable actions are a perfect way to identify action verbs, make guesses, and label body parts, colors, and objects. Your little ones will be so anxious and excited to see what the prize is when the piñata breaks! Use the buttons at the bottom of the screen to watch confetti fly around or for balloons to appear. Tap the balloons to see what will happen. POP!
We have reached the final phase of the party! The robot heads into the photo booth. Have your little ones snap a picture which can easily be saved right into your image library. How fun will it be to start an album and explore all of the awesome robots your kids will make!? What an easy and fun way to work on describing, comparing/contrasting, similarities/differences, and more!
I hope you enjoyed my review of this app and can use some of my ideas to target speech and language development (while having a BLAST of course)! Ready to start your own Robot Party?! Head over to iTunes and download this app NOW.
