Jazzy 123
© 2012 The Melody Book
See also Jazzy ABC. This third app in the Jazzy series by The Melody Book is the sister app to A Jazzy Day, this time dealing with counting with musical instruments. Worth noting are the ten language options: a rare feature for any app. There are three options listed on the title page. "123" starts with a set of numerals, from 1 to 10. Tapping the 9 for example will show a set of nine flutes. Each will play a random jazz lick when touched. They can also be moved around the screen; which is a nice touch. "Play" (the second menu option) consists of two structured counting tasks, with right or wrong answers. For example, you are asked to "move nine instruments to the stage." If you drag and drop the correct answer, you hear a short concert. Camera, the third option, lets you take a photo with the iPad's cameras and overlay it with characters from the app. From a math/number sense perspective, this isn't the deepest content, and there are some minor design issues. We were disappointed in the way some of the instruments could be played. While you can play the individual keys on the piano keyboard, you can't on the accordion. Also when we tried to play the string instruments by swiping they only moved the entire instrument. Not being able to control the sounds was disappointing. We did like the ability to choose from twelve language options, making this app useful for foreign language exposure. Overall, Jazzy 123 is a nice app that is similar to Jazzy ABC with slightly less content. It is simple to use, and delivers on it's promise to bring some music to counting.
$2.99, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
Teaches: Number Recognition, counting, musical instrument naming, ten languages, including French, Dutch, Japanese and more
CTR Rating: 80%