Would You Rather Be a Pollywog
© 2014 Oceanhouse Media
A duck's bill has grooves. Do you know what they are called? (Answer: Lamellae.) That's just one of the dozens of touch-and hear (and see) facts found in this solid addition to Oceanhouse Media's library of iOS-exclusive storybook apps. The idea is to gently introduce facts about different plants and animals found in ponds (algae, snails, turtles, ducks, etc), the metamorphosis of frogs, and more. This app provides a nice overview of a variety of common life forms that you'll see around a pond -- insects, fish, frogs, bottom feeders and birds. As with other Learning Library apps, you can touch any item to see a label pop out of the text There's plenty of content. We counted 22 pages (screens), although each unfolds into as many as four information panels to highlight specific creatures. In addition, there are popup, narrated fact boxes. Noteworthy features include the ability to record your own narration, a well designed contents feature that makes it easy to jump to any page, and the ability to toggle on/off the read to me mode. Other features include sound effects, the ability to tap on pictures, and read alert icons. These features make this more classroom friendly. The random giggles in the background seem a little out of place and we could deal with a bit more subtly with the animations -- but this is an extremely minor criticism.
$3.99, iPad, iPhone
Teaches: science, biology, insects, frogs, fish, birds, reading
CTR Rating: 94%