Highlights Monster Day

$2.99, iPad, Android, Kindle

Teaches: personal needs, daily routine, fine motor skills

CTR Rating: 88%

CTR Review

Choose a monster and then care for him/her from morning till night: brushing his/her big yellow teeth, feeding him/her (bagels), helping with a school science experiment, playing basketball and tucking him/her into bed at night. The app is designed to introduce ideas about the daily routine, taking care of personal needs, and caring for others with themes of kindness and compassion. There's also a purposeful set of touch screen fine motor challenges - tapping, swiping, completing circle rotations, dragging and dropping, and pumping levers. We liked how you can move forward or backwards in the experience. Weaknesses to note: You can't design your own monster (although you can choose from several options), and there's no multi-touch tasks like tossing basketballs. The entire experience could be more responsive (e.g., compared with a typical Sago Mini app). In addition, the app asks you to take photos of your monster and we couldn't find a way to turn this option off. But these are minor issues. The illustrations are excellent and the playful, gentle monster care theme is an ideal early childhood experience. Developed by Italian app publisher Colto for Highlights, this is the first of a planned series.