PopUp Play: Imagine, Create, Play

$110, iPad, iPhone

Teaches: creativity, construction, spatial relations

CTR Rating: 82.5%

CTR Review

Here's an innovative idea. What if you could give your child a simple CAD app to design their own walk-in home (complete with punch-out doors, printed designs and their name on the family crest? This is a free design app (called "Build Lab") coupled to a mail-order printing shop that lets you create large, walk-in houses. The app gives you your choice of two types of constructions (a Castle and a Gingerbread house) although more are planned. You can drag and drop the doors, windows and decorations into place. As you work you can rotate your house for a 360 degree examination, making this a good spatial thinking exercise, even if you don't send away for the $100 house. After your design is complete, you can work through the parent gate and order form to enter your credit cart information, and upload your design to the the Texas-based publisher, where it is cut, printed and shipped as a flat, fitted construction to your home in a week. For an extra $5 you can get a box of crayons for coloring. PopUp Play is no threat to the old refrigerator box, but it does bring a new twist to the planning process.