Rocket Science

Wombat's choice of what to do this morning - just a bit of rocket science smile emoticon He is watching documentaries on journeys to deepest space and future spaceflight technologies, and using an app with realistic orbital physics to create and test his own rocket designs.

The app is Simple Rockets: "Kepler wrote the equations 400 years ago, and SimpleRockets uses those equations to model extremely realistic orbital physics. Players will learn about rocket science and astrodynamics while they are having a blast exploring the solar system."

Here are some of Wombat's creations.

Technophilia

I.T. plays a significant role in our daily homeschooling adventures. Here is a typical morning...

Never one to be left out, Boronia hasn't quite got the mouse/keyboard combination worked out, but that does not dampen her enthusiasm or determination. What the boys can do, she wants to do too!

Here, Mulga works with Reading Eggs, while Boronia explores the Forest Flyer app on Mulga's iPad.

On the other side of the room, Waratah has made himself an uncomfortable-looking nest in which to get creative with the Musyc app. This interesting app uses colour synesthesia, producing sounds through shape and colour which allow you to make musical arrangements without needing to understand musical notation or how to play an instrument. It is one of Waratah's favourites.

Sweet little birdy

Boronia's newest apps are Sago-mini Sound Box (pictured) and Sago-mini Forest Flyer.

The Sound Box is ok, if a bit noisy and repetitive after a while. We like the way the balls respond to gravity, and change notes and colours across the screen. Boronia is particularly fascinated with the way the balls pop and release an animal if you leave your hand on them. I first found it by following up on a review that called it the "21st century rattle" and that description is pretty accurate.

Forest Flyer, on the other hand, is highly recommended. We paid $1.99 for it, and it was well worth the money. Boronia loves it, and even the boys and I find it very entertaining. Its main appeal is its adorably cute graphics = there's very little in the way of gameplay, but for a very young child just learning to interact with a  touch screen, it is great. It is a small world where the a bird flies around and interacts with the surroundings based on where you touch the screen. The animated interactions are adorable, funny and appropriate for the situation. They are also great for investigating 'cause and effect'. It is completely open-ended, and there is enough going on to make the game quite riveting for a young toddler's attention span.

Insects and iPads

Perhaps the title of this post would be a better name for our homeschool!

With our usual knack for discovering interesting insects, we spied this gorgeous green grasshopper with pink eyes perching on top of our car, when it was parked in Camden.

We observed it closely and discussed what it would find to eat in that habitat (there was very little grass visible); whether it was born there or had hitch-hiked on our, or someone else's car, what similarities and differences there might be for a town grasshopper and a country grasshopper,why it might have chosen our car to sit on (Waratah thought it might be waiting for a lift home with us) and other such questions... 

Both boys are now proficient iPad users and use their iPad minis for much of their independent schoolwork - wherever we happen to be!

Boronia has now joined the ranks of happy iPad users, with her own apps on my iPad (thankfully protected by a Griffin Survivor case...). Here she is using Spongewords, which is her favourite.

Spongewords is a video variation on flashcards. It displays and reads a word, and then shows that word above a ten second video of the object. The videos are generally well chosen. My only criticisms would be that musical instruments are shown silently. It would be nice to hear the sound the instrument makes. The categories are: people, shapes, food, activities, colours, animals, indoors and outdoors. There is an "all" option which displays objects randomly from all categories. This is the one we like. The accent and spelling is American, but this doesn't cause any problems for us, because I generally read the word at the same time as the announcer (before and after each video) and I haven't noticed any spelling problems yet (other than "color" which is in the menu). Boronia particularly likes the animals of which there is a good selection. One other nice feature is the 'lock' function. By holding two padlock icons in the top corners of the screen, the parent can lock the app on so that a child's random swiping does not close / change anything. The top notification bar remains active, though. We tried out the free version first, and then paid $4.49 for the full content.

In the next photo, Boronia is using her other favourite app, BabyUI. This app allows her to see the screen respond to her touch, or any movement of the iPad that she generates. It variously displays coloured motifs, such as 

- dots which randomly wander around the screen until you touch it, when they "flock" around the touch; 

- a blank screen where stars pop into existence when you touch it, and then fly off and fade;

- a kind of firework/fountain effect that blooms under your fingers; and

- a glowing rainbow coloured nimbus that starts as a bright flare and fades to spinning rainbow dots.

If you swipe your finger on the screen, any of these motifs form a trail behind your touch. The sound effects are fun too, including popping, chirping birds and giggling babies. BabyUI stands for Baby User Interface, and according to the developer, this app teaches Boronia that the screen will respond to her touch in a consistent manner. The boys insisted that they have a copy too, as we all love entertaining Boronia by leading trails of decorations around the screen :D We purchased the full version of BabyUI for $0.99.

Hay Day

One of the most popular and long-lasting games we have played on our ipads this year has to be Hay Day. This bright and cheerful farming simulation has helped us to:

•  practice reading large numbers, 
• practice reading words, 
• learn about supply and demand, and market forces,
• learn about harvesting, production and manufacture (you need to harvest raw materials from your animals and fields and combine them to make the more complex products required by your customers),
• learn patience and the need for saving up to buy necessary infrastructure (rather than spending all your money on cool decorations) as we have not spent any "real world" money on this game,
• learn about games that want you to spend real world money in order to progress, and discuss the effectiveness of advertising strategies used to entice you to do so,
• learn about the cyclical life of a farmer, for instance, that animals need regular care, and that crops must be regularly replanted.

It has also been very enjoyable. We all have our own farms. This is Mulga's.

The following review expands on why we have found this game to be such an enjoyable learning experience:

Rather than all produce being treated as “cash crops,” immediately turning into money the second it is harvested, crops and animal products go into a player’s storage. The player then has a number of different options for what to do with them. They can be sold directly to characters who come visiting the player’s farm; they can be used with special buildings to create more advanced products (milk from a cow can be turned into cream, for example); they can be sold to other players; or they can be used to fulfil orders.

Orders are published on a noticeboard on the player’s farm and usually require the player to provide multiple instances of two or more products, some of which might be manufactured items. Upon fulfilling an order, players send the component items off in a delivery truck, which takes a short period of real time to deliver the items before returning with money and experience points in the back.

...

Trading with other players unlocks at level 7 and allows players to put items up for sale in their roadside shop. Players can set the price and choose whether or not to advertise in the local paper — if they do, their products and the price will appear in other players’ mailboxes each day, while if they don’t their products will only be available for sale to friends who visit them. This is an excellent feature, since players can not only put up crops and other produce for sale, but also tools. It helps get around the inherent illogicality of most social games whereby players can send items they don’t possess to friends in order to “help” — here, players can trade items in a much more realistic manner than usual, giving a much greater sense of realism and requiring far less suspension of disbelief.

 The game monetizes primarily through its hard currency, used to speed up time-sensitive actions. Soft currency may also be acquired via in-app purchase. Purchasing coins will help the player progress quicker as the game is relatively tightfisted with the amount of money it gives out at a time, requiring the player to work for their cash rather than awarding it in vast quantities. Despite this, the game never feels unfair — it is perfectly possible to have a satisfying experience without spending any real money on the game, it will just take a bit longer.  

http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2012/06/21/down-on-the-farm-again-with-hay-day/