A few weeks ago I wrote about the top 5 apps that make my toddlers happy. In that review I gave some examples of apps that my twins not only thought were fun to play or use, but also taught them things. After all if they don’t think an app is fun they will lose interest quickly, no matter how good of a learning tool it is. It’s my goal as a parent to give my children every opportunity to succeed possible, so when an app comes along like Color and Shape that not only keeps their attention but also helps them learn I take notice.
K.I.S.S
If you’re not familiar with this term it stands for keep it simple stupid. The developer did a great job of keeping it simple with this app. Upon launching the app, you get a nice splash page with two options COLORS or SHAPES. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. The first option is colors so I’ll start there. Inside you find three rows of spheres with distinct colors. The background is filled with a scene from what appears to be a field of grass with lady bugs and birds. Touching any of the 12 different spheres prompts the English (read: British) narrator to reveal the color. All of the colors are strait forward and very easy to distinguish. That’s it. That’s all there is to this page. It does exactly what you would think it would do; it tells you the colors. The other page is the shapes. Again three rows with 12 objects for your toddler to touch. This time the background is a sunny beach view complete with seagulls and a rainbow. The rows in the shapes page are broken down into three different types. The first row is your standard square, circle, rectangle and triangle. The second or middle row is where it gets interesting. It starts with pentagon, then you get parallelogram! Whoa. It took me a little by surprise the first time my son touched that shape. I didn’t expect an app that teaches basic colors and shapes to have parallelogram in it. I was afraid that my kids might stumble over the name and lose interest, but to my surprise they picked it right up and didn’t have a single problem with the name. The rest of the shapes are strait forward and what you would expect from an app with a name like Color and Shape. Again, they got strait to the point with the shapes page. It does exactly what you would expect it to do. Tell the shape name as it’s touched.
Almost Perfect
This app does exactly what it says that it will do. It shows, and tells colors and shapes in an easy manner that any toddler can pick up. A couple of things that I’d like to see in the next update: First I would like to be able to change the shape of the colors to something other than spheres. The spheres work just fine, but the ability to change the shape might help retain younger children’s attention. The next thing I would like to see or hear in this case, is different voices. Just like when using a GPS, I’d like to be able to choose my desired voice. While the British accent isn’t heavy enough to cause a problem, it’d be nice to have the option. Lastly I’d like to see some sort of game addition where the child hears a color or shape said aloud, and then touches the screen to match the corresponding color or shape. I have already done this with my children aloud, and maybe that’s the point of not adding a “game” feature, to keep you engaged with your children. Either way, it would be a nice addition.
The Bottom Line
At first I thought my children would lose interest quickly with this application because of its simplicity. With all of the other app options on my iPad that include animations, video, and interactions I thought that they might pass this app by for something else if given the choice. I was surprised. A few days after first playing with it, I woke one morning to my 4 year old son sitting in bed next to me saying “sphere”. He woke up early and decided to get the iPad off of my nightstand. The app he chose all on his own? Color and Shape. I can honestly say that I feel my twins have a better handle on their colors and shapes because of this app. If you have toddlers, I would definitely recommend it.
You can get Color and Shape for $0.99 here from the 
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