The Chronic Consumer

I have been making a concerted effort to purchase more education-oriented iPad apps for my son to use instead of the standard games that we had been buying for a while. One of the highly rated apps I decided to try was this one from Encyclopedia Brittanica Kids called Volcanoes.

Here is the description of the app as it appears on the iTunes store:

Volcanoes are an awesome display of the Earth’s power. Explore them interactively with this new app and learn about the world’s major volcanoes and their eruptions, lava, plate tectonics, and much more. Learn and play at the same time through a variety of games like Memory Match, Jigsaw Puzzles, and the Magic Square among others. Learning has never been more fun with this interactive and educational app that is based on school curriculum.

Learning about Volcanoes has never been more fun with this quick, interactive and educational app based on the school curriculum. And as it’s from Britannica you can be sure it’s appropriate and safe for the whole family. Ideal for homework help, the app features:

Exclusive Encyclopædia Britannica curriculum-based written specifically for ages 8-12. Coverage of the topic includes:

The Erupting Earth
Lava and Magma
Types of Volcano
Birth of an Island
Plate Tectonics
Eruptions
Decade Volcanoes (featuring 16 of the world’s deadliest volcanoes)

Then the fun starts:

•Interactive Map – With this amazing tool you can locate where you are anywhere in the world and see how near you are to the most powerful volcanoes. Want to see your favourite volcano? It’s easy with our map tool, use the zoom feature to see right into the craters.

•Jigsaw Puzzles, created from amazing graphics of volcanoes. Break apart the puzzle and have some fun by shaking your device and then sliding the pieces back into place to complete the puzzle – it’s not as easy as it looks!

•Scramble images of volcanoes in The Magic Square game by shaking your device. Challenge yourself by re-arranging the squares to unscramble the image.

•Brush off – brush off the lava, soot and dust from the eruption of Vesuvius to reveal an object in the city of Pompeii and then try to guess what it is – how many can you answer correctly?

•Test your knowledge on volcanoes with the Quiz feature – how much have you learned? But hurry: you must answer quickly as the quiz is timed!

•Test your memory with the popular Memory Match game and match up the pairs!

Clearly, this app contains a ton of great features, which is probably why it has gotten such great reviews to begin with. All of the pictures are beautiful, and the games and puzzles really add to the experience. The reading difficulty is a bit too high for my son (who is just 8 and a little behind his peers in that subject), but I have taken the time to read from the app to him, which he seems to enjoy just as much. He’s interested in volcanoes anyway, so it’s no wonder he loves this app.

The games and activities are the big draw for kids. The puzzles and matching game are the ones my son spends the most time with, though he also likes the Magic Square activity despite how tough it is. Also, the pictures and video segment is something that holds his attention for a long time as well.

Overall, I am happy with my purchase of the Encyclopedia Brittanica Kids “Volcanoes” iPad App. There is a lot of information packed into this little program, and it is presented in such a beautiful and fun way that kids can’t help but spend time with it — and learn a little something in the process. I recommend it!