How To Find The Best Rated Apps For Kids

In preparation for marketing The Prisoner of Carrot Castle, I did some research to find app reviewers and discovered some great sites I want to pass on to busy mom's. If you're an iPad, iPhone or iPad Touch user looking for great apps to make your busy mom's life a bit easier, read on.

First up, Apps for Children With Special Needs:

a4cwsn is committed to helping the families of children with special needs and the community of educators and therapists who support them. By producing videos that demonstrate how products educate children, a4cwsn provides a way for users to see how an app works before they buy—great concept. Choose apps to review by various categories (e.g., colors, creative play, etc.), iTunes category or developer. There are apps for motor skill development, autistic kids and if you're a special needs family, they currently have a campaign to give away iPads. Check it out.

Digital Story Time creates Top 10 reviews of kid's apps in various categories (e.g., most educational, most original, best extras, etc.). You can also find ideas, such as how to have a successful digital bedtime experience with your kids.

Digital Story Time (blog titled The Digital Media Diet) is one mom's take on kids, technology and the world of apps. This site also provides a rich resource of links to other sites for parents.

Appcheese is a straight forward review site for kids' apps. Each app reviewed receives a cheese wedge rating and lists Platform, Price, Age Group and Publisher.

Pictured with each review is the app's icon for the iTunes store along with screen shots and the book trailer (if available). An iTunes button below the icon allows you to order the app. Scan the sidebar to see a list of recently reviewed apps. Lots to love about this clean review site.

Apps for Kids~kids learning (disguised as fun) is a review site by a mom in Silicon Valley. Primarily doing reviews, she dispenses some wisdom on how to balance your kid's time on technology. Providing parents a short cut to finding some real gems, is her intent, plus giving an honest opinion on a few of the popular apps that may be stinkers. Apps for Kids is focussed on making it easy for parents to find an app for a particular purpose. By the way, contributors to the site include Dad and 5-year-old son Sal.

The Greasy Screen (don't you love the title?) discusses ebooks for kids, reading habits and stuff. Crystal, from the Chicago suburbs, blogs here and covers all things picture books—right up my alley.

Besides ebooks, you'll find library books reviewed. Each app review shows a screen shot with app title, publisher, format (iPad, iPhone), number system rating, synopsis, current price, features (e.g., interactivity, sound effects) and a brief written review.

Last, but not least The iPhone Mom reviews all things for kids and parenting for the iPhone and iPad. She will hunt down little known apps hidden in the deep recesses of the iTunes store (and they are deep).

Reviews are categorized for moms, toddlers, pre-schoolers, elementary school and beyond, plus a category just for iPad. Every week a special is posted that might be an interview with a developer, navigating in the App Store/iTunes or a step by step "how to," for example, submit an app review.

I hope this gives you lots of places to find great apps for your family fun and learning.

And the Winner Is...

Drum roll, please! Ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta taaaaaaa! Congratulations to Kathy Miles who won the drawing for an autographed copy of Just Too Busy by Joanne Kraft. Enjoy reading and check in to let us know what you learned and your favorite funny story or "Joanneism" from the book.

Developing an iPad App: Step Six

The Prisoner of Carrot Castle © 2011

Haven't heard from me in a while about the app progress, but rest assured things are moving ahead like gang busters. The work has been heavily concentrated on the illustrations, Kate working hard at painting each scene. And next month my uber illustrator is moving to Vancouver where her husband works. Kate and the boys are very excited to be together as a family again.

Step Six:
A. Illustrate Each Scene
All the scenes for the book and the title page have been colored. What do you think of the title page? Some of the scenes were adjusted as Kate moved through the story scenes. You saw some of the gorgeous scenes in Developing an iPad App: Step Five.

B. Build the App Pages and Functions
Plugging all the colored scenes from Kate's work into a build of the app, Nur has provided a web location for us to download the progressive builds onto our iPads. That allows us to test things and give him feedback. He's experimenting with page turning styles, built and debugged one of the games and laid-out the extended scene where the accelerometer will be used. Are those teasers enough for you?

C. Begin Foley Work & Plan for Marketing

I have my hands full as I figure out how to put the sound together. There's narration for each scene, music that plays throughout the story (with an off/on button) and sound affects that happen either as a one-off (happening once during narration) event, or when a spot on the screen is touched usually involving animation.

Nur's job is to make it all work, but I need to get all the sound files for him to insert. A good friend has offered his professional sound studio to do the sound work. Sound a bit overwhelming?

Then there's marketing. I need to create a marketing program to introduce and get the market buzz going about the app. I'm convinced the app will sell itself, but the rub is people need to know its out there in the sea of millions of iPad apps.

Just a few things I'll be doing:

• Set-up Fan Page on Facebook
• Look into targeted Facebook ads
• Send out app to reviewers
• Send out press kits to media

Marketing gurus out there, what else do I need to do?

BTW, the production company for The Prisoner of Carrot Castle is called Purple Carrot Books. Did you know that carrots were originally purple? The dark-colored carrots are making a comeback. Give them a try if you see them in your local market.

It's getting exciting, isn't it?

What is it you'd like to know about building an iPad app? Scroll down and leave a comment.

Book Review and Giveaway~Just Too Busy: Taking Your Family on a Radical Sabbatical

I met Joanne Kraft about two years ago in a critique group I joined to polish my writing skills. She gave us many laughs with her witty, oftentimes, tongue in cheek comments. "Joanneisms" was a term I used for the many funny descriptions she would come up with and add to her writing. I loved reading her work for the humor, but went away with many a gem for life.

The same is true for her first book. You'll find Joanne Kraft's book very relevant to the fast-paced life we seem to find ourselves racing through. Just Too Busy: Taking Your Family on a Radical Sabbatical provides a private look at Joanne's own family as they un-plugged from things (TV, sports, computer, music, etc.) that tear us away from a rich and close family experience. Her humorous look at each situation will have you laughing as she pokes fun at herself with wit and sarcasm. Yes, there is someone to fill the shoes of Patsy Clairmont. Sorry, Patsy, I know you're still here.

Read Joanne's book and you will take away ideas to bring closeness and a new approach to doing family in your home.

Every parent in the world needs Just Too Busy. If you're a mom (or dad) trying to raise kids and make it in our crazy world, you must get this book. If you are a grandparent and have a relationship with your son/daughter where they will not be offended (happens—don't want to step on toes here), get them this book.

Take a trip to Joanne's author website and subscribe to her blog for regular dispensing of mom wisdom. Plus, be sure to download her free leader's guide to get a blueprint for a women's study using the book.

Just a parting word. In case you think that Joanne's husband, Paul, is a follower in this relationship and Joanne wears the pants. Think again! Paul is the rock-steady rudder and reality dispenser in their marriage. He supports Joanne 100% in the call God has on her life to encourage families to take the right path (as opposed to the world's) in raising kids.

Want to get an autographed copy of Just Too Busy? Leave a comment to be entered in a Book Giveaway for Just Too Busy. I'll announce a winner on July 1st.