Week Planner for Kids App Review
App Info
Price: $1.99
Overview
Week Planner for Kids is an icon-driven system for keeping track of dates, the weather, daily and special events. Users see a colorful screen divided into seven days with room for six events on each day as well as a spot to note the daily weather forecast. Icons are paired with distinctive sounds that activate when touched.
Features include:
- Included icons cover most routine activities
- Ability to draw unique icons
- Ability to add personalized photo icons
- Identifies days of the week
- Allows multiple users
Quality
Week Planner for Kids has a ton of features that make it a great choice for helping young children understand the daily routine, remember when special events are coming, and learn to measure time. Each icon is paired with an appropriate and recognizable associated sound, and the clear icons are very concrete representations of activities such as bathing and eating. The written weekday names are voiced over, so prereaders can still find the correct day of the week.
Education
Week Planner for Kids is a perfect tool for teaching young children (or those with special needs) about routines and daily schedules. Each day allows for six activities to be posted, though it would be nice to be able to shrink the icons a bit and add a couple more things to each schedule when needed. It’s perfect for teaching concepts like before and after, as well as for helping young children learn to answer questions such as “How many more days until…” A moving icon helps users know which day is “today,” and all of the weekday names are listed at the tops of each day’s section. Users just need to touch the words to hear them read aloud in a clear voice.
This app will allow parents and children or teachers and students to sit down together and plan out a week’s worth of activities. It will also be useful to help children keep track of what important activity comes next in their schedule, when exciting events are planned, or what day of the week routine events take place. It will help some children become more independent in managing their schedules, since children could set up their planner with minimal adult assistance.
The app could also be useful to keep a running record of the activities a child enjoys each day. The icons could be used to commemorate activities after they happen, and also to encourage children to tell stories, summarize, sequence or review the day or even the entire week.
Entertainment
Week Planner for Kids is not really intended to be an entertaining app, but it manages to have some intriguing features that will fascinate some children. Each icon has a sound effect and jiggles when touched. There is a drawing mode that will allow children to create their own simple pictures or icons for activities that are not represented in the collection, and the app can also access the device’s camera roll to pull in pictures of people, places or events that are important to the user. Specially-created icons and pictures are saved for later use.
The app also includes a reward sticker that could be used/collected as an incentive to manage a child’s behavior. It would be possible to plan activities, then substitute the reward icon for those that are successfully completed.
Value
Week Planner for Kids is a good value. The app allows scheduling and teaches many skills at the same time. It also will be useful to children from about age three through at least age seven, so it has a potential lifetime of several years. It can accommodate multiple users, as well, making it highly desirable for both family and classroom settings.
Child Friendliness
This app is very child-friendly. There is a clear and well-made instructional video demonstrating app usage visually, so even younger users can easily learn the capabilities. A second adults-only section presents the icons currently available and offers additional sets of icons for purchase in the App Store. Current collections available include holiday icons and travel icons. Unused icons, or those that your child finds confusing for whatever reason can also be removed (and reinstated at will). This entire section is protected by a randomly-generated math problem that could be solved by most middle grade students. There are no links to the internet, email, or social media. There is no outside advertising.
