Learn Animals: Hide and Seek

4.8
Where to Buy

Learn Animals: Hide and Seek App Review

App Info

Price: Free

Overview

Learn Animals: Hide and Seek plays the classic seek-and-find game with toddlers and preschoolers. The animals leave their corral to hide behind random items while the app screen goes dark and children see and hear counting one to ten. Then the app lights up again (“opens its eyes”), and children are invited to find the farm critters one at a time. Some are completely hidden and others have bits sticking out to give a few hints.

Features include:

  • Intuitive game play
  • Fun animations
  • Choice of three background songs
  • Verbal and visual directions
  • Game continues until the app is closed

Quality

Learn Animals: Hide and Seek is a wonderfully high quality app specially designed for toddlers and preschoolers. The drag and drop interface is easy for young hands to use, and the app is set up to be easy to play. Developers did a great job of putting together an app that is both entertaining and educational for the very young.

Education

This app is hugely fun for the peek-a-boo crowd; young children will truly enjoy it.  And while they are having fun finding animals and sending them back to their corral on a flying cloud, they will be learning important readiness lessons to help them prepare for later school experiences.

The app shows one of the farm animals’ faces at the top of the screen, and verbally prompts the child to “find the ___.”  The child can move any of the displayed pictures (of a tree, a corn patch, a hay stack, and similar farm items) to see if the animal they are looking for is back there.  Youngsters will quickly learn that some of the animals are better at hiding than others, and they sometimes leave some clues, such as an ear, sticking out from behind a tree. And as they have fun, kids will be developing the important skills of matching and visual closure, which is the ability to see part of a picture and mentally fill in the missing pieces.

While the animals are hiding, the app mimics closing eyes and counts out loud from one to ten, just like in the real game. Each number is displayed in bright colors with a “fireworks” background on the display that is truly eye-catching.  One big suggestion, however, would be to strengthen the contrast on the yellowish numbers-they blend into the background and might not stand out as well to the children.  But seeing and hearing the numbers as they are counted will really help most kids improve this skill as well.

Entertainment

Nearly all toddlers and many preschoolers are completely in love with various forms of peek-a-boo and hide and seek, so this app is sure to be a kid-pleaser. Children will take delight in finding the animals, and are quite likely to feel superior to the animals that don’t hide themselves completely. After all, everyone knows you shouldn’t let your ears stick out when you hide behind a tree!  There is likely to be quite a bit of giggling as kids play Learn Animals: Hide and Seek.

Value

Learn Animals: Hide and Seek is free on the App Store. It’s cute and entertaining, and definitely worth a download.  The app does offer an in-app purchase (nicely protected from young users). The purchase is another scene with different animals for ninety-nine cents.

Child Friendliness

This app does offer an in-app purchase of an additional scene for the game.  The link is on the front screen, and visible to children. It is adequately protected, but would be better if it were not so obvious to young users.

  • NO external links
  • NO social media
  • NO 3rd party ads
  • YES in-app purchase (protected, but visible)
Learn Animals: Hide and Seek
Learn Animals: Hide and Seek
Learn Animals: Hide and Seek is a simple and fun hide and seek game that will also help young children learn to identify farm animals, match, follow oral directions, and develop visual closure skills.
Quality
Education
Entertainment
Value
Child Friendly
4.8
Where to Buy