If you are looking for an educational app for your young child that will provide them with fun brain challenges and starter coding skills, then Avokiddo’s Thinkrolls Play & Code app for kids would be a great start.
Filled with colourful adventures that will strengthen their minds, build an early understanding of coding and develop a love of math and science – below is our review of this fantastic new app for kids.
App Review Summary
My children all enjoyed the Thinkrolls Play & Code App. Each had different sections they liked the best – although all three especially loved the Arcade Puzzles. Even my nearly 13 year old daughter kept waiting patiently for her turn and loved that she could keep trying more challenging levels. The youngest of little players can enjoy the most basic of puzzles and challenge themselves, with help from their parents if needed to move on through the spaces.
Overall, a great item to buy for younger children, and I think the age recommendation of 3 – 8 years is perfect. If you have older children, though – I have no doubt they will have some fun playing it too. Read below for a breakdown of the apps different activities and a detailed review of the app.
What is the Thinkrolls Play & Code app about?
Apple’s Editors Choice Thinkrolls Play & Code app for kids integrates a wealth of STEM and pre-coding concepts into a fascinating play experience. The app offers 1100+ logic puzzles, a series of fun brain games, and a unique pre-coding platform that helps kids as young as three grasp the basic concepts of coding.
There are seven main play sections in the app. These are:
Home Sweet Home
Home Sweet Home is the first activity, and it allows children to get a little creative as they go about dressing and creating their own Thinkroll (the central characters in the app). Here they can interchange different coloured and shaped body designs, mouths, accessories and more. You can also create ready-made characters found in a little book on the shelf on the page.
The Arcade Puzzles
In Arcade Puzzles, children must use their problem-solving skills and reasoning as they navigate their Thinkroll through several bright, colourful, fun mazes. There is a basic, easy and hard level to choose from and upon completing each maze players unlock the next one to move on to. In many cases, strategy needs to come into play as players must plan ahead as they execute moves that will help them achieve something a few steps ahead.
Code Your Own
In Code Your Own, little ones can build their own puzzles, which involve some elements of coding logic. By selecting and dragging elements onto their grid, they can tailor-make their own puzzle by choosing from various backgrounds, blockers and interactive objects.
Tapping on the play button allows kids to play their own game, which can be edited at any point or saved for future play. Once completed, parents can share the puzzles by emailing them to the developers. Each month they pick the best puzzles and include them in the ‘community puzzles’ section for everyone to play.
Brain Games
There are nine different brain games for kids to explore; Sort A Lot, Smoothie Shop, Find the Odd One Out, Trick or Treat, How You See Me, Spot the Difference, Memory, Space Up, Hide and Seek, Pop the Balloons.
Pirates Code
In Pirates Code, children need to help a little pirate Thinkroll make his way to his treasure chest. This is done by selecting different pathway pieces and dragging them to the correct spaces so that an accurate pathway will lead him there. Another game involves collecting floating objects in his pirate ship. As each level is passed, a harder option is presented.
Logic Lab
Giving kids a chance to program their own game, Logic Lab has 75 different challenges that children must pass to move on to the next one. They are shown a puzzle maze and need to bring in one or more objects from a selection panel and place it into the puzzle to help their character be able to complete it. They can try the game by pushing the play button and see if it works. If it doesn’t, they can edit it and change what they selected and where they put it to try again.
Community Puzzles
Here is where all of the puzzles created by other kids using the app and selected by the developer reside. Kids can have fun trying their luck with games created by others and maybe see their own submitted game being played here too.
What ages is the Thinkrolls Play & Code app targeting?
Thinkrolls Play & Code is designed with our younger little tech wonders in mind (the app is recommended for 3-8 year olds). The app contains some coding logic elements, although no actual programming is involved. Parents can create up to six different players too – which means if you have multiple children of varying ages, they can all make use of the app and move through the levels based on their ages and abilities.
Our Review
Thinkrolls Code and Play app was a pleasant surprise for my children. Although they are a little on the older side of the app recommendation of 3 – 8 years (they are 7, 10 and 12), they all enjoyed working their way through the different sections.
There are a lot of things to love about this app. Kids will love the bright, colourful and engaging graphics when first loading it up. The background music is catchy and upbeat without being annoying. There is also a parents setting button (where a parent must input their birth year), and where they can adjust the music levels, a number of brain games and other puzzle settings.
Having so many different sections to play with means that kids with short attention spans will not be bored quickly. When we were trialling the app, they had an additional ‘special event’ game that kids could play for a limited time. Each category also had multiple levels that you could work your way up through, which meant it continued to be challenging.
The app itself is straightforward to navigate and play. Scroll to your left or right to find the category of game you want to play and click on the central character to enter it. Players are then told what they need to do to play. There is also a helpful little ‘help’ character in the bottom right corner (which can be switched on or off in the parent controls section) that kids can click on if they are a little stuck on what to do. Small question marks are then highlighted on the screen over different things, and kids can click on these to find out more information.
Kids will need to use their problem-solving skills in most sections and a lot of strategic planning. It is all age-relevant and perfect for getting little minds working in a fun and engaging play space.
Overall Recommendation
Overall, we loved this app and would recommend it for young children. Kids will be challenged and entertained for hours by its bright colours, fun games and various activities. The fact that you can have different players who can work their way through the levels at their own pace also means that it is an app that will suit families with multiple children of different ages.
The parental controls section is helpful too, where parents can adjust the sounds, music, help monster and the number of games. We also love that the kids can create their own puzzles and hopefully see them published in the community puzzle section of the page. Puzzle creation is very rewarding for them and encourages them to continue to create new and more challenging puzzles to have theirs chosen.
Where can I download a copy of the app for my device?
The Thinkrolls Play & Code app has been created for iPhones and Ipads. If you want to download the app to your device, you can do so via the Apple App Store. Be sure to read the developer’s privacy policy for details on how your (or your kids’) information is collected, used, and shared and any choices you may have. Note that privacy policies and terms of service frequently change.
The app is free to download but then operates with two subscription options, monthly and yearly
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