I really have to wonder what caveman – and women – did to keep their toddlers busy and ensure enough of them came-of-age to perpetuate the human race. I can’t image it was easy, but nothings changed. Sure we’re not protecting our kids of dinosaurs but we’re still
Zoodles App
trying to keep them busy and out of trouble/harms way. Yeah I know caveman and dinosaurs lived at different periods of geologic time, but its very easy to picture caveman protecting there kids from T-Rex!
We have some friends with similar age kids who keep theirs occupied in-front of the TV – maybe not the best choice for young minds, especially since its American TV, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do in order to get the dishes done, the bathrooms cleaned. Unfortunately or fortunately as case may be, the TV just doesn’t keeps Z’s attention… thats where Zoodles comes in!
Zoodles is a suite of computer/smartphone/tablet software (Apps) that locks out most of the functions a computer or device, and presents a handy kid friendly menu of pre-selected material that includes a bunch of cool learning related content, from educational YouTube videos, to Cbeebies flash games.
So far we’ve only used Zoodles on our tablet - referred to by Z as “Z’s Laptop”. Which is perfect for sitting him down and keeping him occupied for 10 minutes while Mrs Almost American picks up the house and I clean the kitchen.
Z's Zoodles Learning Chart
Besides its handy lock-out feature, which keeps Z from buying Apps in the Android Market, its a pretty smart piece of software as it keeps the content age appropriate and automatically sends emails each week to the registered account providing an update of how much time Z spent on the different activities. If you take the time to log-in to their website, you can get the progress report and access a whole suite of menus and parental controls. As you can see from the pie-chart on the left Z spends most of his time on Creative development (his two favorite games bring “Springwatch and Colour” and “Butterfly Gallery” both on the Cbeebies website).
The best part, all the main features of Zoodles are free. There is an optional pay per month service that provides additional parental controls, such as focusing the content to a particular subject or imposing usage time restrictions, but for us, we’ve no need at this point so we’ll continue to use the free mode too keep Z occupied and learning in a fun “controlled” way.
If your looking to share your Android device, Ipad/Iphone or computer with your toddler Zoodles is a great way to do it! Definitely worth the download…
Product Rating: Zoodles Android Tablet App
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I put Zoodles on my Kindle fire. It’s a sweet app–thanks!