iPad App from School Zone Review

Both my girls love our iPad or the rectangle as Big J calls it. I have found the iPad to be a great learning tool and a wonderful travel companion!! We would not have survived our trip to NH without it. We have a couple different apps designed just for children but one of our new favorites is by School Zone.

About School Zone:

School Zone Publishing Company began as The School Zone Learning Center in 1972. The Learning Center was a retail teachers supply outlet, specializing in sales to teachers, with two stores in Grand Rapids, Michigan. About 1974 schools instituted changes in educational methods that affected the home and schools. Changes included introducing new teaching methods in math and English and eliminating workbooks provided on a shared basis for home use. With these changes, parents experienced difficulty finding educational material for use at home. Local parents turned to the Learning Centers, requesting workbooks and other at-home teaching aids. In response, the Centers formulated six workbooks and printed 1,000 copies of each. The books sold out in six months. An expanded workbook series was developed and received equally enthusiastic acceptance. School Zone Publishing Company was incorporated in 1979. A new line of workbooks had been written and illustrated by late 1979. In January 1980, the line was printed and School Zone began operations. Market response was extremely favorable. The product line has expanded yearly and currently includes almost two hundred educational products including games and apps.

About the App -Preschool Pencil-Pal:

School Zone’s preschool learning app has all of that and more! Your child will touch, listen, laugh, and learn as he or she discovers important skills through play and practice. Pencil-Pal Preschool will introduce your preschooler to a barnyard full of activities. Sherman Sheep and the rest of the barnyard buddies will help your little one sharpen preschool skills in no time. After all, it’s more fun to practice letter sounds, shapes, numbers, and more with friends! As your child follows these lovable friends around the barnyard, from the movie theater to the art studio, he or she will gain essential early learning skills.

My Review:

Big J loves this app, especially the drawing and painting features. She loves to paint and draw and this makes it a mess free experience for mommy!! Other features include jokes and riddles, dot-to-dot, movies and learning game.

We also love the dot-to-dot because you can use numbers, uppercase letters or lowercase letters. I was watching Big J and was amazed that she did the uppercase letters perfect! The learning game teaches counting, color matching, lower and upper case letter matching and letter sounds.

The beginning of the app is very funny too.

You can tap each door, window or mailbox and there is some great sounds and animations to go along with it. Big J can actually spend a few minutes playing with this screen before moving onto a game.

Preschool Pencil Pal will be staying on our iPad for a long time.

You can purchase the Preschool Pencil Pal app ($7.99) and other School Zone apps at the Apple app store from your iPad, iPhone or computer.

I received a free copy of the Preschool Pencil app from School Zone for my iPad in order to review the product. All opinions are mine (or Big J's) and 100% honest.