App Activities: Splingo!

Each week I look for different ways to utilize our iPad in our homeschool. Recently my friend Pam and I have been brainstorming ways to use the iPad at home and in her speech classes. While looking through various apps, I came across Splingo’s Language Universe.  What caught my attention was that this app was designed to help children listen and understand verbal language. Since I was currently working on listening skills with my 3yr. old and 4.5 year. old, I thought this might be a good app to try out.

What Is It?

Students must follow Splingo the alien’s instructions by moving or dragging objects on the screen. Teachers/Parents can customize which aspect of language you want your student to practice: nouns, verbs, prepositions, and adjectives. Since this app was developed in the UK, there is the US or UK dictionary option.

Once students complete a series of instructions correctly, they get to add a piece on to Splingo’s rocket.

Splingo contains 4 different levels:

•Level 1 -contains instructions of 1 main word and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 18 months onwards, e.g. “find the apple”

•Level 2 - contains instructions of 2 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 2-3 years, e.g. “find the red apple”

•Level 3 - contains instructions of 3 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 3- 4 years and upwards, e.g. “find the big red apple”

•Level 4 - contains instructions of 4 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 4 years and upwards, e.g. “give the big red apple to the boy”

What We Thought:

Right away this was a hit with both of my girls. They had to listen carefully to the instructions and think about what action to take. Occasionally the instructions were hard to understand, but the girls could click on Splingo and have the message repeated. I liked that I could choose which language aspects to work on and the complexity of the instructions. My girls thought they were just playing a game but were actually working on concepts such as size, color, shape, and positional language (on, above, under etc.) I’m happy with this app purchase and I can see many ways to utilize it in our homeschool.

Details:

Splingo is designed for both iPhone and iPad and is currently priced at $2.99

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