Alphabet Rockers iPhone app: The Guide for Adults
Kids are the masters of self-discovery and exploration.
Kids find the apps for kids in your phone without asking you for help. They press screens, they swipe, they solve games – all while we look for the instruction manual. Kids are natural gamers! We tested the Alphabet Rockers iPhone app with kids over the 18 months we spent developing it. The fun part was seeing how our early testing kids remember all of their favorite parts of the app – even a year after seeing it! Kids are amazing.
That being said, adults are pretty cool too. And we’re happy to provide step-by-step directions to our app, “Alphabet Rockers,” along with how/why we built it, so you understand the cognitive and brain development elements of the app progression. We’ll also include suggestions of how you can continue the learning (& music!) beyond the app. The engagement with your children will of course be the most meaningful experience they have of early learning. Whether you take a second to ask them to show you what they found in the game, or whether you follow-up their shape factory by adding a robot high 5 and a shape hunt in your house – you are supporting their early education.
About the Alphabet Rockers iPhone app:
There are four games within the app.
- Change it up! (learning about coins)
- Shape factory (learning about shapes)
- Dance party (play with the animated characters and listen to Alphabet Rockers songs)
- Rocker store (email the band, see our calendar of shows, purchase songs and rocker gear)
The two learning games each have four levels, represented by doors.
- Door 1 teaches the basics, hearing and seeing the word paired with the image, and playing a game with the image.
- Door 2 shows the application of basics, again with word/sound/image correlation and games.
- Door 3 is a fun game based on the concept.
- Door 4 is a fun bonus level.
- Doors are only unlocked when user completes available level.
CHANGE IT UP!
Door 1.
You see a bouncing piggybank. Press on the piggybank, and it releases coins. Press it three times, and it will advance to the game play. This pattern occurs after the user enters each of the four doors/levels.
After you press it three times, an image of penny appears center screen, with the word “penny” underneath it. A child’s voice says penny. The goal is to drag the penny into the piggy bank. When you press the penny, the music will change, and a path will illuminate for you to follow. Though the path does not need to be followed to achieve the level, the hand-eye coordination for the child to follow the path is a bonus learning experience for developing minds.
If you press the word, you will hear the word spoken back. If you press the piggy, it says, “Come on!” – an excerpt from The Money Song, from the album Back to School: The Remix, available at the Alphabet Rockers store.
After placing the penny in the bank, you learn about the nickel, dime, and quarter. Then the level is complete.
Door 2.
You are now presented all four coins, and have to choose which coin corresponds to the musical, spoken and written cue. The first time you play the game, the order of the coins will be in order of monetary value. In subsequent games, the order is randomized, to assess learning the concepts over learning the pattern. The musical line, “penny, penny, copper and brown” plays as the coins spill onto the screen. For penny, you will see the word “penny” and hear the child’s voice read “penny.” Press on the correct coin. Choose incorrectly, the pig jumps and says “Come on!” Press on the penny image and win!
When you select the correct coin, it comes to the center and shakes and grows. Do nothing, it pops and says “you’re worth 1 cent!” – a line from the song – with a paint splash on the wall.
Press the coin while it shakes, it splats!
Door 3.
Coins float around the screen. Tip the screen, and they will accelerate and bounce off of the walls.
The goal is to press each of the coins on the screen. Its value is revealed to you as a star each time it’s pressed. It then is frozen in place as a star until all stars have been revealed.
After revealing all of the stars, the piggybank starts collecting stars. Tip the phone to deposit the stars into the piggy bank. The piggy bank grows and grows with each additional coin until it pops to the next level!
Door 4.
This is a fun level – it’s time to outfit your piggybank and personalize it with costumes, colors and letters. The outfit you choose you can carry through for the next round of playing the game, and/or see in the dance party part of the app. As you outfit the pig, use the arrows to advance and return to the previous dressing room scene. Start over by pressing the small pink piggy in screen 1 of the dressing room. You can outfit your piggy with: hat, glasses, shoes, color, and letter.
Here’s the one we decorated. When it comes to selecting the letter you want on the piggy, you’ll notice the letter is read back to you when you touch it, with a child’s voice. Today we represent the A for Alphabet Rockers.
Now it’s time to party.
When you go back through the game, you are now rocking your piggybank gear. Makes you want to play it again, right?
THE SHAPE FACTORY
Door 1.
The user first needs to disassemble the shape robot, by pressing it three times.
In the first level of the Shape Factory, users are learning to identify shapes: circle, square, triangle, rectangle, pentagon, and hexagon. The shape is presented by the shape robot.
Then the conveyor belt starts in the shape factory!! Time to pick the shapes to match his description. He’ll tell you to find circles, for example. If you press him during the conveyor belt, he’ll repeat what shape you are looking for. If you press the shape, a child’s voice will speak the shape name back to you.
As you continue to select the correct shape, the shape fills up in the shape robot’s mind. After it is complete, you are presented with a screen that reads the name of the shape again, for the correlation of text to shape. We do not expect children to be able to read these words! This is merely a chance for them to start correlating the concept of the word to the shape itself. When you press the word, it reads it back to you.
Offline suggestion: If you play the game with your child, you can pause the game and ask questions like, “I see the letter C – what letters do you see?” and have them point to each letter as you play the mini letter game.
The game will load the shapes randomly after you’ve played the level once all the way through. You have to complete all six shapes to advance. You complete the level with an amazing… Robot High-5.
Door 2.
After you’ve disassembled the shape robot again (fun!), you’re presented with a drawing board to draw the shapes. All the shapes will appear outlined at first- colored in after you’ve completed each of the shapes and their accompanying games. To fully complete this level and unlock Door 3 – the user needs to draw all six shapes and play their games to completion, ending in a Robot High 5.
The first instructions are to draw the shape. The user will follow the dotted lines for each of the shapes, gaining some hand-eye coordination and also physically learning how the shape is formed.
The shape robot then instructs the user to color in the shape.
After the user has finished coloring, the completed shape transitions into a “real-life” version of the shape. The user will see the correlation between shapes as mathematical drawings to real-world images. ÊHere’s how they play out, shape by shape, with game tips.
CIRCLE – Pop the Bubbles!
The circle turns into a bubble, center screen.
The bubble turns into many bubbles. If you press the bottle of bubbles, you can create even more bubbles to pop. Pop all of the bubbles to complete the shape level. Fun fun fun!
SQUARE – Unwrap the package
In this level, the square transitions into the side of a package. When you first see the scene, the square is still as it was on the drawing board.
Upon pressing the square, it turns into a box package.
As you continue to press the box, each side collapses, revealing a surprise inside – and a Robot High 5 to send you back to the drawing board. By the way… press the clock and it will ring!
TRIANGLE: Match triangles on the Pinwheel
The triangle from the drawing board transitions from equilateral to an obtuse triangle, and floats above one of the triangles it matches in the pinwheel. The shape robot says to match the triangles.
Drag and drop each of the matching (color-coded) triangles to the pinwheel. When you’ve completed the puzzle, the pinwheel flies away.
RECTANGLE: Play the piano
The rectangle transitions from the drawing board into a black key on the piano keyboard.
Play the piano! Have fun! Turn it from night to dusk by pressing the moon. Each time you play a piano key, it sends a note into the sky with corresponding color.
When you are finished rocking out, press the arrow to complete the level.
PENTAGON: Give a dog a bone.
The pentagon transitions from the drawing board into the front door of a pentagon dog house. While most people have rectangle doors, this dog house has a pentagon door. Kids practicing drawingÊhouses see their house drawings are pentagons with 5 sides.
Explore the houses. Each house reveals an animal upon being pressed. The bird houses release matching birds – you can send them back into their houses by pressing the house door again. If you press them, they dance for you.
The dog will emerge when you press on its door three times. After it comes out, three bones will fall to the scene. Drag the dog over the bones to slurp them up and complete the level.
HEXAGON: Minding the bees
The hexagon from the drawing board transitions to a hexagon in honeycomb.
When you press the scene, it flips around to show the hive and three bees around it. Press them one by one and they go into the hive. (psst: press the flower and find a bonus bee!)
Now, back in the hive, it’s time to turn over all of the hexagons. Press them all and a swarm builds. If you are playing with your child, you can start talking about the shapes that are not hexagons. The edging has rhombus and pentagons! Of course, most kids are just going to enjoy seeing the bees buzzing about. If you are an extra-careful one, you can even mention that this is a game, but we don’t play with hives when they are in nature!
After the scene is cleared, we’re back to a blue sky and flower, and the Shape Factory level 2 is complete – with a Robot High-5!
Door 3.
Time to play the puzzle game and match up the various shapes of the shape robot body to theÊsilhouette. The puzzle will load differently each time, and the dragging of shape to shape is another great dexterity game for child development.
After you’ve matched it up and had a Robot High-5 – it’s time to take your photo! Here we are taking a photo with our album instead of our faces. After you take the photo, take a screen shot and save it – they can be pretty funny. Try one of just teeth, or your eyes!
Door 4.
Alphabet Rockers have a pretty cool music video, called “The Shape Rap.” Here it is for you to stream and enjoy! Some children watch this video everyday – they love to howl at the moon with the Rockers. You can watch the video full-screened, as well.
DANCE PARTY
No learning in this part of the game – except, of course, that the lyrics in the song teach your kids concepts! Here we feature three songs:
- The Money Song – values of coins
- Shape Rap – circles and squares in the world
- Dynamite – parts of body, self-esteem
Choose the song you want to hear by tapping the record with its name on it. The record will go onto the record player, and a character will jump onto the dance floor to start rocking out. You can swap out the dancers by pressing them at the bottom of the screen or while they are dancing. You can swap records anytime, just press the one you want to hear. If you outfitted your piggybank – it’s represented here!
ROCKER STORE
The Rocker Store is designed to connect you to more of the programs and music that Alphabet Rockers has created for families. The poster links to the calendar dates (you can invite Alphabet Rockers to perform at your school, event, party). The mailbox links to the band email so you can send photos of your piggy for their Facebook page, or ask more about the app. The CDs link to ways to purchase their Parents’ Choice Award winning songs. The kazoos… well they link to where you can buy Alphabet Rockers kazoos, of course! The band uses them in their shows and music classes. The box of more links to what’s in store next. Currently it includes t-shirts, download packages and so forth, but it will always expand with freebies as well.
Thank you for reading about the Alphabet Rockers app – and please let us know if you need any support at apps@alphabetrockers.com. Now go have fun!