Frog Game app review and giveaway (plus a HUGE app sale!)!

FG home page

A little over a year ago, I shared a review of Kids Sound Lab (click here for the full post).  I think this app does a great job of animating each consonant phoneme and attaching it to the written letter(s).  It’s something I use regularly in my own room when I’m just starting with a student or new sound.  I’ve used it for articulation but also to support early reading skills.

Recently, the developers updated it and now it has a discrimination game and improved storage capabilities.  I can wait to dive into it!

They have also released a series of apps called Frog Game 1, 2 or 3 which are primarily designed for a single user and target phonemic awareness.  Frog Game School contains all three of the individual apps with the ability to register multiple students, collect data and print or share results.

I’ve been having fun checking this out!

The lessons it incorporates builds from Kids Sound Lab, so there are expectations that users will be familiar with the sounds and the idea of sound/letter representation.

I’m sharing the experience and screen shots from Frog Game School here, but realize that the others contain the same lessons in a smaller capacity.  Generally speaking the app is designed for students 4 years and up.

FG school menu

The home page shows “Frog Game Sound Discrimination” and a path with all of the sounds on it up to the castle.  A blinking TV in the corner starts a story which sets the scene.  Hoppi the frog has been enchanted by an evil wizard and lost his voice.  A real shame because he’s a gifted storyteller.  It’s your job to work your way through the sounds and help him regain his voice by earning a wand, spell book and key to the castle.

FG character for SH

The games incorporate the sound/letter characters introduced in Kids Sound Lab and follow the same pattern of acquisition (as opposed to an A-B-C learning format).  Choose the sound you are working on and the animation of the sound plays.  The letters that represent the sound are shown in upper and lowercase as well as American Sign Language.

FG Activity 2

The first exercise has you match letter tiles to the phoneme characters.

FG Activity 2

The second activity has boxes with the character/letter name and you drag the word above that matches the initial sound.

FG activity 3

The final activity has you drag words to the corresponding characters.  Note:  you can turn off this activity for non-readers although touching the word will read it to you and allow an additional auditory discrimination task.

A star bar along the bottom of the screen tracks how far along you are in each activity.

FG level 2 completed

As you complete a level (whether it be in the sectioned games or at the set points in “school”), you receive one of the magical objects that help return Hoppi his voice.  There are little animations and stories that accompany all of these achievements that will really make students feel like they’ve accomplished something.

This is an ambitious program and clearly designed to develop pre-reading skills whereas Kids Sound Lab has equal utility for articulation.  It would be a great asset for parents looking to support (or begin) pre-reading skills or an SLP that addresses literacy skills.

I understand the reasoning behind the developmental order presented in the program, but it insists that you follow it from beginning to end.  This might be an issue with a student that has already mastered the initial sounds but needs practice on specific, later developing ones, or a child that has articulation errors causing confusion with a few specific phonemes.

Also, the program begins, briefly, with vowels and I felt there was some difficulty mixing short/long vowels together.  With many of my students, I might complete the vowel section quickly for them so we could start right in on consonants.

While the developer provided me with complimentary copies of the apps, all opinions expressed here are strictly my own.

And I have copies to giveaway!  I have one copy each of Frog Game 1, 2, 3 and School PLUS a copy of the updated Kids Sound Lab.  To enter to win, let’s hear your opinion on frogs.  Love ’em?  Hate ’em?  Kissed and married one?  I loved catching frogs as a girl and every 4th of July my town had a frog hopping race.  Alas, mine never one.  (Perhpas, I kept catching the storytellers).  You have until midnight EST on March 12, 2015 to enter and winners will be drawn at random.  Good luck!

The European Speech-Language Hearing Day is March 6, so through March 9, 2015 all of the apps listed here are being offered at a HUGE discount (well over 50% off).  For more info, click here.

 

 

 

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This Post Has 16 Comments

  1. Alexandria

    Love frogs and so do kids, we play a game sometimes with hopping frogs and they love earning more frogs to hop!

  2. Emily

    I had a hard time catching a frog that was hanging out in our master bedroom! But I know I have many little expert frog catchers on my caseload that would love these games in speech!

  3. Ronnie Lea Kaufman

    My students love frog games…

    We play hop onto specific color plates on the floor…can do for following directions, or for sound production.

  4. Susan S.

    Loved frogs as a kid! Not so much now.

  5. Kim Hovey

    I loved catching tadpoles in the creek and watching them transform into frogs!

  6. Valerie

    Haven’t thought much about frogs. I did really enjoy Kermit the Frog as a kid.

  7. Maureen Tillisch

    When I was 9, I took a walk with a younger friend. We went to a small stream further back in the woods near my parent ‘s house . In late spring, there were several frogs there and I caught a few with a younger friend. I miss those days. I was never scared of sea creatures except for the craw dads!

  8. Megan

    Growing up we had a swimming pool, and every spring our pool cover was covered in tadpoles- like literally thousands of them. My brother, sister, and I would always compete to see who could catch the most tadpoles. We would use cups and nets to scoop them up and try to count them. The counting was nearly impossible since the tadpoles constantly swam around. My brother, naturally, used this to his advantage and always nominated himself the winner. Unfortunately, most of the tadpoles usually ended up being sucked up in the sump pump or dried up in the sun, but a few always lived each spring and turned into frogs that would sing their lovely frog songs to each other all night long. To this day, seeing (or hearing) a frog instantly makes me think of swimming pools and summer time, which are welcome thoughts during this cold and snowy winter in Ohio. I would love to use these Frog games with my kiddos and have them reflect on their own thoughts/ideas about frogs!

  9. Michelle

    I love frogs and loved catching them in my mom’s garden. We also had a pond and I would collect bullfrog eggs and take them to school so that our class could watch them grow from eggs, to tadpoles and finally to frogs. It was a very neat experience!

  10. Annette Macher

    Frogs are some of the best and most reliable critters for getting kids interested in – well – just about anything! This looks like a great app. I hope to be able to try it soon!

  11. Deb Culbertson

    My students love frogs. I prefer the plastic frogs that jump, but I do like to listen to the tree frogs in my backyard in the summer.

  12. Shannon Giles

    Totally afraid of frogs! I would scream like a little girl…not too afraid to say it:)

  13. Crystal R from SC

    When I think of frogs, I think of the spring my daughters insisted on bringing a small bucket of tadpoles into their bathroom, and pouring them into a 10 gallon tank they found , and prepared, from the garage. They kept the tank on their bathroom sink , for oh so many weeks. Each morning i would hear squeals of delight as they realized how many tadpoles they had, and how they were changing so quickly. That summer they would swear they could hear “their” frogs singing to them from the creek. It smelled so bad, and went against my basic hygiene principles, but it was hands down one of the most delightful memories!

  14. Kim

    Didn’t catch frogs as a child, but sure liked to make them hop! Frogs also remind me of my uncle who told me the story of how he use to be a frog until his beautiful princess (my aunt) kissed him and turned him into a handsome prince! A great memory, and what a great giveaway!!

  15. M. Parker

    Not a fan of frogs but caught a lot of tadpoles as a child. They’re more fun to watch.

  16. Nikki

    Love, love, love to hear the thousands of frogs in our pond ‘singing’ in spring and summer. It’s like our own private symphony!

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The views expressed in this blog are my own and are intended to inspire other speech-language pathologists in their own practice. If you are a parent, teacher or other educator, these ideas are not intended to take the place of treatment by a certified clinician. Read full disclaimer here.