Playing with Shapes and Colors
Shape Gurus opens with kids seeing a green circle and a dotted line outline of the same. When they move the green circle to its outline, it starts to jiggle and bounce as if something wants to come out. If kids touch it, the green circle becomes an egg that hatches, revealing an adorable yellow bird. The bird then flies up into a tree for the next puzzle -- one involving moving brown triangles to form a nest.
The puzzles continue with each new puzzle being represented as a new scene. These puzzles gradually increase in difficulty by having kids place one shape inside of another, or by requiring kids to sort the shapes into appropriate bins. Players need to experiment with moving the shapes around in each scene until they solve the puzzle before the next one will appear. When all of the puzzles are solved, the app starts over again. If the puzzles get too hard, parents can reset the progression in the settings.
Why This App is Good
Shape Gurus presents a series of engaging puzzles that seamlessly flow from one to another. The app cleverly turns experimenting with movable objects into learning about geometric shapes and colors. As kids move a shape to its correct location, the app identifies it by name as well as its color -- and the narration can be set to be spoken in 12 languages! The app also automatically turns a shape to fit into the outline so that little fingers don't have to worry about sizing and rotating.
The developers took care to create a positive learning environment. They have created a no-fail interface where, if the child drags an object to the wrong location, the piece just bounces back to its original position with no negative sound or consequence. And players are rewarded with fun and cute animations upon completion of a puzzle. Young children love seeing things come to life, including a dinosaur and a rocket ship blasting into space.
Unfortunately, this app uses its launch page to host an ad for Colto's other apps. This ad can't be disabled in the app's settings. We don't like advertising to kids -- especially young kids, and would recommend that Colto put this ad behind a parental gate.
Best For
Select Shape Gurus for toddlers and preschoolers who are just starting to enjoy identifying shapes. Because of its no-fail environment, this is a good first puzzle app and an excellent way to introduce logical thinking.
This Shape Gurus app review was written by Jinny Gudmundsen.
All tech products are judged on a five star scale by looking at the following factors: fun, education, ease of use, value, and technical.
