Over the years Disney characters have been featured in a variety of educational products. In the 50’s safety rules while swimming or biking were reinforced through animated shorts featuring Jiminy Cricket. In the 80s and early 90s my brothers practiced their ABC’s with Donald’s Alphabet Game and learned the value of money playing Donald Duck’s playground on our Tandy 1000HX. I tried to find similar learning apps featuring Disney characters for my son in recent years but didn’t have much luck. Given the role Mickey Mouse Clubhouse played in reinforcing his counting skills including introducing the idea of counting by tens in Mickey’s Round-Up.
Donald’s Alphabet Game
And given that Disney characters bring their own special relationship, we were very excited to learn about the Disney Imagicademy, a collection of learning iPad-exclusive apps recently announced by the Disney Company. Their initial release of Mickey’s Magical Math World earlier this month offers five games focusing on math skills. In January 2015 they are expected to release a second collection Mickey’s Magical Arts World that will focuses on creative arts. Later in 2015 (around the Back to School season) in partnership with toy brands Smart Toy, Kid Designs, Wonder Forge and Mercury Active, Disney will continue the support of learning play with physical products and learning toys.
Another fun element of Disney Imagicademy is the companion app for parents. Through this app Disney not only offers parents realtime updates on their child’s progress and ways to digitally reward their child’s efforts separate from the app’s automatic “pin” earned but it offers away from screen activity ideas to spark their child’s creativity and continue to reinforce the skills their child is learning through the digital play. You can view a sample of these activities here – https://disneyimagicademy.com/category/mickeys-math-activities/
But back to the current release – Mickey’s Magical Math World. Gideon, my nearly 6 year old son, and I had fun exploring the free portions of the app. We had fun aiding a little alien in finding his way to bed in Daisy’s Bedtime Countdown. The game featured items that blocked the alien’s path to bed. Clicking on those objects broke them into the segments. Later these segments were collected in groupings of 10 up to 100 and carried off for recycling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo0viSvyS0s (brief overview)
In Donald’s Number Launcher you are encouraged to launch a little alien into poor Donald who is trying to enjoy a peaceful nap in his hammock. Gideon enjoyed riling poor Donald. Through gameplay you explore simple number line illustrations of addition and subtraction up to 100. Manipulating objects on the number line changes the alien’s movement. You can reach Donald at spot 5 by moving 3 then 2 or 4 then 1 so you have a graphical representation of various ways to make up 5. It was a fun way to spark discussion on various ways to make up a single number.
Goofy’s Silly Sorting offers various games of sorting items based on shape or color. In the initial game we sifted through various items that were to be recycled into jet fuel to power our little friends jet packs. Gideon lost interest in this one very quickly as it is repetitive to simply select the correct image. The alien needs a green heart you pick the green heart. However he would have enjoyed it a lot around age 3. We found similar game play better packaged in the iTunes app Minnie’s Food Truck.
Spark your imagination with the tangrams-style activity Mickey’s Super Rocket Shapes. You are invited to custom build your ship out of a variety of shapes. You can adorn it with eyes, thrusters or other add-ons. You adjust the size and color, too. Then your newly created rocket shuttle is loaded with a collection of passengers the computer counts off as you load them up. In order to reach your destination you must select the correct answer from a choice of two in this introductory level. We had to match up numbers or colors in our quest. We paid the $4.99 to open the various additional designs for this game as Gideon enjoyed devising his own rocket. Once again the game play was a little young for him but it would definitely keep him occupied at a dinner and reinforce skills such as matching and counting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYETY9MwNLY (even created special songs to support math skills learned in the games)
Minnie’s Count Along was our favorite area. It’s a robot playground. Minnie invites you to build your own adorable robot friend. Purchasing increases the options for your creation but there are plenty in the free offering. Then you direct your new friend throughout the playground. Of course we led ours to a giant mud puddle where he splashed about getting covered in mud. Then it was over to the bubble wash to get cleaned off. Counting is reinforced as the robot glides over the monkey bars. In the sandbox you are invited to copy a number. Successfully copying it generates that number of sand piles which transform into the turrets of sand castle. You can stack the piles to create tall turrets or scatter them through the sandbox. The sandbox itself is customizable, too including an option to change the sand’s color. There were other playground elements found here. And once again purchasing the app increases the variety of options but there were a surprisingly high number available within the free zone.
Overall I’m excited about Disney’s new venture in the learning at play arena. We’ve greatly enjoyed their Science of Disney Imagineering DVDs even though they are intended for children much older than Gideon they introduce the topics of energy, trajectory and Newton’s laws in an engaging way for theme park fans. They link the fun of theme parks with the exploration of science. I’m hopeful that the Disney’s Imagicademy will build on that model. Their initial foray Mickey’s Magical Math World definitely uses our love of the classic Disney characters and fun animated environments to keep practicing math skills fun. I was impressed by how much gameplay was available before purchase is required. To unlock all the fun of Mickey’s Magical Math World you’ll pay $19.99 –or- you can purchase each game separately for $4.99. As you can see we have had fun exploring the app games without purchase. Too bad for us Mickey’s Magical Math World has come along a few years too late for us to be in its target audience. My little guy is nearing 6 and has been a regular user of ABCmouse.com and uses their Kindergarten level activities. Many of the games in Mickey’s Magical Math World were too simple for him and quite repetitive given his age. At 4 or maybe even as young as 3 he would’ve really enjoyed all it had offer. But we are definitely in the target zone for the activities and ideas available through the Parents companion app so I’m eager to see what their future Imagicademy apps bring but if you’ll excuse me I have to go gather some tissue tubes, balloons and string. We’ve got some balloon rocket races on the schedule. (https://disneyimagicademy.com/mickeys-math-activities-balloon-rocket-racers/)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmN2fVqkAHo