iPad App Review - Pocket Charts! Pro

~ Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 at 9:45 PM ~

If you have been following my blog and Facebook page, you would've known that I am currently busy with our learning life (unofficially teaching my 3 years old) and that I teach and explain to him whenever the opportunities arises. So the moment I saw this app which states that it help young learners develop early childhood basic skills, I immediately request for the promo code to redeem and review this app. Anyway, my review as below...

I'm a full-time mummy

* Title: Pocket Charts! Pro
* Price: $4.99
* Category: Education
* Released: Apr 07, 2012
* Version: 1.0
* Size: 72.6 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Good Neighbor Press, Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPad.Requires iOS 3.2 or later

Description from the product page:

"20 games in one app! Help young learners develop early childhood basic skills! These simple matching games emulate the classic classroom pocket chart learning system. Happy music and cheerful voice prompts encourage learning fun. Here’s what’s included:
* Upper and Lowercase Letter Matching
* Beginning Letter Sounds
* Colors and Color Words
* Counting
* Shape Matching
* Long and Short Vowel Sounds
* Rhyming Words
* Consonant Blends and Digraphs
* Ending Letter Sounds
* Position Words
* Numbers and Number Words
* Pre-Number Category Sorting
* Compound Words
* Spelling 3-Letter Words
* Word Families
* Fractions
* Single-digit Addition and Subtraction
* Halloween Match
* Thanksgiving Match
* Christmas/Hanukkah Match

Developed for your iPad, these clear and easy matching games will teach and reinforce basic skills. Each game requires 3-5 minutes for a young learner to complete, making this iPad app ideal for students with limited attention spans or those requiring highly visual or tactile learning experiences. Additionally, these activities have been uniquely designed to lock and play only in the portrait mode in order to simplify game play and eliminate an orientation switch if young learners jostle the iPad while playing."

I'm a full-time mummy

What's good?

* Who does not love 20 activities in 1 app? The fact that this app came jam packed with 20 games to play and learn at the same thing sounds awesome enough!

* There are currently a few games in this app that I can try on with my 3 years old boy as we have not started with alphabets recognition yet though I am thrilled to be able to review this app as I believe it will help in our learning activities one day!

* I am amazed at how well my boy did in the "Shape Matching" game as I see him slowly and steadily finding and matching the shapes of the objects.

Room for Improvement?

* Nothing that I can think of for now! I will definitely revisit this app in future when my boy is ready with his alphabet skills!

I'm a full-time mummy

You can purchase the "Pocket Charts! Pro" app from the iTunes App Store.

I'm a full-time mummy

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"

I'm a full-time mummy

My First Supernatural Encounter...

~ Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 at 8:33 AM ~

About 2 years ago when my 1st child, Benjamin was about 1 year old, we went to Genting Highlands with hubby's second brother and his family. All in total, my brother in law (Daniel), his wife (Phyllis) and their then 5 years old son (Isaac) and my hubby, myself and my dear boy. We stayed in the same room (it was a 2 day 1 night outing) where the 2 queen beds are pushed together and occupied by the kids and us women while hubby and his brother slept on the spare bed in the living room.

Us mothers and kids retreated to bed earlier while the men continued chatting and watching TV outside. The bedroom area has a sliding door and wooden windows which we closed off to minimise the noise outside. Soon enough both kids (sleeping in the middle of the 2 beds) doze off and after a while, the men slept too.

Suddenly Isaac started screaming and crying. His eyes were close initially and I could see Phyllis hurriedly calmed him down and I too immediately nursed Ben to sleep before he woke up. Phyllis then passed Isaac to his dad and he slept peacefully after that while she continued to sleep on our shared beds.

A few minutes after that, it was Ben's turn to cry and cry and cry. I was feeling uneasy at this point and my first priority was to make sure Ben quiet down and stop crying so that he does not wake the rest up. I just kept nursing Ben back to sleep, praying in my heart and within few minutes, Ben's crying stopped and he continued his sleep.

I was about to rest my mind and all of a sudden I felt a tight grip on my throat. I can't talk or move at all.

At this point, I know there is a ghost in our room and it is the thing that is disturbing the kids and now me...

I immediately prayed in my head and kept thinking and telling myself "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus". I also said in my mind "I am not afraid of you. My God is bigger than you, you should be afraid of us than us of you. In the name of Jesus, I command you to go away and stop disturbing us!"

** Image credit: Google search

And I felt the grip on my throat loosened immediately. I remained there on my bed, not moving, trying to remain calm as well and then I heard a sound...

'Urghhh!!!' - a frustrated grunt sound right outside our bedroom area.

I think the ghost was angry that it failed to disturb us.

Well, there you have it, my first supernatural encounter. Hope I didn't bring you chills or anything. Just want to share that ever since I became a Christian and got baptised in 2006, I do not believe in being afraid of supernatural beings. Yes, I think they do exists (more like the devils and evil spirits actually) but they are not able to cause us harm as long as we believe God is protecting us and we are covered in His protection and blessings.