iPad App Review - Stone Soup

~ Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2013 at 1:14 PM ~

I just mentioned few days ago that I don't often received pitch email asking me to review iPad apps with the promo code given along as well and that when I do get emails like this, I feel obligated to redeem it and try it out and then share my feedback. And then I got this email asking me to review this app. I checked out the app in details as 'Stone Soup' sounds weird, I mean, stone soup?! Really?! Without further ado, here goes my feedback...

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* Title: Stone Soup
* Price: $1.99
* Category: Books
* Released: Jan 12, 2013
* Version: 1.0
* Size: 144 MB
* Language: English, Chinese
* Seller: Zhong Ming
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later.

Description from the product page:

"One night, three rabbits arrived at a small village. They hoped that they could stay in the village for one night, but when they arrived in the village, they found that all of the windows were shut, and all of the lights were turned off. They thought that all of the people in the village were selfish and refused to accept others and could not be happy. Therefore, the three rabbits decided to cook stone soup in order to attract the attention of the villagers, who then joined the cooking voluntarily. With the proceeding of the plot, the readers can join the animal characters in the story and learn to be generous and ready to help others in order to have joy and happiness. The Stone Soup is not only inspiring to children but also worth reading and reflection by every adult. Caring about others can make you happy and your life will be more beautiful if you treat it with sincerity and honesty. "

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* The animation on this story app is fantastic and cute!

* I love that we can also touch certain objects on the screen and I spent quite some time playing with this particular page below, was just amazed at the sun rising and setting and the shadows cast on the scenery is just amazing!

* I like the storyline where it tells how 3 rabbits got the villagers who are selfish and not friendly to turn the opposites at the end by cooking up a unique stone soup.

* One thing that got me annoyed in this story app is the loud music background. I think it will be much much better if the background music is lowered down quite a bit as it currently overshadows the narrator's voice.

* I took the opportunity in this app to teach my almost 4 years old boy how important it is to share what we have and to make friends.

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You can purchase the "Stone Soup " app from the iTunes App Store.

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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"

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Doggies Cookies Recipe

~ Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2013 at 2:38 PM ~

I first saw a picture of this cute doggy cookies on my SAHM group network on FB and decided to give this a try after getting the recipe. It was such a coincidence as well because I asked my almost 4 years old boy what animals he like and he said 'Dog!' There's a slight variation to the original recipe as I added blended Cornflakes to my dough to give it a crunchy feel. So here it goes:

PREPARATION TIME: ABOUT AN HOUR

* 30 minutes to prepare the mixture
* 5 minutes to pre-heat the oven
* 20 minutes for baking process

Ingredients / Tool Required:

* 150g plain flour
* 50g icing sugar
* 50g blended Cornflakes cereal or 50g blended Koko Krunch (to get brown doggies)
* 125g butter
* 1 tsp vanilla
* Chocolate chips, chocolate rice, Koko Krunch cereal, Cornflakes cereal (blended)
* 1/2 tablespoon ice water

What to Do?

* Sift flour and sugar. Add Cornflakes and chopped soft butter. Rub in with fingers until they resemble bread crumbs.
* Add 1/2 tablespoon of very cold water and vanilla essence and knead lightly. Let dough rest for 10 minutes.
* Take a tablespoon of the dough, put in about 2-3 pieces of chocolate chips in the dough and wrap them into a ball. Decorate the dough with 2 pieces of Koko Krunch cereal as the doggy's ears and put 1 chocolate chip as the doggy's nose. I also put some chocolate rice as the doggy's eyes.

BAKING PROCESS

* Pre-heat oven at 160℃ (about 5 minutes)
* Bake for 20 minutes. 

THE RESULTS

So there you go.... my DOGGIES COOKIES recipe!

To view my other recipes, feel free to hop over to my Recipe Library page for more info!

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iPad App Review - Animals Babies and Homes

~ Posted on Friday, January 11, 2013 at 5:31 PM ~

Last year, I had the opportunity to review "Kids 1st Shape Puzzle" and "Trucks and Things That Go", a both are fun and educational apps for my boy to play with and this time, the same developer approached me again asking whether I would be interested in reviewing their latest app. Without further ado, here goes my feedback...

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Animals Babies and Homes

* Title: Animals Babies and Homes
* Price: $1.99
* Category: Games
* Released: Dec 14, 2012
* Version: 1.0
* Size: 101 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Gil Weiss
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Description from the product page:

"Children delight in spotting familiar animal friends and learning about their different homes; a doghouse, a birdhouse, a mouse hole or a goldfish bowl and babies; bird chicks, cow calf’s, owlet, baby giraffe. These colorful puzzles of Animals Babies and Homes is a challenging and enjoyable game that will develop your child’s ability to visual recall and build up his/ her English and Hebrew vocabulary.

Kids match the pieces correctly on the puzzle to hear the word of an animal and it’s match (home \ mother) duck – pond, owlet – owl, horse – stable, tadpole – frog, cub – lion, camel – desert and much more! Animals Babies and Homes is an eye and ear catching puzzle enhances matching and listening skills. Let your toddler play with it, while enriching their language skills, developing their fine motor skills, and learning names of numerous objects."

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* As part of our learning activities, I am always looking for more activities and stuff that I can let my boy try and work on, whether from books or iPad apps, so I am very happy to be able to review this puzzle app as I hope he will learn where animals stay and also the names of the animals when they are babies and grown up.

* I like this app in the sense that I myself get to learn new things too! So yes, learning with my boy at the same time is kinda awesome as well!

Animals Babies and Homes

Room for Improvement?

* I would prefer to have some buzzer sound if the puzzle is placed incorrectly so that we can know that it is wrong. Maybe that's just my weird preferance.

* There are few occassions where I noticed the puzzle pieces are a bit not sensitive, meaning we need to put it really, really close to the puzzle shapes (shadows) to solve it. Unlike other puzzle apps we reviewed before, I find that these few occassions make us quite frustrated as we have to keep trying and moving the puzzle very slowly to ensure that it is almost fill up the shadow of the animal puzzle in order to solve it.

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You can purchase the "Animals Babies and Homes " app from the iTunes App Store.

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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"

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