Jungle Time for iPad – App Review

By Cristi | June 15, 2010 | No comment yet

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Want to help your child learn to tell time? Here’s a great little iPad app that will entertain and teach at the same time! Jungle Time for the iPad is both interactive and fun. Its large clock, bright colors, cute theme and different modes of “play” will engage your child and help them learn.

When you start Jungle Time, it begins in “Tell Time” mode with a large clock and a message asking you “What time is it?” Enter the correct time using the dial at the bottom of the screen and tap “Done”. If you get it right, a message appears telling you the time you set is correct and the animal on the clock face smiles and makes a noise. If you’re wrong, the message says “Sorry!”, the animal frowns and you can try again. Ready for another time? Tap “Shake” and a new time will appear on the clock. Get five in a row correct and the whole jungle congratulates you!

There are several time telling modes and all have an easy-to-use interface. ”Tell Time” and “Tell Elapsed Time” have you enter the correct time using a dial at the bottom of the screen, while “Set Time” and “Set Elapsed Time” let you move the hands on the clock to the right position. These distinct modes of play provide your child with several different real world time telling scenarios.

Jungle Time is fully customizable. Kids may select from five jungle animals to decorate the face of their clock. Jungle background sounds, animal sounds and clock winding sounds can also be turned on and off. Parents have the option to select from five different time telling levels.

Level 1 – 1 hour intervals like 12:00
Level 2 – 30 minute intervals like 12:30
Level 3 – 15 minute intervals like 12:15
Level 4 – 5 minute intervals like 12:05
Level 5 – 1 minute intervals like 12:01

A “Learn” mode gives instruction on the proper way to tell time. Kids learn hours, minutes or time using this little interactive tutorial. Jungle Time even gives parents the ability to track their child’s progress directly on the “Score” page. The top of the page shows the number of Correct vs. Incorrect answers and provides percentages as well. Want to change levels, or maybe let another child play, and track new scores ? The score can be reset at anytime.

I tested this app with my eight year old daughter, she already tells time pretty well, and she did a good job with the telling time and setting time modes. When we got to the elapsed time modes things were definitely more challenging because it required more than just time telling skills, it required a little bit of mathematical computation as well.

What we liked: This time telling app uses great colors and a cute theme to teach kids an important skill. Its customizable, fun, easy to use and has several different time telling modes.

What we didn’t like: It took me a little bit to figure out how to change levels and some of the other features because they are listed under “Score.” Once I figured out where to customize the different settings, we were off and running. Also, a few times when I was in “Tell Time” mode and had the game set to Level 5 (1 minute intervals), the clock showed times in 5 minute intervals (11:05, 3:45, etc.) and I think they should have been 2:37, 5:02, etc.

UPDATE: I contacted the developer of Jungle Time and he clarified the different Levels for me. I was under the impression that each level focused only on the time scenarios listed (for example, 15 minute intervals only displayed times at :00, :15, :30 or :45), I was wrong. He explained the levels are cumulative so as you move up in level, the time interval focused on in the current level is added to the intervals you learned in previous levels. (If you’ve already covered Levels 1-3, Level 4 will cover the intervals for level 4, as well as the intervals in Levels 1-3.)

To buy or not to buy: Definitely! This is a great one to add to your educational app collection for kids Pre-K and up.