Little Miss C loves dinosaurs, loves books and loves apps on my iPad. It was therefore a bit of a no-brainer that she fell completely and utterly in love with the new Dinosaur Roar! app that has been created based on the best-selling picture book of the same name by Paul and Henrietta Stickland.
The classic Dinosaur Roar was originally published 20 years ago and the combination of Paul Stickland’s dinosaur artwork and Henrietta Stickland’s rhyming text led to it selling over five million books worldwide. A new 20th anniversary edition has now been published by Random House in collaboration with the Natural History Museum.
The new Dinosaur Roar! app is aimed at 2 – 4 year olds and includes storytelling, colouring and a special shake powered dinosaur name generator.
LMC jumped in with the reading part of the app first and really enjoyed having the iPad read the story to her whilst I was busy sorting out her brother. It was also quite novel to her for us to read the story together from my iPad, but she did admit that she actually preferred a paper version of the book where she could turn real pages rather than just swiping across the screen with her finger – a girl after my own heart! The fact that the app looked exactly like the paper version of the book really appealed to her too as she was able to instantly relate between the two.
The colouring part of the app had to be her favourite though as she’s a big fan of doing this sort of thing. There was a good range of dinosaur pictures for her to choose to colour and she loved the fact that it was impossible to “colour over the edges”. The eraser at the side of the screen just puzzled her as she’s been made aware that erasers don’t work on crayons and as the app is designed so that the colours look like crayons at the bottom of the screen it just didn’t make logical sense to her. Fair point, well made.
One thing that I thought was really good with the colouring part of the app was the “magic crayon” which means that your picture colours turn out exactly the same as those in the book. LMC thought this was one of the most amazing things she’d ever seen.
In the name and shake part of the app the child is asked to enter their name and then shake the iPad until it generates your dinosaur name. Bearing in mind that the app is aimed at 2-4 year olds I kind of felt that this feature was a bit wasted on them. LMC can’t read yet (she’s very nearly 4) so she needed me to read the dinosaur names to her and to be honest they didn’t really tickle her that much. Maybe she’s just shallow when it comes to dinosaur name humour. Also, when I put in my name it only ever seemed to come up with the one dinosaur name regardless of how many times I shook the iPad. It seems I’ll always just be Penny-Rex.
Overall LMC really liked the app and has asked to play with the colouring part of it several times since we first tested it together. As a parent I’m quite fond of it, in particular as the ties to the original book are so strong. I have to say thought that I found the background music infuriating, especially as I couldn’t find a way to turn it off yet still have the story read out loud. If anyone knows how to do it then please please let me know.
The Dinosaur Roar! iOS app is priced at £1.99 in the UK and is available to download from iTunes here.
Does your little one have the Nation’s Fiercest Roar? If so you could win an iPad mini
To celebrate the launch of the Dinosaur Roar! app they are looking for the nation’s fiercest roar with the chance to win an iPad mini, lots of Dinosaur Roar! goodies and even a chance to feature on the app. Al you need to do is record a short video of your little one letting out their most ferocious roar and share the clip. They’re looking for the loudest, squeakiest, fiercest, grumpiest, longest dinosaur roar as judged by by Paul Stickland.
How to enter:
- On Facebook – either send videos by direct message, or post on their wall at www.facebook.com/dinosaurroar
- On Twitter – post videos and tag @DinosaurRoar
- By email – send videos to roar@dinosaurroar.com
Terms and Conditions
- Competition closing date 7th June 2014
- Available to UK entrants only
- Prize: 1 x iPad Mini (WiFi only), 1 x Dinosaur Roar! bag, 1 x Jumbo floor puzzle, 1 x 4-in-1 puzzle, 1 x Memory Card Game, recording session for winning child to feature on next App update.
Promoter – Immediate Media Company London Ltd. Being Mrs C is purely telling you about this competition and is no way involved in the running or judging of it. For more detailed T&Cs please see here.
Disclaimer: We were sent a copy of the anniversary edition of Dinosaur Roar! and given a copy of the app for the purposes of this review.
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