Bottom Line: Another option for a scheduling app with some creative features for kids. Record a message for each icon, and place them around the clock to help kids understand the passing of time. There's also a kanban board. However, a bug currently makes the calendar function unusable and app use unwieldy.
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Kids' Schedule & Kids' To-Do List by Red Hong is a calendar app designed to help kids learn a daily schedule and keep track of the chores to do. There are many scheduling apps on the market, but there are a few features that make this one unique and worth a look.
The app opens to a user account screen, allowing the app to be used by multiple user accounts. This is great for families with more than one kid, and also makes it possible to use in a school setting — I added 15 user accounts before I ran out of creative names to use.
After creating an account (including choosing an avatar from seven choices), the user opens the app to the calendar view. On the app description page, the pictures show an entire calendar view, where the user can tap on each date to add events. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be working currently. Instead, only the first of the month can be accessed from the calendar view. It’s possible to access the others dates right now, but it’s just a lot more time-consuming — not a convenient feature in a scheduling app. Hopefully this is just a bug that will be fixed at some point.
Tapping the date (at this point in time, just the first date of the desired month) loads the task assignment page, which looks just like a clock with no hands. The process to add a task is easy — simply click the plus sign on the right side of the screen, choose the desired icon, record the message for the icon, and add.
After adding to the screen, the user can then move the icon to the right spot on the clock. Does your child need to eat breakfast at 8 a.m.? Simply move the icon to the eight on the "before noon" screen. Add all of the morning tasks, then toggle to the afternoon screen (by tapping the arrow next to the text for “before noon”).
There is one little bug to watch for when adding the recordings — if an icon is placed right about 4:30 on the clock, tapping the record button will often activate the already-placed icon instead. If this happens to you, simply move the icon placed underneath slightly, or carefully tap the record button where it isn’t over the 4:30 task.
It took me a lot of time to figure out how to access the tasks once they were assigned. This is the part of the app called the kanban board. For those who, like me, aren’t familiar with this term, the concept is a board where tasks are moved from to-do status to completed status. In non-app form, the tasks are often represented with post-it notes or index cards. This is a great concept to allow kids to visually see what has been done and what is left to do.
It is accessed from the task assignment screen (with the clock). On the right side, under the plus sign used to add tasks, there’s a list icon. Tap this to enter the kanban board screen, and then simply move tasks from the to-do side to the completed side when they are done. There is a help menu that does actually explain this, but the instructions are written so poorly I had no idea what they meant ("Click this to switch to go to to-do status switch UI." Huh?).
In fact, much of the text in the instruction screens consists of sentences with poor grammar. I assume the errors are simply related to English as a second language, but they did make the app a little hard to understand. Some examples: "Click this to switch after noon and before noon," and "The green check pic is mean that to-do item is done." The app also uses todo at times to refer to the to-do list.
There are 88 different icons to use, and I liked the creative variety. There are plenty for general daily tasks, all illustrated by stick figures, but where Kids' Schedule & Kids' T-Do List really stands out is in the creative options, like “Hug time,” "Offer to Help" and “Family Time.” This allows parents or teachers to include reward time and fun surprises throughout the day’s schedule. I would have liked to add text, too, in order to represent the more common chores and activities in our household. However, the adult user can easily record an audio memo to clarify to the child what the icon represents.
My biggest complaint about the app is simply the difficulty to navigate it with the current calendar flaw. This also means the app can’t be used fully — one aspect of the app is seeing from calendar view how many tasks are left to do, and how many have been completed in a quick-view form. Right now, this is only possible on the first day of the month.
In order to access the scheduled tasks on February 20, I had to first enter on February 1, then scroll through, one day at a time, until I reached the 20. If I accidentally left the screen by tapping the return arrow on the right side, I had to then scroll all the way through again in order to access. When I left the app for something else, and went back in to do more tasks again, I had to scroll all the way through. This is no big deal on the 3rd or 4th of the month, but by the 27th, it makes the app almost unusable.
With the grammar and calendar view fixed, this app has potential to be a great option for those looking for a kid-friendly calendar and to-do list app. However, in its current state, it can only be considered an app with good potential, and only for those who don’t mind scrolling all the way through to access each day.
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Heather H. made her own schedule include hug time, eating, and sleeping, and finally actually completed a to-do list! Red Hong is an advertiser with SmartAppsForKids.com.
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