Bottom Line: An app to help preschoolers learn a second language, but also useful for use in first language! Follow basic commands and learn vocabulary related to the home. Monki Home is also useful for following directions and language expansion in speech-language pathology. It's free to try, and definitely worth a download!
Start learning a new language along with your kids, just by downloading Monki Home. It's free to try, and works on both iPad and iPhone! (in-app purchase of $2.99 for full access):
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At Smart Apps For Kids, we’re no strangers to Monkimun apps. With ratings between 4 to 4.5 stars we find them educational and well designed. The newest offering, Monki Home, is just as well made. This app is designed to teach English, Spanish or Chinese to preschool children (ages 2-6).
Monki Home teaches a language using an immersion method, as opposed to teaching single word vocabulary. Choose the language you want your child to learn, and then all app narration is done in that language. There are visual hints to figure out what to do, and by playing each mini game kids are exposed to the language in a naturalistic context.
There are four mini games within Monki Home. The first features the kitchen, where the user might “ayuda a cocinar la patata en la sartén,” or “help cook the potato in the pan.” To help choose the right ingredient, it first dances around in the fridge, with continued repetition of the command. The single word of “patata” is used after a few repetitions of the full phrase, too, and a thought bubble eventually shows up to help guide the child if needed.
Each time the game is played, one of four characters is looking for five food items. The user must take it out of the refrigerator and cook it in either the microwave or on the pan. As each item is finished and fed to the animal, it is highlighted on a picture list at the top of the screen. At first I wanted to see the list throughout app play, but since the point of the app is to understand basic sentences in a different language, it was probably better to have it only pop up at the end.
The second room features the laundry, and starts by putting all clothing into the washing machine with some soap. The user then hangs them on the line while each piece is named. Finally, each piece is named so the user can take it off the line and iron it dry and flat. The same picture list pops up at the top of the screen to track progress.
The third room is the bathroom, and is different than the first two, since the sequence of events is exactly the same each time it is played. Help the characters brush teeth, take a shower and dry off with the blow dryer. I really appreciated this take on el baño, as many apps feature bathroom sounds that I’d rather not feature in a kids app.
The final room is the bedroom, and the user’s job is to help clean up the toys by sorting them between two characters’ shelves. This area was tricky for language, as it involved learning some basic adjectives—clean/dirty, big/little and empty/full in order to describe toys. Thankfully, the visual cues kept me on track, and these words are very functional in learning a new language.
After sorting three toys, the animals have a dance-off, each performing a different style of dance. After a few rounds, the user is prompted to turn off the radio and beds appear. Turn off the light and pull up the covers in order to lull these busy characters to sleep.
I had a lot of fun playing this app in Spanish, and realizing I could understand more than I thought (after 3 years of Spanish in high school and college which I had thought was completely gone from my brain). Chinese was much harder, due to my relative lack of exposure to Chinese. However, after playing a few times in English and Spanish, I easily figured out the gist of it, and the visual cues helped me start to hear the word divisions in a totally new language.
My 7-year-old daughter also tried out the app, but played in English. She loved playing the app, even without the challenge of learning a new language. I think it’s an excellent speech-language therapy app, as well, to practice receptive language and following basic commands.
Even better, it’s free to try! Download the app for free and try out the first game to learn more. The full app is available for an in–app purchase. This app is highly recommended to parents of preschoolers.
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Heather H is sometimes surprised by her ability to sit and do nothing for extended periods of time. SmartAppsForKids.com was paid a priority review fee to complete this review in an expedited manner.
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