Review: Highlights Every Day by Highlights brings the fun of parents' youths to tech-savvy kids.
Bottom Line: I had a big, fat helping of nostalgia reviewing this app, not just because of my own childhood, but that of my own kids when they first discovered the joys of reading and puzzles for themselves in the Highlights magazines. Highlights has brought all of the fun of the treasured paper publication that connoisseurs have come to expect and this time, instead of stickers, kids get some great videos to go along with hidden objects and fun nuggets of information heaped out in kid-sized lovable morsels of goodness.
The price will be cut from $2.99 to $1.99 for 7 dayson the App Store, Google Play and Amazon next week from beginning of Monday 11 to end of Sunday 17 July.
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Highlights has been around for 70 years and the tried-and-true fun of the paper publication is apparent in the digital version. The app opens to the home page where all of the activities are easily accessible. Parents have a protected section in the lower left corner where they can subscribe to the mailing list, restore purchases, view terms of use and privacy policy. Activities are mixed together on the home screen but users can focus on specific activities by clicking on any of the six icons located at the top of the screen: home, puzzles, reading, videos, questions and favorites.
Home mixes all of the activities together and features new activities daily in the form of a gift box. Tapping the gift box reveals new treasures of puzzles, videos and reading that will keep kids excited about opening the app. The puzzle section is full of the puzzles we all remember from our childhoods. There are find the differences, search for objects and mazes. The puzzles are fun and challenging but if they are too challenging, there is a hint button to help keep play moving.
The reading section has a nice mix of learning and entertainment. One story might explain how a star explodes while another is a rhyming story about Sam falling down because he has butter on his shoes. Each story has three options, read to me, auto play and read myself. Stories can be as short as a paragraph or several pages long. Narration is professional and text is highlighted as read when narration is chosen.
Videos are full of short, humorous and educational videos. Children tell jokes, "Why do hamburgers taste better in outer space? -because they're METEOR." (That joke is for Smart Apps' boss, Ron. He loves puns.), learn about science, give advice and even have "make it" videos for projects that can be made at home.
The questions section is like a Buzzfeed quiz site for kids. Children can answer questions to see how much they know about horses and fashion or take a quiz to see what kind of pizza matches their personalities. I'm a lovable pepperoni, thank you very much. A new quiz that was added during my review was "Which State Should You Visit?" and it said I should head to New York. The last section is favorites. While exploring the app, kids can click the star button on any activity and they will be saved to the favorites section for easy access.
While tinkering with the app, I didn't experience any crashes or bugs. The app is cleanly designed and easy to navigate for kids of all ages. Activities are also easy to follow and use. Overall, I found the app to be quite a pleasure to explore and I was happy to share the fun with my kids who enjoyed it as much as I did.
***Cynthia loved putting a "punny" joke in this review. *Smart Apps for Kids was paid a priority review fee for this post.
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