Saturday, November 12, 2011

Don't Let the Pigeon Run this App!

I LOVE Mo Willems!  He is the author of some of my most favorite children's books!  So when I saw he had a pigeon app for $6.99 I only hesitated for a moment before I pushed buy this app,  I've never spent $7 on an app before!

So was it worth it....well my own two children absolutely love it!  It has been used daily since the purchase.  I introduced it at school to the Read Along club... a group of second graders whom were introduced to my pigeon passion last year.  I rekindled their love of all things pigeon and had them begging I bring more next week.  My own class of first graders is just going to meet that crazy pigeon this Tuesday.

So what does the app do?  Well Mo Willems himself walks you step by step through the process of drawing a pigeon - LOVE this!  I've had the paper instructions and have done a fair job of teaching it myself in the past, but hey there is nothing the like a real illustrator inspiring young artists!  The downfall....... only 1 pigeon drawing can be saved!  The drawing shows up in other parts of the app, but my 2 children are constantly fighting over who has the pigeon drawing in the frame!

There is also a part where the bus driver comes on asking all kinds of silly questions walking you through the process of creating your own pigeon book.  Now I absolutely love this because I have always had the kids create their own class pigeon book so now the creative process just got a whole lot easier!  There is even a voice recording option so kids get a chance to get their own voice in there.  The downfall of this...... I can not seem to figure out the saving procedure.  Sometimes the bus driver comes on and saves it for you, other times you listen to your story you created, the book closes and it is gone forever.  Hmmmm disappointing, especially if it was a really good one!

My hope is these kinks will be ironed out in the next while since it is a relatively new app!

In the meantime we will keep on loving that crazy pigeon.

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