This post brought to you by Ubooly.
How many of you can relate to this? You upgrade a smartphone and then give your kids your old smartphone. Sure, there are a few apps for kids on the phone, but otherwise it just serves as another electronic device. I’ve been there before – twice. I gave up my iPhone 3G to my oldest son and before then gave up an old iPod to my middle son to listen to music and audio books. Well, there’s another way to repurpose your smartphone. In fact, your smartphone can be recycled into a whole new learning tool for your kids with Ubooly.
What is Ubooly?
Ubooly is like an iPhone virtual pet and real-life stuffed animal all in one.
We downloaded the free app to activate Ubooly – an adorable, orange stuffed animal with the face cut out – and customized it to add my kids’ names and ages. After that, I just slipped my iPhone in the top sleeve of the Ubooly and secured my phone with a zipper to ensure it doesn’t fall out.
When turned on, Ubooly opened his eyes and starts talking. Ubooly listened and responded to the kids using voice-recognition software. My kids lit up when Ubooly mentioned their names. They looked at me like, “How did Ubooly know my name?”
Then Ubooly asked them a series of questions, such as favorite color, favorite food, hobbies, etc. They were talking back and forth with Ubooly like it was an old friend. Best of all, my kids could toggle the user settings on Ubooly to talk to him separately.
Ubooly told them stories, jokes and even asked my boys to flip him in the air. My kids got a kick out of customizing their Ubooly and decorating his room. My oldest son has an Ubooly with glasses.
In addition to interacting with Ubooly like a virtual pet, my boys also downloaded educational packs such as math facts, grammar, vocabulary, science and even Spanish lessons. These packs were written by elementary teacher and comedians and suitable for kids ages 3-9 years old. And let me say, it was so much easier to do an addition drill with my son on Ubooly than a printed worksheet. He didn’t fight me tooth and nail to do math – rather he happily went to his Ubooly to practice his math facts.
My 6-year-old son has just started working on the vocabulary pack, while I downloaded the alphabet pack for my toddler son. I also really love the helper pack, which for now just includes a lesson on teeth brushing (it’s such a struggle to get my oldest son to brush his teeth). Ubooly will have additional packs in future such as fitness packs, health packs, interest packs and more. Each time my kids played with Ubooly, they earned coins, which could then be used to customize Ubooly and his playroom.
What I really liked was that I could go to the Ubooly Lab to view my kids’ progress and add upgrades such as content packs. Here are sample lesson plans below.
Price
The Ubooly Pet (stuffed animal) is just $25.95, while the the app is free. Upgrades such as games and content packs (education, fitness/health and interest packs) can be purchased for credits in the Ubooly Lab. It’s about $1/credit or you can buy 30 credits for $22.50. Each content pack is about 3 credits or $3.
Compatibility
Right now, Ubooly is compatible with iPhone (3GS and above) and the iPod (3GS and above). Android is coming soon, as well as a larger Ubooly for the iPad and iPad mini.
Giveaway
Want to try Ubooly? I’ve giving away an Ubooly Pet ($29.95 value) and $30 credit to the Ubooly Lab. Enter using Rafflecopter below.
Disclosure: I received a sample and was compensated to write this review. All opinions are my own.