Perk up summer with kid-friendly apps from Nokia Ovi Store

MANILA, Philippines - Summer is definitely a kid’s most favorite season with the fun and exciting activities lined up to make their vacation a memorable and action-packed one. 

What to do when the lull kicks in? With a Nokia phone packed with these kid-friendly apps from Ovi Store (www.store.ovi.com), they don’t have to endure boredom.

What’s more, today’s game-loving youth will discover fun and exciting new ways to learn and be creative through their mobile phones. The best part is, these apps can be downloaded for free.

• Hangman Kids. Like the classic game of Hangman, the idea is to solve the pre-determined word by filling in the missing letters, although this version has done away with the “hanging man” and replaced it with a rabbit, which is more suitable for kids.

This game is easier than the original, too, as there are images displayed on the screen to help the little one link the word to the item shown. This app also has a child-lock feature to keep your child from messing around with the phone’s menus. 

• Loop. A fun and creative way for children to make music from the sounds around them. Loop can turn the sound of your washing machine, the doorbell or even the cat purring into a musical masterpiece with little effort. 

Everything is controlled by just pressing the circle in the center of the screen. This app is indeed a great way to encourage children to express their musical abilities.

• MathsBrain. This one is for the slightly older kids, and has less visual aids or references. This app helps children improve their calculation speeds in solving arithmetic problems. 

If your child is competitive, he or she can compete with people across the world to achieve a high rank. But if your child is not quite ready for that, he or she can adjust the function to set the difficulty rating according to his or her age.

• Touch Baable. Take a photo, add some clip-art, a speech bubble followed by some facial warping and your kid now has a fun way of capturing the world.

With simple to use on-screen buttons, this app allows a child to easily turn anything into something funny and interesting.

• Jigsaw Puzzle. A classic game for many years, jigsaw puzzles continue to be an all-time favorite among the game-loving lot. There’s something addictive about piecing back together an image that has been deconstructed into little small parts. 

This one is designed with children in mind, with nine pieces as a starter puzzle to 25 pieces for the master level. Again, there’s no need to worry about handing over your phone with its child-lock feature

• Kiddo. Aimed at younger children, Kiddo teaches the alphabet and numbers in a fun and interactive way using images, music and voice. Images appear on the screen and it’s the task of the child to determine how many of that item he or she sees or what letter of the alphabet the item begins with. 

This app also has a child-lock feature, so you can hand your phone over without fear of long-distance phone calls or any unknown downloads from the Internet.

Download these apps on Nokia Symbian phones so children will have new games to sink their teeth into this summer.