Sago Mini Boats

What is it

Sago Mini Boats invites kids to set sail on a high seas adventure with Harvey the dog as captain in charge of their choice of boat. They choose from five different destinations to visit one of their Sago Mini friends, pack their suitcase, choose between over 10 boats then off they go.

Children can zip along the water, making big waves, fly above it or even dive into the ocean (while Harvey the dog holds his breath!).

Enroute Harvey can collect items, visit some cute characters on the islands he passes, share an icecream and explore the creatures who live below the water’s surface.  Once the destination is reached Harvey has a photo with his friend!

With no rules or time pressures, kids can explore at their own pace.

Tested on an iPad

What our experts think

Sago mini apps is delightful app which has taken inspiration from children playing in the bath tub! We love the way in which children can make choices with regards to who they would like to visit and the boat they would like to use – this means that they can play the app with a range of different combinations.
We loved the animations and the way in which the boat could dive down under the water or fly up in the sky – there was so much to engage and delight young children. The app produced lots of giggles and exclamations; a favourite was taking the boat under the water to see the crabs.

The free, open-ended nature of this app really helps to inspire a child’s imagination encouraging them to explore and decide for themselves the ‘story’ that goes alongside what they find and see. We encourage parents to ask children to verbalise what their character is doing as a great approach to helping them develop their story telling skills. Whilst having fun with this app, children also gain confidence to explore and give things a try without any chance of failure. These are all important skills to develop in the early years and beyond.

Our testers found this app very easy to navigate and were transfixed by the wide range of activities; from packing the suitcase, to picking the boat, to finding different hidden objects in the sea. 

It would be even better if...

Whilst we love the open-ended nature of this app it did have a couple of downsides for a few of our testers. A few children carried on packing their suitcase indefinitely at the start – an end point or subtle encouragement to move on would help these children.

Equally a few little testers questioned the relevance of the items they collected along the way. Whilst it’s great that children are free to decide the purpose of these to fit their own story some children would prefer it if these had a function for them to discover or they were rewarded/congratulated at the end for collecting things on the journey.