Toca Mini
Another hit from Toca Boca, a simple yet engaging app that helps little ones explore their creative side.
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What is it
What our team of testers said
"I like making the face...do you think he looks ugly, I don't" - Boy aged 5
"I think it's cool" - Girl aged 7
Skills Developed
- Develops creativity and imagination
- Encourages artistic skills
What our experts think
This app stands out for us, compared to the range of similar ‘decorate a picture’ apps because of the meaning and emotion that can be easily shown through the facial features. With this app it is really possible to see how moving one eye a fraction can turn the character from cute to scary which adds a new dimension to what children can learn through this game. We found our little testers enjoyed experimenting with the facial features as well as decorating all aspects of the character and background. One child particular enjoyed creating an ‘angry boxer’ complete the tattoos on his arms!
It would be even better if...
We’d love to see more designs to use on clothing as well as a wider range of backgrounds.
Play Suggestion
This app is great to developing a child’s creative side on screen but it can also act as inspiration for creative play offline too. If your child enjoyed this game then think about how to give them similar opportunities with a draw/printed character on paper and a range of decorations. There are loads of kits you can buy with stickers and glitter and endless decorations but you could also simply cut out shapes similar to those in Toca Mini and encourage your child to colour them and decorate their character with those. A really low cost way to have some great creative play. Once finished you can even mount their creations on card and let your child create and play with a whole family of characters they’ve created themselves whether they are monsters, fairies or friends.
Whilst your child is playing with this app we also encourage you to take the opportunity to discuss emotions. By moving the facial features around the character can appear to be happy, sad, angry, scary, cute, ugly – this can help you to discuss their understand of these emotions but also to discuss how superficial emotions can be and how there is a lot more to a person than what they look like.
Features
- Brands: Toca Boca
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Key Features:
- No 3rd party adverts
- No in-app purchasing
- No internet access required for core features
- Child Restrictions: Yes- appropriate features restricted
- Languages available:
- Appropriate child restricted areas? Yes- appropriate features restricted
- Apple version: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
Requires iOS 5.0 or later - Android version: Requires Android 4.0.3 and up
- App Types: Educational Apps
Games - Types of skills developed: Art & design
Creativity