My First Puzzles: Jungle

This is a nice idea but the free puzzles are the same in each of the three levels. Once a child has completed them, I doubt they would be interested in doing them over. Kids don't actually have to solve the addition problems since they are presented in the same order each time. First the sum that adds up to 1 is the head, next is the sum that adds up to 2, and so on. It would be more engaging if different problems we're shown each time you play.

What We Liked: My children love puzzle apps and they were very eager for me to unlock the full version of 1+2=3 Jungle Puzzle. My 3 and 5-year-olds have been happily piecing together the forms of jungle animals, and my 8-year-old has taken a shot at the addition-based puzzles (a bit easy for her admittedly, but she still thought they were interesting). The puzzles are very well designed; bright and crisp with nice attention to detail. When a piece is tapped and becomes active, the other puzzle pieces become transparent – fading so they don’t distract from the completion of the puzzle. What I appreciate the most as a mom is that several of my children can use the same app and that the higher levels require several streams of though to successfully complete them. Instead of only tapping and dragging and using visual information to solve the puzzles, the addition based levels (2 and 3) require the solving of simple addition problems, the matching of sums to the bar at the bottom of the screen to find the next piece to place, AND using visual clues to place the piece once it has been found. This is a unique combination of skills and a real brain-builder for early-elementary children or any child who needs practice with multiple-step thinking problems and multi-tasking. What We Didn’t Like: It would have been more useful for the wide range of ages and abilities here if level 2 had used simple counting to place the pieces in order instead of addition, then all bases would be covered: blank pieces, counting, addition. Overall: 1+2=3 Jungle Puzzle is an app that can grow with your children from blank puzzle pieces through to early addition. This well-designed jungle-themed puzzle app is a joy for my children, and I love that the higher levels require multiple streams of though to solve the puzzles correctly.