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Hands up who’s been allowing more screen time given the current situation! We are quite low tech here, and the children don’t have their own tablets etc. We have an old I-pad and I bought a Fire tablet recently, but they’re for family use and we limit their time on it. That said, I’m finding it harder to keep all three occupied without our usual home-ed activities to go to, so we have allowed a little more screen time recently.
I was super excited when the team at Osmo offered to send H a Little Genius kit to review. If the children are going to use the tablet, then it might as well be educational.
What is Osmo?
If you’ve not seen Osmo before then it’s well worth a look! It’s full of hands-on learning for children and the Little Genius kit comes with a wide range of things to keep your children entertained. The suggested age for the Little Genius Kit is 3-5 and that’s probably about right, although my older two enjoyed this as well.
Osmo is packed full of fun and it has a host of real pieces that you use to interact with the tablet to help bring the pieces to life.
What’s in the Box
The Little Genius Kit comes with everything you need to access four different games. It has a base for an I-pad (Fire tablets require a different base), 38 silicone sticks and rings, costume pieces and a play mat. The pieces come in little boxes which are stackable. The picture below shows two bases; the taller one is for the Fire Tablet.
It’s super easy to download the app and register your new Osmo kit and it also gives you the opportunity to download an app onto your phone which gives your updates on your child’s progress.
Getting Started
Once you’ve downloaded the app it’s time to set up your child’s profile and the tablet. The tablet sits in the base with the red tab on top. This is how your child’s work ends up on the screen.
Once that’s done you are away. From the main Osmo app you can choose one of the four games. The app will tell you what pieces you need for the game so have those ready.
We played the squiggle magic game first with the silicone sticks and circles. This is great fun for getting children to think about how pictures are made up. After we had demonstrated to H how to make the picture up, he was soon away creating. Once the picture has been created on the play mat, Osmo takes a snap of it and then it appears on the screen, dancing away and interacting the previous items your child has made. It’s a really fun way for them to see how the robot they’ve made from sticks and circles has the potential to be an animated character.
We moved onto the other games one by one and I really like the ABCs one – this is something I’m aiming to work with H on over the coming months so I am sure this will be a really good fun tool for us.
What do we think of Osmo?
I really like Osmo a lot. I think it’s fun and engaging and has plenty of variety to it to keep H interested. Whilst the Little Genius Kit is aimed at ages 3-5, my older two have enjoyed taking a look at these games too. I like that Osmo is always adding things to its apps and there’s a whole range of things that you can move onto with your children.
We also have the older Genius Kit which I will be featuring more of next week, and this is really good. There are some games on there that I’ve struggled with and the children have done much better than me with!
Starting today, Osmo are offering 20% off their kits – it’s well worth taking a look, especially during the current situation where we are less able to get out and about and when children will probably welcome something new to interact with. Plus there’s the added benefit of the learning element too. I am sure that this will become a regular part of our learning over the coming week as H looks to master his letter recognition and of course enjoy playing with the other games available.
You can take advantage of the Osmo 20% off offer at the link here: https://amazon.co.uk/osmo or enter the giveaway that Osmo is running here.
I am so excited by the possibilities that Osmo offers me. I have 1-1 time with each of the children each day, and having an app like this that has such fantastic hands on educational benefits means that I can occupy the other two whilst one gets their individual time with me. Having the app on my phone means I can also keep a track on what they’re doing and how long they’re spending on it. It helps me to track any particular areas of strength, and I can give them a nudge to try other things too.
They’re all already telling me the other Osmo bits they want! Daniel is interested in the coding (as am I as it looks amazing!) and Em wants to look at the Frozen Super Studio. I quite fancy the Detective Agency and I’ve got my eye on the Pizza one to help them build on their maths skills. The possibilities with Osmo for such exciting learning opportunities are fantastic, and we have only just about scratched the surface so far.
