Madagascar: My ABCs is available on iTunes (for iphone, ipad and ipod touch), Android, Kindle and Nook. We tried it out on the IPod Touch (it currently costs £1.99). The app features 3 alphabet games to reinforce very first alphabet learning. Some of te games feature the voices or picture of the Madagascar zoosters (the baby Madagascar characters).
The first game is my favourite as a parent. Your child chooses a letter from the scrolling panel to the right and can then decorate it with stickers. Most of the stickers are for things that start with the same letter and it prompts Lara to think about the words as well as the pictures. Once your child has created their masterpiece they can save it as an image to their photo gallery which they can browse at a later date.
Lara's favourite game right now is the letter-tracing game. Each letter of the alphabet appears with the tiny face of a Madagascar character and your child has to use their finger to trace the letter shape. I am sure it is simply the familiar face which means that Lara is so much more willing to use this game than any other letter-tracing app we previously owned. You can choose upper or lower case letters.
Sticker safari requires your child to move the cursor around the screen and search out letters in the jungle.
As a UK user I could do without the rhymes and voices, simply because when my child is first learning letter sounds I would rather they learned the UK pronunciation.
I would say that Madagascar My ABCs was suitable from around 2 to 5 years old.
If you already have a Jumpstart learning account for your child then there are features that you can link to in the account (Jumpstart coins can be earned) but there is no requirement for you to open an account in order to use Madagascar: My ABCs.
