App of the Week | DRAWNIMAL

You guys. This app is sooo cute! I love everything about it. The colors. The graphics. The outside of the box thinking. An app that encourages drawing? On actual paper? What's not to love about that?

Let me show you how it works:

Start by placing your iPad on a piece of paper. I'm using an iPad mini in these pictures and this is an app where a smaller device actually is better in some ways. This app would work great with an iPhone. Each letter has a secret animal. You are prompted to draw part of the animal on your paper.  I bet you can guess what A is for...

Draw the tail on the paper and then tap the play button to reveal the animal.

You guessed it! It's an alligator.

Tap the alligator to see what it does. Kids love this part!

As an occupational therapist, I love that this app encourages drawing. Actual drawing. And in OT jargon, it encourages development of visual perceptual and visual motor skills, which OTs get quite excited about. Most of the animal embellishments consist of simple lines and shapes, which is great for young children who are just beginning to draw and copy. Not too hard, but not too easy either. You can see what I'm talking about in these screenshots:

For the letter G, just add lines and semi-circles.

And for the letter L, add wavy lines.

Overall, I think this is a fun and engaging app for young children (and maybe older children, too!). The voice on the app does have a slight European accent and pronounces the letter Z as "zed", but those are small things that I'm willing to overlook. I haven't checked out Lucas Zonatto's new app MIXIMAL yet, but it looks like a winner too!

App Information:

Name of app: DRAWNIMAL
Publisher: Lucas Zonatto
Compatible with: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch; requires iOS 6.0 or later
Price: $1.99

*Information was correct at the time of publication, but is subject to change, so please confirm prior to downloading. This post contains affiliate links.

Have you used DRAWNIMAL? Do you just love it? Have you tried MIXIMAL yet? Let me know, is it as good as it looks?