Penguin's Family - Smithsonian 4+

Keep them coming. My family has all four so far!

What We Liked:

Our family cuddled up on the couch and enjoyed Penguin’s Family together in Read It Myself mode while I did the reading to our crew of little girls. The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous on the backlit screen, and my girls, ranging from 3 – 8, were all glued to the story.

We tested out the Read To Me option together as well, and we found the male narrators voice to be warm, clear, and engaging. This title is a fairly simple read, making it a good choice as a science reader for around the late grade 2/early grade 3 reading level. The vocabulary is straight forward and the story helps young children learn facts about penguin life, reproduction, habitat, food, etc. all within the context of a living story.

One of our favorite (and most effective) ways of learning in our homeschool is by reading stories together. They really help to cement ideas in my children’s minds – if you want to learn about South American penguins, this book is a great choice for younger children, just the right amount of detail.

What We Didn’t Like:

This title is an earlier one from Oceanhouse Media, and it doesn’t offer quite the full interactivity that their full titles do. In the newer titles, each individual word can be tapped on to have it read, but that feature isn’t available in this title (yet). I hope it will be added in the future – it’s an awesome one for emerging readers. Also, there is some delicate background music that is included in both the Read To Me and Auto Play mode but isn’t included in Read it to Myself.
Overall:

This is another excellent digital book from Oceanhouse Media – it meets the requirements for a living book for science, engaging children deeply with the day-to-day life of a young penguin.

Disclosure: I received a promo code of this app to review.