If you have young children or children attending special support schools or classes and are looking for engaging educational materials, or if youre unable to invest much time or money into materials, this app is for you.
App Name:
Educational App: Tracing & Matching Materials
Target Age:
0 to 6 years old, and students attending special support schools or classes.
What is Matching Material?:
Matching materials involve tasks like overlaying an apple illustration with another identical apple illustration. Its about identifying identical items. Besides overlaying, there are versions where you connect two apples with a line, or select the illustration that matches the sample apple. These materials also allow matching illustrations with characters like matching an apple illustration with the characters "り", "ん", "ご". They can be tailored to the developmental stage of young children.
Reason for Creating "Educational App: Tracing & Matching":
I have served as a teacher in a special support school (elementary level) for 15 years. Matching materials are universally beneficial for all students. However, preparing them usually involves printing, cutting, bagging, and replicating for multiple students, consuming significant time. By converting this into an app, the material can be used anytime without any preparation. This reduces preparation time for teachers, freeing them to spend more quality time with the children. Students can adjust the difficulty level and continue learning at home. I created this app with the vision of improving teachers tasks and ensuring quality education for students.
Why Tracing?:
In educational settings, a common technique to grab the attention of students is to hide the object of focus. Rather than directly telling "Look here", hiding the object naturally draws their curiosity. Such techniques ignite the intrinsic motivation of children to explore and learn. The app is designed for children aged 0 to 6, some of whom might find writing or understanding Hiragana challenging. Tracing, even without holding a pencil, serves as foundational training for pencil skills. Its effective even for those who can grip a pencil but have weak pressure. The act of tracing and revealing elements (like color, shape, size) also promotes cognitive skills like prediction. Even for infants, touching or swiping the screen offers a simple introduction to cause and effect.
Features of "Educational App: Tracing & Matching":
This app offers a choice between four categories: "Animals", "Fruits", "Hiragana", and "Similar Hiragana Characters". Adjusting the difficulty level ensures that the children feel a sense of achievement. The app design is simple, making it user-friendly even for first-time users. And the best part, all features are available for free.
Skills and Training Offered by the App:
The app aids in understanding simple cause-and-effect relationships, vocabulary enhancement, observation skills, concentration improvement, and dexterity from tracing. It also offers vision training to spot incomplete areas, cognitive skills to imagine based on visible elements, and foundational mathematical concepts through attention to color, shape, and size.