Cookie Doodle for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch is a great app for kids for three big reasons:
- It's fairly easy for children 3(-ish) years and older to understand and use without constant help from Mom or Dad.
- Instead of a game that rewards with a score or unlocked levels, it encourages simple creativity. The reward is the cool thing you make.
- It's $0.99.
Cookie Doodle is an app that lets your kids go through all the steps of making a "virtual" cookie, from rolling out the dough, baking it, decorating it and eating it. Kids can pick from huge lists of types of dough, frosting, and other decorations. The app is also updated constantly for holidays, so right now for instance the app is configured for Valentine's Day cookies. But even if your child can't read yet, the interface is still simple enough to figure out how to use.
My daughters, especially my youngest (4 years old), love this app. Lots of apps for kids take a few minutes of their attention before they get bored, but when they're using Cookie Doodle they probably spend more time on it than any other app. There are so many choices and steps until the cookie is finished, that once they finally complete what they are working on they've already thought of another creation to make.
Trust me. Put it on your iPhone and hand it to them when you get to the restaurant, and before you know it you'll make it to when the food arrives with no drama. That is, unless they're fighting over who's turn it is to make the cookie.
Cookie Doodle by Shoe The Goose is available for $0.99 from the iTunes App Store.