MarcoPolo Ocean
Young explorers discover oceans through puzzles and free play
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MarcoPolo Ocean
Pros: Free play and puzzles combine to help kids learn specific vocabulary about marine life and vessels.
Cons: There is no tracking of what kids have done or settings to make puzzles easier or more difficult.
Bottom Line: This fun app helps kids gain an appreciation for the waters that cover much of the Earth's surface.
MarcoPolo Ocean includes an excellent extensions idea section (compiled by an ocean education expert) under the Parent icon on the main page. Tap on that, then tap on More to find ocean book suggestions, three hands-on activities, field trip ideas, and discussion starter questions, all suitable for kids in preschool and up. This app can be a fun, interactive supplement to any classroom studying the oceans and ocean life.
MarcoPolo Ocean is a beautiful free play and puzzle app that includes five fun activities that help kids as young as preschool age form an overall concept of what undersea life looks like. MarcoPolo Ocean also invites kids to build a ship and a submarine, puzzle style, to learn the names of those marine vessels' parts. The narrator gives kids brief facts about more than 30 species of fish and marine mammals throughout play. As kids fill in the puzzle, the narrator speaks related vocabulary words. There's just enough of a dip into ocean knowledge within the waves of kid-friendly interactivity to make this app a fun, educational adventure.
Kids can learn about ocean ecosystems, marine mammals, plants, and fish, as well as boats and submarines. As they explore the ocean ecosystems and what lives there through puzzles and free play, kids learn topic-specific vocabulary such as fish body parts, parts of a ship, and aquatic animal behavior. Even preschoolers can learn some early engineering vocabulary, as they build and learn the names of parts of submarines and boats. As kids travel through the ocean in the free-play part of the app, the water becomes darker as they go deeper, and kids will see how different sea creatures live at different depths. MarcoPolo Ocean creates a fun environment for kids to explore and gain an appreciation for the waters that cover so much of the Earth's surface, the animals that live there, and the vessels humans use to explore it.
Learning Rating
Community Rating
Learning and exploring made fun!
I believe this is a really good teaching tool. I liked how it allows students to explore the ocean in a unique way that also educates them at the same time. Exploring is done side by side with learning, which makes the process of retaining information a lot easier because it coincides with a fun adventure. I like how the app does a really good job at explaining multiple facets of the ocean including the fish, plants, boats, etc. It allows students to explore the ocean without actually having to be in the ocean, while at the same time constantly educating them on what it is they are viewing. I also liked the different puzzles as it helps with keeping the user engaged.
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