Mouse in a House app (Free) is an iPad game geared to young children who are learning basic shapes. Each shapes is hidden in one of seven different rooms of the mouse house (circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, ovals, diamonds, stars). One type of shape is devoted to each room and are hidden in everyday objects. Verbal instructions are given to the user at the start of each page, however they are given only once with no opportunity to replay the directions.
Chunks of cheese lined up at the bottom of the screen represents how many objects or shapes can be found in each room. Animation and cheering is provided when a shape is found and also when all the objects and cheese chunks are assigned. In this first screen of finding circles, the door knob circle did not work leaving a cheese chunk unassigned and no cheering at the end. I used the i button on the bottom left to navigate out of the screen and to the main menu to start with other shapes.
Mouse in a House app provides animation and sound on other objects on the screen such as the phone, bullhorn, tea kettle to keep kids engaged. This might also attract students to just engage with those items if they are more rewarding than the object of the game.
The i allows moving between screens or rooms if a the user can not finish a page. Guided access, an option in the Settings menu in iOS 6, allowed me to limit access to the i button at the bottom left from to deter students from moving out out the screen or the activity.
Mouse in the House is a simple app that primarily focuses on shape discrimination in an interactive manner. There are no options available for differentiation but does provide the same shapes from simple to more complex on separate screens allowing progression of discrimination of shapes. There appears to be a slight glitch on the first circle page with the circle at the door knob, unless I am not discriminating the correct “circle ” in the game. While free currently this may be a fun activity for students working on this skill. Give it a try when it’s free!
Carol
OT's with Apps & Technology 