Creative Play Inspired by Apps

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This summer has gone by so fast. There have been a lot of long hot days here in Southern Utah where even thinking about going outside made me sweat!  When that happens, we usually just stay inside to keep cool! My kids are pretty good at being creative and finding things to do such as play with their toys, color, and even have a little electronic time….which sometimes turns into too much electronic time. Please tell me I’m not the only one this happens to. Have you ever told your kids that they could play a game on your iPad or phone for a certain amount of time, and then a while later you realize that they’re still on there, and it’s been way to long? You tell them it’s time to get off and they are whiney and ornery because they want to “keep playing”? It’s the worst. We are ok if our kids have “electronic time” for about 30 mins a day as long as they have earned it by being active, have their jobs done and school work finished. My husband and I are sick of this attitude that they have after they play the app so we came up with an idea for our kids to have fun playing the app, but then help them use their creativity by bringing the apps to life! We like to call it Creative Play Inspired by Apps!My kids love the Disney Pixar Cars movies!  In-fact when my 9 year old was little he was so in love with that movie, Cars toys are all we ever bought him as presents.  We definetly have a lot of fun Car’s toys. The other day we downloaded this fun new app called Cars Daredevil Garage. Since my kids love the movie Cars, they were excited to see what this app was all about!

They weren’t disappointed to find out it was a stunt racing track game with Disney Cars cars in it. It’s a really fun game, especially for toddlers.  It’s an easy download and it’s free. My favorite kind of app!!  (Yes you can pay to add more to the app, but the basic app is fun already!) To download, all you have to do is get on one of your Mac devices such as an iPad, iPhone or iPod go into your Apple iTunes store and type in Cars Daredevil Garage.  Click on Get and put in your password to download app.  The game lets you pick from a variety of cars to use and then you pick where you want to race. It’s a simple and easy stunt racing game where the cars zoom through a track and go off jumps.  You control which way they flip and turn and how quickly they boost through the track.  My kids, especially my toddlers, and husband 🙂 had fun playing it!After we let the kids, and my husband, play the game for a while we decided it would be fun to use our idea of Creative Play Inspired by Apps and help our kids use their creativity by bringing the app to life. We realized that the app could be easily duplicated, and that it would help our kids be ok with shutting down the electronic device if we had something fun for them to do after! Along with the Cars cars we already have and a few new fun things we picked up at Toys R Us we knew the kids would have a blast using their creativity to bring the app to life. If you’ve been to Toys R Us recently you know they have a HUGE selection of Disney Pixar Cars toys. From the fun Radiator Springs Story Sets to all the exclusive Die-Cast vehicles such as Hudson Hornet, Antonio Veloce Eccellente, and Green Ramone there is a lot to pick from.  We picked out a new Story Set and a couple of cars.We pulled out the new toys, got out the blocks, a car mat and some old license plates and let kids use their imagination and creativity to recreate the app.  They had a blast zooming the cars down the track, flipping it left and right and pretending they were in Radiator Springs.  My husband was trying to help them set it up, but got booted out of the way when the kids took over and knew exactly what that wanted!  I love it when kids do that. They were entertained for about 2 hours with the cars and the news Story Set.   They also got the great idea to take it outside into the sandbox and create a racetrack there. Even our 9 year old, who was grumpy about the whole idea in the beginning, found himself playing with those toys for a couple of hours. He was very frustrated when we told him it was time to clean up. It was great to see our kids take something that was electronic and apply it to real life using their creative minds. I think we are going to encourage this kind of creative play as much as possible with this game, and others, so that their minds can engage and they can play together and not just sit by themselves holding an electric device for hours.I think you could do this with all sorts of apps, but this new Cars App was so easy for kids to play and then get off and have creative play inspired by the app.  What do you do to keep your kids entertained when they’re playing inside?

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