Poor Pluto, remember him? 
Used to be a planet but now is just a rock. That really has nothing to do with 8 Planets aside from being the reason for the 8 and not a 9.
8 Planets is an educational iPhone game from brlightslide. It consists of four activities that are aimed at helping children learn about the planets including spelling their names, some general facts about them and flex your memory and matching skills.
The game does a lot of things right. When the child answers correctly they receive positive reinforcement in the form of ribbons. When the child makes a mistake they are not penalized. This helps them learn
that making mistakes is OK and that it is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, if we don’t make mistakes, we can’t learn from them right?
The information about the planets is presented in a visually interesting way that will help maintain the attention of younger children and the instructions and information are given clearly in a gentle voice and uses language that children will understand. This gives children who are still learning to read the ability to play the game as there are not long sentences to read and comprehend.
On the other side of the game is the reporting functionality for parents.
It offers 8 areas and gives one of three grades - Doing great, getting better, needs work. The eight areas include spelling, letters, numbers and more. YOu can even get the exact percentage of correct answers your child has given for each area.
While the scope of the information presented in this game is limited to the planets, some minor facts about them and activating that information it is all very well presented. I could easily see brlightslide moving on to begin producing a wide range of these games that help children learn and the great thing is that parents can take an active role in the learning by both being there to assist their child when they are playing the game and checking on the reports to see where their child might need help and then work on developing those skills
that might be lagging behind.
I like this game, I hope it’s successful and I hope they do make a range of them. Parents often get caught up in the other facets of life and work and don’t always have enough time for their children. This is a quick and simple way for parents to reconnect with their children, help them learn and show an interest in them. If you’ve got young children and an iPhone, I suggest you look into this and spend some quality time with your child and the 8 Planets.
Further Screens:
