Toca Band ROCKS the World!

It isn’t a secret that Smart Apps for Kids is a big fan of Toca Boca apps. Their 14 apps are fun and smart for kids, and the newest app, released on September 19^th, is no exception.

If you would like to download Toca Band for $1.99 (iPhone/iPad), please support smartappsforkids.com by clicking this clever button.

Toca Band combines cute characters with a variety of sounds, turning toddlers and preschoolers into mix masters. Each character—a drumming spider, a ticking clock, a guitar-playing boy, a squeaky balloon—makes a unique sound. Combined together, it’s an experimental cacophony that still manages to be reasonably melodic as it plays along to the new original song.

The app plays only the one song, but the variations on the theme are endless, as there are more combinations than I can even count, though a quick math calculation yields at least 500 million different options. There are four different options for rhythm and sound for each character, and up to eight characters can be used at once.

Set up the song and explore each character on the yellow platform. The singing lady turns out to be a xylophone, the squeaky balloon turns into four with different pitches, and the strings cry colored raindrops. Children can explore rhythm, pitch, and instrumentation in endless combinations.

The app doesn’t provide formal music training and doesn’t teach any vocabulary relating to pitch, volume, or rhythm. However, young children will most certainly have fun creating their own unique sounds, and along the way they will learn about music, just by playing and experimenting. That approach is what makes Toca Boca apps, and Toca Band, so much fun.