A few weeks back, I did a blog post on all the cool iPhone and Android apps K¹² has released or is currently working on. Good news: as of Tuesday, we have a new app for Apple iOS devices that we’re extremely excited about adding to the list called What’s Sid Thinking: History. (It’s extra easy to see if you head over today: it’s featured in the New and Noteworthy Education Apps section on iTunes!)
Here are the basics:
Sid is a pretty forgetful fellow. You can help by using clues he gives to help him remember important historical people, events, or places before his brainpower runs out!
Features
- Packs of clues on different history topics from grades 2-9
- Dozens of topics and hundreds of randomized clues per pack–different every time you play!
- Easy and Hard levels for extra challenge
- Fun animations and sounds from Sid
- Worldwide leaderboards–become the top Sid helper for a particular pack or for all of History!
What’s Sid Thinking: History comes loaded with one free pack:
- The 50 States Sid recalls lots of facts about American states. Can you help him remember which one he’s thinking of?
You can add more packs, like United States Presidents, using the in-app purchase option.
Download (iTunes Preview)
We’re pretty excited about What’s Sid Thinking: History for a few reasons:
- We got to create a new character, which is always a ton of fun! Our great visual designers had a lot of fun dressing Sid up as a Secret Service Agent or a tourist.
- Sid is an attribute matching game: for each of the dozens of states or presidents or whatever per pack, we have clues for important characteristics or facts about them. Sid may only be thinking of one thing, but you’ll need several clues to narrow it down. This makes it great for a 5th grader just learning their state facts or an older student trying to prove they’re smarter than said 5th grader!
- This basic attribute matching idea is pretty flexible for all sorts of different topics. We’ve released only 2 packs to start, but we already have a few more in the pipeline. Coming in the next few months in the History app:
- Famous Inventors (Newton, Edison, and more!)
- Countries (an easier version with about 70 countries, and possibly a version with all the countries)
- Oceans and Seas (a pack for you budding geography bee stars)
- As you might have guessed by the title, we’re planning on releasing a version of Sid for other subjects as well. Next up is What’s Sid Thinking: Science which is planned to release over the summer. We’ll do another blog post to let you know when it’s ready, with packs for Land Animals and the Solar System.
Last and most importantly, we’d really love to hear from you about what topics you and your students would most like to explore with Sid. If we get enough requests in the comments below or to mobile@k12.com, we’ll consider making a pack on that topic! So don’t be shy- send us your suggestions!