Every parent wants to be proud of their children’s early accomplishments: “My child started walking when he was 9 months” or “My child started speaking when he was 1”. Parents are also time-poor, and often reliant on screens to do some of the childminding.

The COCO app is a ready-to-use adaptive learning platform working without Wi-Fi that allows teachers to stimulate the children through fun and attractive games. Plus, with 3 levels of difficulty, each game can be adapted to the children’s level in the different learning areas.

Games to develop essential skills

COCO’s educational games help children work on their vocabulary, language, and mathematical skills, for example. With the COCO app, you will develop the children’s knowledge with our trivia quiz, improve their vocabulary with the Brain Storm game, where they have to put back in order famous sayings, or their language with Syllabus, where they have to make up words from given syllables. You will also work on their logic with Snowball Effect or Tangram.

Physical activities to fight against screen addiction

The COCO app includes a sports break where, every 15 minutes of screentime, children are asked to do at least one physical exercise. It has several positive impacts: it helps children detach from devices, to discourage screen addiction, and also combats sedentary behaviour.

The children will learn to acknowledge their own body and the space around them by following COCO’s movements, for example, by dancing with the little coach or doing some yoga. These exercises are perfect to take an active break from all the learning they are doing in class and clear their minds.

Helping those with special needs

Each child is different which is why a teacher must give different techniques and tips on how to learn and acquire certain skills. In order to include children with learning disabilities, like dyslexia, dyscalculia or ADHD, each game includes audio description and hints to allow everyone to use the COCO program. Moreover, the app only includes encouraging messages to invite the children to keep learning and exercising.

Learning social skills, such as recognising emotions, is really important in a child’s development. It is even more important for children with developmental disorders such as autism or Down Syndrome. Which is why the COCO app includes certain games that have been adapted for special needs children. Recognising emotions is a common game when working with children with autism. However, doing it on a tablet is much more fun and motivating for them. In the game Mime an emotion, the child will learn to recognise emotions such as fear, hunger, pride, and serenity.

ADHD children live in a frenetic world and for them to sit or focus takes a lot of effort. With COCO they can take a break from the world around them and do structured activities at the same time. For example, in the game 1,2,3 red light, the child has to move to the music and stop when the music stops. This requires concentration and adapting to external stimuli.

Note that there are technical sheets for teachers on how to use the COCO app for each cognitive disorder.

The app can be used at home, during therapy or at school, as a group activity or for one-on-one use. Special prices available for 10, 20, 50 or more schools.

To learn more about COCO app and see pricing, visit them on EdTech Impact: https://edtechimpact.com/products/coco-thinks-and-coco-moves.

Box set binging, is it a good thing? Some people would argue for and an equal amount against. When you are watching a full series you get to know the characters, not forget what happened in the previous episode and understand the plot of the series. I realise at this point you’re probably thinking that you were going to read an article on a speed lesson taught using zombies, however, everything should become apparent shortly. At some point over the summer when I decided to watch The Walking Dead, in-between thinking that every episode is basically the same, I noted down in the margin of my planner ‘teach a lesson using zombies’. About three weeks ago, I found this this note. This is my story about what happened next.