App review: Osmo starter kit

I’m going to start with a disclaimer – I love Osmo, I have loved the idea of it since I first heard about it when it the company was founded in 2013. I bought early versions of the starter kit (back in about 2014 for my course on Child Development and Technology) and have been sent more kits by friends and colleagues who have worked there over the years (and yes, friends and former students have been employed in their research division). I couldn’t wait to introduce it to my baby, and she continues to ask for it regularly.

So what makes Osmo such a big deal – it was the first, and oddly really the only, company that seeks to use physical objects alongside a tablet. So you prop your tablet into the holder, put the mirror device over the camera, and magically, you can use objects that interact with your screen. And this allows for the best of both worlds – physical play and immediate feedback within a game- or fun-based activity.

A lot of the early years activities – seen here in the starter kit – draw on educational theorists such as Frobel and Montessori. These theorists recognize that children have unique learning needs, that play is important – and as Montessori said “What the hand does, the mind remembers.”

Osmo has expanded over the last decade – and I’ll review some of the other games in later posts – adding elementary school math, introductory programming and imaginative activities such as Pizza Co. to the foundations skills of letter recognition and creation, spelling, number recognition and basic math concepts.

It’s now available for iOS and Amazon’s Fire tablets as well as Android. And once you buy a mirror and stand, you can add on all sorts of additional games, allowing this tool to grow with your toddlers as they start pre-school learning activities and eventually elementary school.

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