iPad 2 Review (32G) + Our Favorite Educational Apps!

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My precious husband decided to REALLY surprise me this year with an EARLY birthday present. I am not one to ask for anything – really. I honestly have never really thought of “stuff” as anything I’d want from anyone. I have always much rather have had someones “time” to be spent with me on my special day. Since my husband cannot be in both Afghanistan and Germany at the same time – he opted to send me an early present that had me SHOCKED to say the least!

I am sure by the title you already guessed what it is, but just in case you didn’t, here goes….

Hubby blessed me with an iPad 2 (or as Little Caveman calls it “a BIG iPod”) for my birthday! WOW! We are an Apple family – BUT – I would never have even thought to buy this for myself. Needless to say, I am blessed and so honored that my husband would think to get this for me.

Here are a few photos of the beauty as she emerged from her box:

My Thoughts:

Overall, I think the iPad 2 (32G) is a perfect fit for my family and I. Now that we have entered into the world of educational apps, I love that the children can use this to help reinforce their learning. Many of the apps we have on the iPad are on our iPod touch as well – which is nice as you only have to pay for the app once and it can be transferred between multiple devices. I love how it is so much smaller than my laptop and I am able to use my wireless Apple keyboard (that I already have for our iMac) with it as well. We love the ability to listen to our music in iTunes – specifically while cooking. The built in speaker is more than sufficient. I also use it in the kitchen while cooking new recipes – rather than printing the recipe off, I read it on my iPad. The only thing at first that made me nervous about this fine piece of technology was that the children (namely Prince Charming & Little Caveman) would drop it when using it. But with setting clear boundaries early, this seems to not be an issue 🙂

Pros

One thing I REALLY like are all the educational apps out there to choose from. I have seen my two young boys (ages 3 & 4) grow leaps and bounds with their phonics and beginning math in the two short weeks we’ve owned this iPad 2. I also like how it syncs flawlessly with my iMac and 3 iPods in the house – making iTunes a very easy and managable program for all 5 of our Mac devices. I also really like the wireless feature as well – it goes perfectly with the “iCloud” and updates all my purchases and syncs the iPad automatically through any wireless connection which in the end saves me lots of time.

Cons

The only thing that I have thought of that I miss (compared to my laptop) is not being able to insert a disk as there are no drives – but now I am used to that and it is not a problem. Also, I prefer my Kindle over reading on the Kindle app for iPad. The Kindle on iPad has too much glare for me reading my Kindle books on the iPad is something I try to avoid.

A Few Of The Boys’ Current Favorite Educational Apps:

Pre-K Letters & Numbers (FREE)

A great tool for teaching children their letters and numbers.

The boys trace their letters (both capital and lowercase)

and numbers helping develop skills for penmanship.