Leo’s Pad, a series of animated apps for preschoolers, is at the top of its class. It not only teaches kids important learning tools, but its story is so good it engages a wide age-range of kids. My kids–ages five, three, and two–enjoyed the story and took part in solving the puzzles, each on a different level. It also has fantastic re-play value, as they keep going back to play it again. Leo’s Pad is the first release from Kidaptive, Inc., a collaboration of educational researchers from Stanford University and an Emmy-winning creative director’s talented team of animators and writers.

“Every game is a series of challenges, a tool to deliver test questions and measure skills such as color recognition, attention control, or counting principles,” said Dylan Arena, co-founder and Chief Learning Officer at Kidaptive. “This adaptive learning model is unlike anything else on the marketplace. Our assessments promise the most detailed insight into a young learner’s development ever offered outside of clinical settings.”

Unlike adaptive learning apps that measure a single skill, such as knowing the alphabet, the sophisticated learning framework behind Leo’s Pad can pinpoint whether a child knows colors but is still working on shapes. It can identify a child’s strengths and weaknesses across academic, cognitive, emotional and physical skill sets such as motor control, spatial reasoning, instruction following, and empathy. Future models will predict a child’s responses on games he or she has not yet played.

But it’s not just about teaching kids new things, it’s also about the story. The characters are lovable, the plot is creative, and the puzzles are fun to complete.

“Our goal is smart storytelling, to help children have fun and become better learners,” said P.J. Gunsagar, co-founder and CEO of Kidaptive. “We have assembled a team of top educational researchers and talented creatives to craft beautiful apps that parents and children will love. We want to enrich education with engaging tales that have a long-lasting impact on kids’ cognitive development.”

In Leo’s Pad Appisode 1 (“Gally’s Birthday”), Leo helps his friend Galileo (Gally) build a telescope. It is free for iPad. In Leo’s Pad 2 (“Rocket to the Stars”), Leo and Gally create the design for Gally’s rocket ship. It is $1.99 on the iPad.

Keep up with Kidaptive at their website, , and

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Ellie Ann is an author and an editor for Stonehouse Ink Publishing. Check out her new thriller, , and her upcoming YA science fiction The Silver Sickle, to be released in July. Something else that tickles her fancy is working with transmedia books at Noble Beast Publishing, where she is a producer, author, and editor.

Ellie Ann blogs at I’m Ellie Ann and would love to meet you on or .