Sacha’s<25: The Kinderbach App contains video lessons, games, and activities for beginning learners ages 3-7 to get a music education and learn some beginning piano.

Home in the Trenches Product Rating (out of 10 stars)

Is it worth our time? 5 stars
Did it help us learn? 6 stars
Is it worth the money? 6 stars
Is it useful to me? 5 stars
Practicality- 5 stars
Quality- 7 stars
Kid Rating- 5 stars

Last January I had the opportunity of reviewing the online version of Kinderbach.  You can see my review here.  Since that time they have now come out with an iPad/iPhone/iPod touch version of this popular music program.  I was very eager to get to review this product since we love our iPads and I would love to have more educational type apps for my kids to use.  I planned on using this app for my 3 and 5 year olds. We were given Classroom Kinderbach:School Version to review.  This meant that we received all the content of the entire app at one time for one price.  Then there were no in app purchases that needed to be made.  You also have the option of download the app for free (gives you just the first 2 lessons and 1 game) and then you are able to do in-app purchases to buy more lessons or levels at a time.

My 5 year old has been begging to learn piano because her 3 older siblings play and take private lessons.  I am not ready to pay for lessons for her quite yet.  I figured this would be a great way for her to get some music education to get her ready for lessons.  This program includes so much!  From the Kinderbach website:

KinderBach’s App for iPad or iPhone brings the teachings of Karri Gregor to your device. The KB App features Levels 1, 2 & 3 and offers a year’s worth of entertaining music education for 3 to 7 year old children through video, interactive coloring pages and games. Miss Karri introduces preschoolers to the keyboard characters with stories and fun tunes. Kids will enjoy playing simple songs, identifying music direction and pitch, learning rhythm notes and their beat value. Levels 1 to 3 cover proper hand and finger position, as well as note reading by pattern for voice, and keyboard. 

While we found that there is great content included in this app we found it was not quite as simple/quick to use as we thought.  Videos have to load individually the first time they are clicked on.  I had downloaded the app before leaving for the night with the girls, thinking they would use it while we had to wait places.  This wasn’t the case and a bit disheartening for them.  If you don’t have internet or 3G connected to your iPad the videos won’t play until they have been loaded the first time.

The program has 3 levels to complete and each level has 10 lessons in it.  Each Lesson is supposed to take a week for your child to work on.  Within the lesson there is a game, print out, and then an intro video and 4 more videos.  The videos are perfect for short attention spans.  Each video seemed to span between 2-4 minutes.  The videos are filled with fun cartoon characters, catchy music and a very nice teacher!

There are 6 games include in the app.  2 games are introduced in each level.  However, your child can also click on the game button at the opening of the program and see all of the games.  The Train game has a glitch that they are currently working on.  Unfortunately, right now it shuts down the entire app. No problem, it isn’t one you need right away when you start the program and customer service has been so great in dealing with the issue. We found that some of the games really couldn’t be played until you had reached certain levels in the program simply because you wouldn’t have enough information to know how to play them.  We found it was best just to click on the game button within the individual lessons to make sure you were playing the right game for where you were in the program.  The first game is adorable and helps your child learn the numbers of their fingers…a must in beginning piano lessons!  They put their hands on the screen and tap the correct fingers on special characters when the game tells them to do so!

The print button is to airprint any printables that you needed for that individual lesson.  We weren’t able to use this feature because we don’t have a printer that is compatible.  Very cool idea though!  We would have needed to purchase the pdf’s to go with each level.  They are available on the Kinderbach website for $1.99 each.

What I liked:

• Same content that we were getting in the online program, but at a fraction of the cost.
• The music is super kid friendly, along with the videos.  My 3 year old sees a picture Dodi (the dog from the program) and immediately says, “Dodi” with a huge smile on her face.
• There is a keyboard that they can use with on the bottom of the screen! Perfect size for their fingers!
• You can download the app for free and try out the first 2 lessons and first game for free.  Once you decide you like it you can either purchase the entire program at one time ($26.99) or purchase individual lessons for $.99 or individual levels for $8.99.
• Great customer service.  Karri (the founder of Kinderbach) has always been quick to respond to me when I have had a question.

What I didn’t like:

• The videos seemed to take a long time to load.  This was really frustrating to my girls.  They did not have the patience to wait for them. (I found it best to click on each of them and let the load while they weren’t with me, then they would be loaded for the next time they were going to work on this program….a bit time consuming for me)
• I figured the games would be stand alone games….there was really no way to play the Musical Memory game without doing the lessons first as you were to match a character to special letter they each represented. The games are very integrated into the progression of the lessons.  No biggie, but important to know!
• My Ipad doesn’t airprint.  There are activity pages to go with the lessons.  Unfortunately the only way to get these pages if you can’t get them to airprint is to purchase the pdf books.  Not a huge deal, priced at $1.99 per level, but a bit of an inconvenience.
• Unfortunately, I don’t have 3G on my iPad.  This means that in order for my kids to use this app I either have to preload the individual videos or have to be on wireless for them to load.  Just takes a little more forethought in planning!
• I couldn’t find a way to “mark” or keep track of the lessons that we were on.  Every time you open the app you have to remember where you were and click on it.

To sum it up: 

My overall feeling is that this app would be really a great thing to have if you are wanting to introduce your child to basic music education.  Also, you can’t look at the price of this as an expensive app.  This is just like their online program content but at the fraction of the cost!  If you are looking for something to learn piano, this is not the app you would use.  It doesn’t go over technique and the onscreen keyboard is nothing like a real keyboard. Better go find a living breathing piano teacher for that!

The important information:

Kinderbach App

Order from: the iTunes store! or Kinderbach site will take you there!

Price: The Classroom:School Version-$26.99, You can also download the app for free with the first 2 lessons.  Then purchase individual lessons for $.99 or individual levels for $8.99.

To read other Schoolhouse Crew reviews of this product click here.