Montessori Crosswords 1.1 Released

One month after the release of version 1.0 for the iPad, Montessori Crosswords 1.1 now also runs on iPhone (HD on iPhone 4). L'Escapadou has taken great care to adapt the app to the smaller screen in order to ensure the same level of user experience. In addition, it is now possible to interact with the visual effects displayed every time a crossword is completed for even greater fun.

Montessori Crosswords 1.0 has been on the iPad Education Top 40 Best Sellers list for one month and was featured by Apple as a "What's Hot" product and a "New & Noteworthy" release under the iPad education category. At the time of writing, its average rating on the App Store is above 4 stars (22 ratings).

CommonSenseMedia awarded Montessori Crosswords 1.0 4 stars on a scale of 5, and wrote the following review: "The best edutainment apps are able to teach kids without condescending to them, and MONTESSORI CROSSWORDS (available only on the iPad) is a beautiful example of this. Its presentation is fun and aesthetically pleasing, but not too sugary as to turn off older kids (the app targets kids as old as 10 and as young as 3). With a database of nearly 300 words and their corresponding pictures, along with tens of thousands of possible crosswords, Montessori Crosswords is a great way for kids to develop literacy in an engaging way that feels like play".


Montessori Crosswords was created after the founders of L'Escapadou observed their home-schooled daughter having fun with a Montessori picture-spelling activity. They wanted to recreate this experience in a lightweight format, adding all the fun that the iPad/iPhone technology can bring, such as direct interactions, animations and sounds, as well as automatic crosswords construction.

Features:
* Three word series of increasing difficulty as defined in the Montessori method according to the phonetic difficulty of each word
* Level 1 (corresponding to the simplest word series) displays only one word to make the game easier for beginner writers/readers
* In levels 2 and 3, crosswords are created randomly to offer tens of thousands of different combinations (exactly 93,696 for level 3)
* 21 fun, colorful and interactive visual effects displayed every time a crossword is completed to add some fun
* Solutions are always accessible to kids so that they can check spelling on their own, when they feel they need to
* Also featured is a Standalone Movable Alphabet to provide open-ended activities with letters for young children who don't know letters and their phonetic sounds yet. Letters can be moved, rotated and resized
* Packed with animations and sounds to create a fun and enjoyable experience
* An article on how to use the game as an educational tool following the Montessori principles is provided with the game
* Letter case choice
* Alphabet Layout choice - alphabetical or vowels first and consonants at the end as in Montessori
* Montessori standard colors for vowels and consonants
* Total number of completed words displayed

Pricing and Availability:
Montessori Crosswords 1.1 is $2.99 USD for one week only. Regular price is $4.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies). It is available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Education category. Members of the media, please contact Pierre Abel to obtain a promo code for a free copy of Montessori Crosswords 1.1.

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