App review: Justin Fletcher’s Jigsongs (iPhone / iPad)

Justin Fletcher continues to be a familiar face on British pre-school TV channel CBeebies, with several shows displaying his talents.

But he’s also been working hard on apps this year, releasing two previous Justin’s World apps: Lettersounds and Goldilocks. Now it’s time for the third: Justin’s World – Jigsongs.

The clue is in the title: this is a combination of digital jigsaw puzzles and songs. Four of each, in fact, with children having to solve each puzzle in order to watch Justin singing the song it relates to.

The four songs are well-loved nursery rhymes: Old Macdonald, One Two Three Four Five, Twinkle Twinkle and The Grand Old Duke of York, with each puzzle offering three difficulty levels: Easy, Medium or Hard, with six, 12 and 15 pieces respectively.

Each starts with an image of Justin in a scene, which when tapped on, scatters as jigsaw pieces. Your child then has to put it back together, although the picture remains in the middle (much like doing a real jigsaw using the lid of its box as a guide) for them to work from.

They drag the pieces into place using the touchscreen, with Justin chiming in with encouraging voice comments as they go. And when they finish it, the picture bursts into life as a video, with Justin singing the song and clowning about in his usual fashion.

The app is simple, easy to use and very engaging, and while there’s a certain shelf-life to it given that there are only four videos, children will enjoy working their way up through the difficulty levels.

It’s a good addition to the Justin’s World series, anyway. We’re already looking forward to the fourth app, which will apparently be Justin performing a collection of animal impressions.

Justin’s World – Jigsongs costs £0.69 / $0.99 for iPhone and iPad on Apple’s App Store.

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