Creative Play for the iGeneration

I just downloaded my photos from our weekend. There were 96 images and only five of them were pictures I had taken.

The remaining 91 were from everyone playing on my phone and taking pictures of what they created.

When we go away we have nearly eight hours in the car. I always pack both the girls a backpack of toys, paper, pencils and craft and I also download a new app or two on the devices we have.

Last week I downloaded Hair Salon 2.

It is really fun.

It is not educational and your child will not learn anything at all.

It is also not a game.

I really like this because you don't go 'out' and have to start again. No one wins, no one has to keep going until just one more level. There is no competition at all, you just play along, being creative and snipping here, growing there, colouring a bit too.

It is just about playing and being silly.

You pick a character and then you do their hair - you can make it grow, cut it, shave it, colour it, curl it, straighten it, add some hair clips or a hat, you can wash the hair and blow dry it or towel dry it. There are six characters to choose from, four males and two females. If anything I would have liked to have seen an equal balance here, not sure why there wouldn't be. Immy only ever chooses the female characters, Popps likes to give the men funny beards and facial hair.

It is simple for the littlest of fingers and fun for the big kids.

Hair Salon 2 is also a good idea to get for someone who is new to touchscreen devices, let them play with this app to really get a feel of how to move around an iphone screen without worrying they might 'break' something.

At four years old, Immy just loves this app over anything else on the ipad or phone. I even lost a little time in front of the fire playing with it myself.

There could be a free version, but I coughed up the price of $1.99 for this one so that there were no adverts or in-app purchases, which are the two things I despise most in apps that the kids use.

Once you are happy with your creation there is a camera button that you can press that takes an image and saves it to your photo gallery for you.

If you want some quiet from the back seat on a long drive this is what you are looking for.