Art of Glow

Art of Glow- is a free iPad and iPhone app that allows you to make mini art movies.  I've used this app to make movies of common characters being slowly written.  When my kids view the movie, they see the character being written slowly (using the correct stroke order*).  I ask them to guess what character is being written and to shout it out when they think they know.  You could also use this app to practice recognizing ㄅㄆㄇㄈ or pinyin ("Shout it out when you think you know what sound it is!").

You can make and save several movies on this app.  When making the movie, be sure that you change the settings so that each stroke remains visible (I max-out the Life Time, minimize the Speed and Blink settings, Size should be in the middle of the range, and Amount somewhere between the middle and the maximum).  If your kids don't read the Mainland Chinese pinyin system, you can save the file using this naming system and then they can randomly pick a movie and play the game by themselves. 

*To see the correct stroke order for a character visit YellowBridge.com, locate the character in the dictionary and then choose the "Stroke Order" tab.