FREE Christmas apps that you may want to download. Happy Holidays 🙂

Where is Santa Lite – Santa Tracker is FREE for the iPhone/iPad. The app keeps track of where Santa is and how long it will be before he arrives at your home. When using the “Where is Santa” page, it scans the world every 60 seconds to locate Santa and report on his activities. For instance, “Santa is in the North Pole and he is helping Mrs. Claus in the kitchen.” When using the “My Home” tab, it shows the location of your house and tells how many days, hours, minutes, and seconds it will be before Santa arrives. Beware – there are ads at the bottom of this app that are easy to click and will take your child to the app store. Teachers could use the app to make up math problems with the information given. Have kids convert days into weeks, days into hours, figure out the exact time he is scheduled to arrive, etc. Kids could write a story about what Santa is doing on a particular day, illustrate a timeline of what Santa has been doing for a week, etc. – lots of cute possibilities. Parents can use this app with kids to check on Santa daily – cute way to count down the days to Christmas!

‘Twas the Night Before Jasper’s Christmas is FREE e-book for the iPhone/iPad. Jasper the dog and Smiley the cat are the stars of the classic tale. Kids can read the book to themselves or read along as it is narrated. In the read along mode, chimes let kids know when to advance to the next page. Background music (We wish You a Merry Christmas) can be turned off or on. The pages are not interactive but they are cutely & colorfully illustrated – appealing to kids. And, at the end of the story is a matching game. Beware – there are ads at the top of each page that are easy to click and will take your child to the app store. Cute FREE book – worth downloading 🙂

From the developers of Toca Boca apps comes this FREE gift for the holidays: Toca Hair Salon – Christmas Gift. Kids can go into the salon to groom Santa and/or his favorite Christmas tree, Topzy. They can use the tools in the salon to style their hair – cut it, comb it, make it grow, shave it, color it, and drag decorations into it. Great sound effects are also included in this fun app. Kids or parents can take a photo of the finished creation and save it to their camera roll. If parents wish, creations may be posted on the Toca Boca Facebook page. The developers have also built-in options to turn off sounds, pictures, and news. What a great springboard for creative writing – give Santa a whole new look and write a story to go with it. Thanks to the developers for a gift that inspires kids to be creative 🙂

And if your child LOVES the above app, you may want to look into Toca Hair Salon which usually sells for $1.99.

It works the same way but it has 6 characters and  more tools than the Christmas version. Great creative fun!!

Here’s the link: