Monthly Archives: July 2013

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Polk Street Press

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If you are not familiar with this developer, do yourself a favor and get acquainted 🙂 Here are two GREAT story apps – sweet stories with beautiful illustrations. The interactivity is purposeful. It adds to the story rather than just being there so that the developer claim that the app is interactive. And… they are currently FREE! Thank you, Polk Street Press!  Check out these great educational apps today.

FREE  for the iPhone/iPad, Goodnight Safari is a sweet interactive story for bedtime. Kids (ages 2-4) help the animals of the savannah complete their evening activities in 7 different scenes –  a giraffe eating dinner, a monkey climbing into bed, a hippo taking a bath, etc. Optional counting & color activities are available as an in-app purchase. Very sweet story for a peaceful end to your child’s day – highly recommended!

Goodnight Safari - Polk Street Press LLC

spatter & spark

Spatter and Spark is another cute interactive book for iPhone 4 /iPad 2 and later models.  Spatter (an artistic porcupine) and Spark (an inventive fox) team up to figure out how to get a look at Hubert, the baby crow, so that Spatter can paint Hubert’s picture. Kids are invited to help as Spatter & Spark problem solve their way through the story. There are 10 interactive scenes within the app. Each scene is beautifully illustrated by Luciana Navarro Powell, the illustrator of Goodnight Safari. The story (for 4 – 6 year olds) is very cute with purposeful interactivity that adds to the story. Spatter and Spark could also be used with elementary students to encourage them to think & write about their own inventions. I would have used it with my third graders when I was teaching 🙂 An activity pack (with 4 additional activities) is available as an in-app purchase. Nicely done and highly recommended!

Spatter & Spark - Polk Street Press LLC

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Toca Band

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toca band

Rock on… with Toca Band – FREE today!  This educational app for the iPhone/iPad encourages kids to explore music as they mix beats & sounds together to produce a hit song. The 16 characters in this app each have their own sound and rhythm. Kids drag different combinations of performers on stage to create their own musical band. How a character plays depends on where he/she is placed on the stage. Characters can also be chosen to give a solo performance. Even the names of the characters are fun: Bang Bang Chef on the drums, Dancy Nancy on the piano, Shaky McBones on the maracas,etc. Another great app from a developer that makes learning what it should be – fun, creative, and joyful!

Highly recommended!

Toca Band - Toca Boca AB

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ClassDojo

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Recently updated, ClassDojo is a FREE & fabulous tool that helps improve classroom behaviors. Teachers are using it in different ways: to give feedback in real-time, to track behavior, and to generate reports. Reward good behavior in real-time – all it takes is a click. You need one device (computer, smartphone, a laptop, or a tablet) and an internet connection. It is very easy to set up with your class list. Each student is assigned a cute, monster-like avatar. Kids earn points for positive behaviors and lose points for negative behaviors. ClassDojo is also fully customizable so you can delete behaviors from the original list and/or add your own behaviors. As you use it, it automatically logs any data that you input. This data can be used to generate behavior reports to share with parents and administrators. How awesome is that? You can go into a meeting/conference with reports in hand!

If I were still in the classroom, I would enter my class list twice – once for data on work/study habits and the other for data on behaviors. I would make my habits/behaviors match exactly what was on my report cards. Then as I used the app, I would also be gathering data for my report cards. At the end of the grading period, I would just print out the date and enter it on the report cards – how easy!  I would also have the data (in a printed report) to be able to back up any grade on the card.  “As you can see Mrs. Doe, Jane only turned in her homework 56% of the time.”  Instant data would also be available for the RTI process, IEPs or any other team meeting on a child. Wow – a fabulous educational app!!!!

Check out the website for more information: www.classdojo.com

Highly recommended !!

ClassDojo - Class Twist Inc

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Pick-a-Path

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Pick a Path

Pick-a-Path is a FREE math game from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Kids help Okta the octopus reach a target number by choosing the best path from the top maze to the bottom of a maze in this educational app. There are 7 different levels with 7 puzzles in each level. The puzzles start with basic operations then move to fractions, negative numbers, decimals, and other more difficult skills. Kids have to plan out a strategy to reach the target which can be a specific value, a minimum value, or a maximum value. This app provides a lot of good skills practice. And… as an extra added bonus, kids have to think of a strategy!

Pick-a-Path - National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

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MathLands – Kids Logic Game & Brain Builder for Math and Critical Thinking

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MathLands

All I can say is WOW! MathLands is a completely FREE educational math app that makes kids THINK! Kids have to use logic, problem solving skills, and critical thinking to solve 5 levels of 5 different puzzles. Each puzzle is timed, has hints available, and has a section that tells the history of the puzzle. Kids can choose to start over. They can try again to get a better score or they can try again to get the BEST score (the app tells what is the best possible score). I love that this app challenges kids to be the best!! There is also a Math Comics section – problems are written in comic strip form. Kids solve the word problems by using the interactive manipulatives on the page. In a word full of math apps that stress practice and drill, this app is like a breath of fresh air. LOVE it !!!!

MathLands - Kids Logic Game & Brain Builder for Math and Critical Thinking - Mamanijo

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Art Mail

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Artmail

FREE again for a limited time! Add a personal touch to your emails with Artmail, an app for writing and sending handwritten notes. This app is not billed as an educational app but it could/should be. 🙂 The app features several choices of stationery plus the option of using your camera to create a unique background. The writing is a brush style (similar to a fountain pen) with several color options. But the best part of this app is the scaling feature – which makes this app great for kids. Users can fill up the entire screen and the app automatically shrinks the word/words to fit in a letter format. Subsequent words are shrunk to match the size of the other words. A red cursor can be moved around to change the location of the words. Little hands will be able to write thank you notes to grandparents or to add a note of explanation to a photo. In the classroom, teachers could use it is SO many ways – for good copies of their writing, to communicate with parents, as an exit slip after a lesson, etc. I LOVE that this app preserves the child’s writing!! Very cool app – perhaps an upgrade will include the ability to pull in pictures from the photo library which would make it even better!!

ArtMail - Wen Yun Rong

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Guess How Much I Love You – Interactive Episodes

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Guess How Much I Love You

FREE again for a limited time – Guess How Much I Love You – Interactive Episodes. From Australia comes this wonderful educational app based on the book Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney and inspired by the animated TV series created by SLR Productions Pty Ltd. The book is beautiful – one of my all time favorites. Originally published in 1994 in the UK, it has sold more than 20 million copies in 37 languages. It is truly a book not to be missed!! That being said, this app conveys the same sweetness that makes the original story so special.

Kids join Little Nutbrown Hare in 2 interactive episodes – Can You Touch the Stars and Snow White Hare. Designed for 3 – 5 year children to explore with their parents, the episodes are integrated with simple games & puzzles. At the end of each episode, Big NutBrown Hare and Little NutBrown Hare express their love for each other. Don’t miss this one – it is SO sweet!

Guess How Much I Love You - Interactive Episodes - SLR Productions Pty Ltd

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The Mermaid’s Shoes

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Mermaid's Shoes

Mermaid 2

Another educational app, FREE for a limited time – The Mermaid’s Shoes, an interactive picture book for kids. On the last day of her beach holiday, Ida finds a pair of flippers. When she puts them on, she thinks she is a mermaid. Kids accompany Ida through the city as she searches for the sea. Beautifully illustrated with a gentle background music, the story ends with Ida finding the perfect spot for her to be a mermaid! Kids can create their own underwater scenes at the end of the story. Using the camera or photo library, they can even place themselves into the scene and/or turn themselves into mermaids – a fun start for writing story of their own!!

The Mermaid's Shoes - Sanne te Loo

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ABC Wildlife

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ABC Wildlife for the iPhone/iPad is FREE again today! The educational app is geared towards 3 – 5 year olds to teach them about 80+ animals. The app opens to a grid arranged in ABC order. Kids can tap on a letter to bring up animals that begin with that letter or they can tap on a specific animal. As an animal’s photo appears, a child’s voice says the initial letter then reads the name of the animal (which appears in writing at the bottom of the screen). A little cartoon person drops down on the left hand side of the screen with a link to a video clip about that animal or an interactive scene. The child can scroll to the left for additional pictures & videos about each animal. There is also an exclamation point to tap on each page that gives an interesting fact about the animal pictured.

This app needs an internet connection to work because the 100+ videos are actually links to You Tube videos. They are chosen by Peapod Labs and checked to be interesting and safe for kids. Kids cannot link from this app into other You Tube content. This app is nicely done and the facts make it interesting for adults too!

Highly recommended!

ABC Wildlife - Peapod Labs LLC

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Cookie Next Door – Rainy Days AND Rainy ‘Go Round (the sequel)

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cookie

Rainy 'Go Round

WOW – here are TWO educational apps that you don’t want to miss!!

FREE again – Cookie Next Door-Rainy Days. This educational app was a choice in the “New & Noteworthy” section of the app store in early February. Kids become storytellers in this animated adventure. Their speech, songs, and rhymes bring Cookie and his friends alive. The app includes a Creative Comic Book, a Voice Over Studio, and an Animated Stage Projector. Creative Comic Book utilizes storyboards to guide kids through the storytelling experience. In the Voice Over Studio, kids can change the pitch of the characters’ voices. As kids tell the story their speech, singing, etc. is transformed into the voices of the characters. Once the story is complete, the Animated Stage turns it into a play with dancing props! This app is very creative, very fun and it’s great for developing oral language skills. I am looking forward to more adventures of Cookie and friends!!

Cookie Next Door – Rainy Go Round is here!! This educational app is also FREE for a limited time. The sequel to Rainy Days, Cookie’s first adventure, this app has the same features – the Creative Comic Book, Voice Over Studio, and Animated Sage projector. The tale continues…

Cookie Next Door ~ Rainy Days - Sabodu LLC Rainy Days          Cookie Next Door ~ Rainy 'Go Round - Sabodu LLC   Rainy ‘Go Round (the sequel)