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. 🙂

‘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. 🙂

FREE – Friendly Christmas from the developers of Friendly Shapes. Preschoolers will enjoy meeting Oval, Heart, Triangle, Rectangle, & Square in this cute Christmas story. Kids use shapes to help build a snowman, build musical instruments, help elves in Santa’s workshop, and more. There are three modes: auto-play, read-it-to-myself and play. The app also has puzzles, coloring pages and games. So how can it be FREE? Well, this app has ads placed at the bottom of each page between the backward and the forward arrows. For $.99 you have the option of removing the ads.There are also options to purchase additional puzzles and coloring pages – $1.99 per pack. All in all, this is a nicely done app for little ones to learn shapes, colors, left/right, etc.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/friendly-christmas-funny-shape/id562847602?mt=8&uo=4

Gingerbread  Crazy Chef Cookie Maker  – Kids can virtually bake and decorate their own gingerbread cookies. An in-app purchase of the full version is available. There are also ads along the bottom. TabTale Books has several other free holiday titles that you can download when you open this app if you are comfortable with their model of delivery – ads, upgrades, etc.   

Boo, Where Are You?  –  a darling e-book for toddlers about a dog named Sammy and his friend, Boo the cat. Kids tap-the flaps in the story to try to find Boo. Really cute – read on your own story. 🙂 

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!

Ho, ho, ho – “Did That Crazy Santa Claus” and 7 more fun tunes!! FREE for a limited time – Santa’s Merry Band, from the creators of Mibblio. Just like Mibblio, this app is an interactive musical/storybook app for kids. Children read the illustrated story-songs called “mibblets” as they listen to the catchy songs. They can also jam along on a wide variety of instruments. The app has a keyboard along the bottom of the screen with a choice of 8 different instruments. They can also use a tambourine or cowbell to tap along to the beat of the song. Kids will enjoy the 8 different Christmas “mibblets” included in this app. Fun for the holidays!!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/santas-merry-band/id738881884?mt=8&uo=4

FREE for a limited time – Elf Dance by Jib Jab. This app is incredibly easy to use. Just upload up to 5 pictures of yourself, family, or friends from your device’s camera roll or Facebook. They’ll be transformed into dancing elves in no time and results are super cute! Videos can be shared via email with family and friends. When I was teaching I turned my students into elves and played the videos as class motivators. The kids LOVED them!! Last year, I made the family dog into a dancing elf. 🙂 Spread some fun holiday cheer!!