New Family iPad? A Dozen Educational Apps to Share with Young Children

Six FREE science apps – PEEP and the Big Wide World apps from WGBH, the producers of the animated series of the same name. Major funding for these educational apps is provided by the National Science Foundation. These apps are designed to teach science to preschoolers (3 – 5 years) in a cute, fun way! The games begin simply but become more challenging as kids are successful. Each app also includes a “Try This Anywhere Activity” for you and your children to do together based on the lesson in the app. Your child will LOVE learning with Peep and friends. And you will too!

PEEP - House Hunt

PEEP and the Big Wide World House Hunt: Kids turn over leaves to pair animals with their homes in a match game that demonstrates that some habitats are home to many different animals.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/peep-big-wide-world-house/id536554271?mt=8&uo=4

PEEP - Hide & peep

PEEP and the Big Wide World Hide and Peep: Peep and friends are hiding in the tool shed. This app helps kids practice their observation and memory skills.

Download link:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/peep-big-wide-world-hide-peep/id536312346?mt=8&uo=4

Peep - Paint Splat

PEEP and the Big Wide World Paint Splat: Kids join two quirky characters named Quack & Chirp to experiment with mixing colors in a fun, silly way!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/peep-big-wide-world-paint/id536621786?mt=8&uo=4

Peep - Sounds

PEEP and the Big Wide World Sounds Like Fun!: Kids explore music and sounds as they mix and match sounds with this app. The characters represent different musical rhythms.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/peep-big-wide-world-sounds/id536623915?mt=8&uo=4

Peep - trash

PEEP and the Big Wide World Trash Stash: Kids practice their categorization skills by sorting objects using increasingly sophisticated criteria.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/peep-big-wide-world-trash/id536624731?mt=8&uo=4

Peep - Quack's Apples

PEEP and the Big Wide World Quack’s Apples: Kids roll Quack’s apples into a pond – testing and tweaking the design of their route as often as needed. As they play, they are practicing the engineering design process!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/peep-big-wide-world-quacks/id536623428?mt=8&uo=4

Two FREE and fabulously creative apps from Lazoo – perfect for preschoolers. 🙂Miku's PicnicFREE  – Miku’s Picnic, an adorable interactive story designed to support creative thinking. Kids join Bobu, the monkey & Miku, the rabbit on a chase after some jumping beans. The two need help capturing the beans before they bounce away! Along the way kids learn about using their imaginations and creative problem solving as the Bobu & Moku use “Squiggles” to… make a car go faster, make springs to get to the top of a tree, make binoculars to look for the beans, make a rocket zoom to the moon, and more. This educational app has 2 reading modes – “Read to Me” and “Read it Myself” as well as an option to record your own voice as the narrator. The story ends with a link to the FREE Squiggles app for kids so kids can “take a turn” drawing. I love the way Miku’s Picnic encourages kids to use their imaginations to solve problems!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lazoo-mikus-picnic/id652945863?mt=8&uo=4

Lazoo ZooAlso FREE – Lazoo Zoo, another fabulous educational appKIds help out with snack time at the zoo where there are 10 animals (lion, ape, chameleon, giraffe, hippo, whale, crocodile, crab, bird, & penguins) to feed. But Lazoo Zoo is not your ordinary zoo, so its animals react in extraordinary ways – the giraffe’s spots change according to what it’s fed, the ape tosses the food it doesn’t like to others, and more! Kids can even create their own foods to feed the animals. And, Lazoo Zoo has a photo booth where kids can snap their picture with their favorite animals. How cute is that?! 🙂 Check out the trailer at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L564yPHM3No&feature=youtu.be

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lazoo-zoo/id727786503?mt=8&uo=4

Two FREE apps from PBS. 🙂

PBS Parents Play & LearnPBS Parents Play & Learn is a great FREE educational app that encourages families to learn together. PBS has designed this app specifically for parents and it can be used in English or Spanish. The app uses familiar locations (in the bathtub, in the kitchen, at the zoo, etc.) as themes then provides parents with meaningful activities/games for their children. I LOVE that the app includes ideas for different ages (baby, toddler, preschooler) and provides information for parents about the math & literacy skills embedded in the games. The app supports the fact that a child’s parents are his/her first and most important teacher – LOVE it!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pbs-parents-play-learn-hd/id605542914?mt=8&uo=4

word friends

Learn with WordFriends is a FREE educational game from WordWorld, PBS’s Emmy winning show. Kids build and discover words with Dog, Duck, Sheep, Ant, Bear, Pig and Frog. Animal characters and word objects are formed from the words’ letters – a very cool feature! There are 3 puzzles to play: WordRain – grab letters as they rain from the sky to build the word, WordScramble – rearrange the scrambled letters to form the word, and WordMatch – a tile memory game. There is also a WordFriend Farms where kids can interact with the different animal characters. Dog is included with the app and the other animals are available as in-app purchases. Very cute, happy app!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/learn-with-wordfriends/id580328460?mt=8&uo=4

caillouKids learn about going to the doctor’s office with Caillou Check Up – Doctor’s Office, an adorable app for toddlers/preschoolers. This educational app has 11 mini-games that will teach your child about his/her next check-up. Four of the activities (check height & weight, tonsil check, follow the stick, & eye check) are included for FREE. The other 7 activities (thermometer, ear check, stethoscope, blood pressure, reflex check, medicine shot, & applying ointment) are available as in-app purchases. The app utilizes a variety of mechanics as kids tap and drag their way through the interactive mini-games. After completing each task, kids are rewarded with a colorful celebration. The app is sure to take the stress out of your child’s next visit to the doctor. No wonder it’s featured by Apple as one of the “Best New Apps & Games.” 🙂

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/caillou-check-up-doctors-office/id772369925?mt=8&uo=4

 

care bearsFrom American Greetings comes Care Bears Love to Learn, a FREE educational app for preschoolers. Kids join 7 of their favorite Care Bears to play a variety of games that are designed to help children count, build shapes, identify colors, learn beginning sounds, and more. After completing each activity, kids earn Care Bears stickers. These stickers can be saved and played with later. If you have a Care Bear fan in your house, check out this cute app!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/care-bears-love-to-learn/id884245655?mt=8&uo=

Advertisement

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s