Category Archives: apps for kids

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Toddler Tap!

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FREE from June 30 to July 6 – Toddler Tap!, an educational app for your youngest iPad user. The app is very simple to use. Kids tap an object and the object is named. There are 8 categories of words – colors, numbers, shapes, letters, vegetables, fruits, pets, vehicles, instruments, and home. The app is visually appealing – uncluttered pages of simple and colorful drawings. The voice can be turned on/off and the language can be switched from English to Spanish. There is also the option to print the pictures. Parents/teachers can create magnets or stickers for sorting and classifying activities. Check it out while it is FREE. 🙂

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toddler-tap!/id579523195?mt=8&uo=4

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Water Cycle HD

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water cycle

FREE today only – Water Cycle HD, the 2014 winner of American Association of School Librarians Best Apps for Teaching & Learning in the STEM Category. If your child ever wonders about clouds, this is the educational app for him/her! It explores the 4 main stages of the water cycle through readings, photos, and videos. The videos are excellent. They were chosen from a variety of well-respected sources – Disney(Bill Nye), NASA, Carnegie Institution, and more. There is also a “Did You Know?” section which is full of fun facts such as… The heaviest hailstones weigh about 1.1 pounds. And, fog is a type of stratus cloud. The app can be used with different levels of kids. Older students can read & explore on their own. Younger students can turn on text narration with the “Read to Me” button. There is also a game for kids to play that tests their knowledge of the water cycle. This app is nicely done – great to add to your science collection!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/water-cycle-hd/id574353460?mt=8&uo=4

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My Incredible Body – A Kid’s App to Learn about the Human Body

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my incredible body

FREE again for a limited time – My Incredible Body – A Kid’s App to Learn about the Human Body. This educational app takes kids inside the body to see how everything works. Kids start by choosing an area to explore – brain & nerves, digestion, lungs & air, skeleton, kidneys & urine, senses, muscles, or circulation. Each of the 8 content areas provides information in a variety of engaging ways. Kids can watch short movies & animations that explain the different functions of the body. 3D models can be rotated or zoomed to allow kids to see inside the body and discover how body parts work together. Kids will spend hours reading and listening to all sorts of fun facts about their bodies. For example: extraocular muscles control eye movements and are the busiest muscles in the body. This app is fabulous – it’s easy to use, visually appealing, engaging, and full of information. Kids will LOVE it!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-incredible-body-kids-app/id853953105?mt=8&uo=4

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Solar Walk – 3D Solar System Model

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6 million users can’t be wrong!

FREE again, today only – Solar Walk – 3D Solar System Model for the iPhone/iPad. This educational app has you zooming through space to learn about our solar system and the Milky Way galaxy. Winner of a Parent’s Choice Gold Award and chosen by Apple as one of the Best Apps for 3 years in a row, this 3D model of the solar system will fascinate kids of all ages. This app features information about each of our planets (general information, figures, internal structure, & science missions), the planets’ moons (general information & figures), comets, dwarf planets and asteroids. Information and pictures of 8 satellites (such the Hubble Telescope and the ISS) are also included. 8 movies to explain some of Earth’s phenomena are included: Size Comparison, Earth’s Cycles, Solar Eclipse, Moon Phases, Tidal Phenomena, Major Circles of Latitude, Constellations, and Cassini-Huygens. The app permits you to zoom in for a close up view of each planet, moon, etc. or zoom out to get a view of our entire galaxy. If it’s in our solar system, you are going to be able to view it and learn about it with this app! Beautifully done. 🙂

Solar Walk - 3D Solar System model - Vito Technology Inc.

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MeeGenius

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meegeniusThis summer MeeGenius is partnering with the PBS KIDS Summer Learning Project to offer free weekly e-books all summer long (from 5/25 to 8/24)! Kids can join the weekly book challenge on the website: http://www.meegenius.com/pbslearning. Then they click on the book of the week and start reading/listening. Your child can check off his/her completed books on the free progress report and at the end of the summer, a certificate can be printed out to celebrate your child’s achievement. Check it out!!

Also… If you have the latest version of the FREE MeeGenius app, you can access a free book of the day – every day this summer! With the app you can also join the MeeGenius Reading Club which gives you access an 700+ title library of new and classic audio e-books for children. The full reading club subscription is $4.99/month but you can try it FREE for 30 days. After you download it, you register with your email address. Books can be read to you or read on your own. Words are highlighted as the narrator reads them in the read-along version. The books are nicely done – colorful, cutely illustrated, and age-appropriate.

Check out these two great opportunities to access FREE e-books and encourage daily reading. 🙂

MeeGenius! Kids' Books - MeeGenius!

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Spelling Star

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spelling star

FREE for  limited time – Spelling Star, an educational app for practicing spelling lists. The app is simple to use – just type in and record the words. You may also include sentences to clarify the words’ meanings. Kids must spell each word correctly three times to become a Spelling Star.  Words are presented in random order. As kids practice, they can get a hint – a quick look at the word spelled correctly. When they spell a word without a hint, they earn a star. Spelling Star provides feedback after each word is spelled with the option to “try again” when an error is made. This educational app is great for home and/or school. Parents can use it to input spelling lists for multiple kids. Kids may enjoy inputting their own lists at the beginning of the week which would be GREAT practice! Teachers can create lists on one device and share those lists with anyone who has the Spelling Star app. Simple to use, effective, and tracks progress – what more do you need? 🙂

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spelling-star/id557070660?mt=8&uo=4

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Shadow Puppet Edu and Shadow Puppet

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show puppet edu

Just released yesterday – Shadow Puppet Edu, a FREE educational version of Shadow Puppet. Even kindergarten/first graders can create videos with this app which is very intuitive and easy to use. This educational version has a built-in, safe search that allows kids to search the Library of Congress, NASA Flickr Creative Commons, Yahoo Images, and Animated GIFs for images to add to their projects. And… it automatically adds the image credits to the end of the video. How cool as that? Kids can also add any photos that have been saved to their camera rolls. The possibilities for using this app are absolutely endless. Students can use it to create videos to: tell digital stories, explain concepts, present a project, describe an experience, show what they know, and more!! Teachers can create mini-lessons, share examples, enhance their lessons with imagery, etc. What a fabulous classroom tool!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shadow-puppet-edu/id888504640?mt=8&uo=4

Shadow Puppet

Recently updated and still FREE – Shadow Puppet, a photography app which has been featured by Apple as one of the “Best New Apps” for over 6 months! Using this app, it’s easy to create “puppets” – recorded explanations of your photos. First you choose your photos and put them in the order. Then you talk about your pictures. Everything is recorded. Finished “puppets” can be shared via email, SMS, Facebook and/or Twitter. There are so many ways for everyone to use Shadow Puppet: to teach something new, to share adventures with friends, to record children talking about their experiences, to tell the story behind old family photos, etc.

The update has many new features. Now you can include video clips, add music, search the web for images, overlay text/stickers, and more! The FREE version of the app permits you to include up to 10 photos/video clips. For $1.99 you can get Puppet Essentials which allows you to add up to 100 items to each video and have access to more drawing & decorating tools. The update made this great app even better!

The classroom uses for this app are only limited by your imagination: Take pictures of a child’s work and have him/her explain it to parents. Send pictures and voice recordings of the class field trip. Have kids give a step-by-step explanation of what happened in a science experiment. Draw & sequence pictures to retell a story. Make a “talking timeline” by sequencing photos of historical events. Have kids use it to present mini reports on any subject. Have virtual “pet day” – kids bring in pictures/recordings of their pets. Because you can use anything saved to your photo library, you can explain photos from the web, artwork created in other apps, and so much more. The possibilities for using this educational app are endless. For more suggestions go to http://get-puppet.com/education. What a fabulous resource!!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shadow-puppet/id700902833?mt=8&uo=4

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3rd Grade Vocabulary Prep

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vocab

FREE for a limited time – 3rd Grade Vocabulary Prep, an educational app designed to improve children’s vocabulary. Here’s how it works… Before entering students’ names, teachers are asked to enter an administrative password. The administrative feature permits teachers to review their students’ scores and track individual student improvement. The app also generates a “most difficult words for this student” list so teachers can see where individuals are having difficulty. Once the student names have been entered, kids can begin to study. There are 10 words to study at each level. Kids click on each word to hear its pronunciation, meaning, and a sample sentence. I love that the words are used in context! They can go through the lesson as often as needed to learn the words. There are 2 quizzes to take to make sure that students are making progress. If a student misses a word on one of the practice quizzes, the word goes back in the deck for further review. A test must be passed (90%) in order to move to the next level. Teachers can send emails to parents that provide specific test results or that recap the child’s progress to date. Check it out while it is free. 🙂

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/3rd-grade-vocabulary-prep/id416481779?mt=8&uo=4

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Material

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material

FREE for a limited time – Material, an educational app for creating 3D pictures with your kids! Start by choosing one of 40 backgrounds or use one of your photos as a background. Add stickers from the 4 sets (basic shapes, buildings, forests, ocean) included with the app. There are 6 additional sets of stickers available as in-app purchases. Add some color. When you are happy with your creation, save your work into the library or print it out to create a 3D scene. Watch the video on YouTube to see how it works: http://youtu.be/y-uB2b3DYTY. It might be fun to create a 3D scene of your vacation at the beach, create a 3D card for grandma & grandpa, or just create a silly scene on a rainy day. 🙂

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/material/id767017751?mt=8&uo=4

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News-O-Matic

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news

Check out a FREE trial of News-o-Matic, an educational newspaper app for kids 7 – 11 years old. A new edition is published every Monday through Friday. Each edition features 5 articles from the news – sports, science, world news, wacky events, etc. The articles are kid-friendly and age-appropriate. Kids can read on their own or have the articles read to them. Important vocabulary words are underlined and linked to their definitions. The articles also include fun facts, a map for locating where the news is happening, videos, and games. Once registered, kids can connect to the News Room to draw pictures, express opinions, or ask questions about the news. This app helps kids become informed citizens of the world!

The FREE trial lasts for 2 weeks. After that, you must subscribe: yearly – $19.99. monthly – $1.99, or weekly – $0.99. If you subscribe before the end of your free trial, you get a special rate. Teachers, there is also a News-o-Matic School Edition. It comes with a teacher’s guide which includes discussion prompts, comprehension questions, Lexile reading levels, and more. And, it’s a great resource for non-fiction reading!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/news-o-matic-daily-reading/id578023255?mt=8&uo=4