FREE again – Alphabet Dots from Ellie’s Games (normally $.99). This educational app uses bright colors and a simple interface to teach young children to recognize the alphabet from A to Z. Kids learn to recognize both upper and lower case letters by popping colorful dots in order. The app has three levels of difficulty – choosing from 4 letters, 9 letters, or 16 letters. Kids can work on all upper case letters, all lower case letters or a mixed letters. There are also settings for sound, hinting, and enabling vibrations (iPhone only). This simple but visually appealing game is sure to help your little one learn the ABCs.

123 Color HD, Premium Edition, Talking Coloring Book – FREE today only. This educational app will be back up to $7.99 tomorrow!

123 Color uses freestyle finger painting to teach numbers, letters (upper and lower case), and colors. The app can be set to be spoken in English, Spanish, French, and German. It comes with American English. Other languages require a free download. The app has 3 games – paint by letter, paint by number, and paint by color. Proper spelling of number and color names are displayed in the selected language. Each game features a themed artwork (shapes, winter, fall), music, sound effects, and animations. As kids correctly color the pictures they earn stars to purchase additional games. There are also in-app purchases available. Nicely done app for little ones!

Free for a limited time – ClickySticky™ Superheroes, an animated sticker app. The app has 4 great scenes: Save the Day, Create a Super-Car, Super Power, and Superhero Dress-up. Kids use an assortment of stickers to create a scene. Many of the stickers are animated and/or include sound effects – a twisting tornado, flashing lightning, crashing cars, etc. Please note that this app includes a few stickers that some parents/teachers may find objectionable (a character with a laser gun, fireballs, etc.) and I did not see an option to remove individual stickers in the settings. Once the scene is finished, kids can make it come to life by tapping the play button – VERY fun technology!! Scenes can be saved to your photo library or emailed. So… you can pull the scenes into a story creating app and write a superhero adventure. How fun (and educational) is that!!

FREE again – Kids Zoo, an educational app that introduces your child to 45 different animals from 4 different categories: wild, farm, birds, and water. It is very easy to use – just tap. First tap the category you want to explore, then tap an animal. A photo of the animal appears. You can tap the photo for another photo of the same animal. Tap the speaker next to the animal’s name and it is pronounced. Tap the sound icons to hear the sound that the animal makes. There are two sound icons for each animal (one blue and one pink) but no explanation of the difference. The most interesting thing about this app is that there are connections to 30 LIVE  webcams at zoos all around the world. You can see the polar bear at the San Diego Zoo, the tiger at the London Zoo, etc. if you connect at the right time. Since these zoos are all over the world, the animals may be sleeping, the time zones may not match up, etc. Another potential issue is the speed/quality of your connection. I was able to connect to several webcams but was not fortunate enough to see any real action. Interesting to explore – if you have a great connection!

This app for the iPhone/iPad is FREE for a limited time.