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Puzzingo Holidays

puzzingo

FREE from the maker of Puzzingo Puzzles – a holiday gift for your child, Puzzingo HolidaysPuzzingo (the original app in this series) was voted one of the best kid’s apps by the Chicago Tribune. The holiday edition includes 7 animated, interactive puzzles. Kids build their vocabulary while having fun – as each puzzle piece is moved into place, the name of  the object is pronounced. When each puzzle is completed, there is a celebration. Kids get to help build Santa’s workshop, have snow ball fight, deliver presents, pop fireworks, ride Santa’s sleigh, celebrate the New Year, and more. Great fun for little ones 🙂

 PUZZINGO Holidays Kids & Toddlers Puzzles Game - 77Sparx Studio, Inc.
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Toca Band

toca band

Rock on… with Toca Band – FREE today!  This 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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Leo’s Pad Appisode 1

leo's pad

Question: What do you get when Stanford education experts collaborate with award-winning storytellers and animators? Answer: Leo’s Pad – an interactive series of “appisodes” designed for preschoolers. The first story in this series was released on 2 days ago and is currently FREE. Kids join 8-year-old Leonardo daVinci and Galileo on an aesthetically appealing adventure called Gally’s Birthday. Interactive games that teach shapes, colors, number sense, drawing, letter identification, etc. are seamlessly woven into the story. They include a mixture of exploratory, creative, and problem-solving activities. Songs are also included which adds to the app’s Pixar-movie-like feel. Coming soon is a For Grown-ups section designed to give parents details about their children’s progress. Love this app for so many reasons – great story, beautiful animations, meaningful interaction, positive messages, catchy songs, age-appropriate skills, the list goes on…. Looking forward to Appisode #2, Rocket to the Stars, which is to be released in January!

Highly recommended!

Leo's Pad Appisode 1 - Kidaptive Inc.

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Suzy’s Zoo Storybook Collection

suzy

FREE today – Suzy’s Zoo Storybook Collection: Witzy’s Friends Forever is the first in a series of e-books featuring the Suzy’s Zoo characters created by award-winning artist, Suzy Spafford. Witzy the duck is searching for a wishing puff so he can make a wish to be friends forever with his buddies – Boof, Patches, & Lulla.  Beautifully illustrated, this sweet story can be enjoyed in 3 modes: autoplay, read to me, or read to myself. Children will enjoy the animations on each page and looking for Tickles, the ladybug. After reading there are 3 activities: coloring, a matching game, & a puzzle. Download it for your iPhone/iPad today – it’s a sweet one!

Suzy's Zoo Storybook Collection - zuuka incorporated

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Snowflake Station

snowflake station

Purple glittery snowflakes !! FREE for a limited time, Snowflake Station for the iPad helps kids discover the beauty of symmetry – a key concept in math, science, art, & architecture. The app has 3 sections: Trace a Flake, Creation Station, and Make it Snow. Trace a Flake includes step-by-step instructions for cutting 36 different snowflakes/other symmetrical shapes. In the Creation Station, kids create their own flakes/shapes. There are six different folds, 10 different colored paper, and 10 different colors of glitter to choose from. Kids make “cuts” with their fingers. The tape button works as an undo button. Kids can monitor their progress in the upper left hand corner of the cutting board. Creations can be saved to use in the Make it Snow section of the app which does exactly that! Kids use their creations to make it snow in a photo of their choosing. They can use the iPad’s camera to take a picture or use an already saved photo from the camera roll. There are also 10 winter scenes included in the app. Another option in this app is the ability to set up a Juddly (a safe, secure email) account for your child to share his/her creations with you. Very creative & very fun – all while learning about symmetry 🙂

Common Core Standards:

  • 1.G.3 – Partition a shape into four equal shares, describe the shares using the words halves, fourths, and quarters, and use the phrases half of, fourth of, and quarter of. Describe the whole as two of, or four of the shares. Understand for these examples that decomposing into more equal shares creates smaller shares.
  • 4.G.3. Recognize a line of symmetry for a two-dimensional figure as a line across the figure such that the figure can be folded along the line into matching parts. Identify line-symmetric figures and draw lines of symmetry.

Not only does this app meet CCSS in math, it can also be used in creative writing – The Day It Snowed Orange, Alien Invasion, etc. Awesome – highly recommended!

Snowflake Station - Mrs. Judd's Games, LLC

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Christmas Carols for Kids, Sing Along Songs – Jolly Jingle

jolly time

FREE today only for the iPhone/iPad – super cute Christmas song app. Includes 5 animated songs: ♪ Jingle Bells, ♪ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, ♪ Frosty the Snowman, ♪ Up on the Housetop, and ♪ We Wish You a Merry Christmas. The app opens up to a snow globe which has 5 different scenes to represent the songs within the app. Lyrics can be turned on or off. Songs can be enjoyed 4 different ways: as an instrumental, as a piano solo, or sung by a female soloist or by children. Each song also includes fun interactive surprises – a very cute, MUST-have for the holidays!

Christmas Carols for Kids, Sing Along Songs - Jolly Jingle - Hompimplay

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Moving Christmas

moving christmas

Just released on December 1, Moving Christmas is currently FREE for the iPad. This e-book has 40+ pages of interactive fun with special sound effects & music. Christmas is in trouble because global warning has melted the ice at the North Pole. With Christmas only a month away, Santa calls on Frank Duffy, Mover of the Impossible. So Duffy and his dog, Bricks, fly off to the North Pole to take on the challenge of saving Christmas. Love this app! First of all, it’s a fun, smart story – written so it can be enjoyed by kids & adults. It has great whimsical illustrations by Max Micheli who has created for Disney, Nickelodeon, and more. The narration is wonderful but there is also the option of reading the book on your own. Rich in language, this book would be perfect to share in the classroom in so many ways. Use for a lesson on character traits, a lesson on inference (as the story setting changes), language lessons on similes, adjectives, and more!

This story is obviously the first in a series as there is an introduction to Frank’s next adventure at the end of this one – Frank is going to move Area 51. 🙂  I am looking forward to more from this developer!

Moving Christmas - Trusted Cape

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ABC Expedition

abc expedition

ABC Expedition is currently $2.99 but I was able to download it on a FREE day. Captain Wallace leads a tour of the zoo in this aesthetically pleasing alphabet app. The alphabet letters are placed on large buttons  – easy for kids to push. Each button take the child to an animated page featuring that letter. The page contains both upper & lower case letters and an animal (with its word) that begins with that letter. The animated animals are appealing and include sound effects. GRReat! Both words and letters are pronounced when the child touches them. This app is simple but well done – love the unique color scheme! What a great app for toddlers who love animals and are learning the alphabet. Use it before or after a trip to the zoo! Keep reading my blog to find out when apps are offered for FREE.

ABC Expedition - Meldmedia Inc.

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Juno’s Musical ABCs

juno

Narrated by Brooke Shields, this e-book for the iPhone/iPad was created by Emmy Award winning composer, Belinda Takahashi. Kids join Juno and her friends on a musical journey through the alphabet. The book, written in rhyme, teaches kids what instruments look & sound like as well as some musical terminology. It has 3 reading modes: read it to me, read it myself, or autoplay.
Kids will enjoy interacting with the characters (who talk & move when touched) in this cute, colorful book. Nicely done – what a great ABC book to share with a music class!

Juno's Musical ABCs HD - The Juno Company

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The Chicken and the Egg

chicken

FREE for a limited time – The Chicken & the Egg is an interactive e-book written by Allan Plenderleith for the iPhone/iPad. It is the story of Flo, a little chicken, who just cannot lay an egg. One rainy night something happens… An object rolls down a hill and lands next to Flo who thinks it’s her egg. She loves her egg & takes very good care of it. Then one night a “dark thing” appears… Even though all ends well, read this one first before you share it with preschoolers. You know if your child is sensitive to stories with “scary” parts.

Teachers – this story is perfect for teaching prediction. I would stop the story when Flo wakes up next to “her egg” and have students predict what will happen next. Is it actually an egg? If so what will hatch out? There are lots of possibilities for creative writing with this story. Then read the rest of the story to see how the author finishes it. The story is cutely illustrated with delightful narration. Its interactivity adds to the story rather than distracting the reader from the story. Definitely worth downloading 🙂

The Chicken & the Egg HD - Plendy Entertainment