FREE for a limited time – The Tree I See, a storybook app for iPhone/iPad. Geared towards toddlers, this educational app tells a story about a little boy who spends time with a tree that willingly gives and shares with wilderness friends. The Tree I See is a beautifully animated story about sharing and what it means to be a friend. 🙂
FREE for a limited time – Quick Math – Arithmetic & Times Tables, an educational app that encourages math fluency in addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, & mixed operations. Kids race against the clock to improve their scores. Handwriting recognition allows the players to write the answers directly on the screen – a very slick feature. There are 4 game levels: beginner, intermediate, advance, and extreme. This app features LOTS of great practice for multiple levels of math students. It can be shared among students and it tracks each student’s progress – perfect for the classroom. The math gets progressively harder as students improve their skills. I love how the app encourages self-improvement and legible writing! Teachers could assign 10 minutes of practice each day for their students. I am sure the results would be significant. What a fabulous tool for the classroom – perfect for a daily warm-up, at a math center, or for fluency practice after completing an assignment.
Common Core Standards met:
Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/quick-math-arithmetic-times/id537802071?mt=8&uo=4
FREE today (normally $6.99) – Kid in Story Book Maker, a great app for creating personalized stories that support your child’s learning and social monitoring. It’s easy to make your child the star of the story with this app. One-of-a-kind technology (Locolens™ image detection ) makes it easy to superimpose your child onto the story backgrounds – similar to “green screening.” The app includes 8 story templates for you to customize with your own images, text, and narration. You can also create your own original stories by using the “Blank Story” template. Story templates included are – Faces I Make, Let’s Get a Haircut, Are Monsters Hiding in My Room?, A Day at the Movies, At the Playground, What Will I See in San Francisco?, and When Is It Time to Wash My Hands? The app also makes it super easy to share your creations via email and/or Dropbox. Parents, teachers, and/or language therapists – this app would be fabulous to support early literacy, establish routines, model social behaviors & emotions, and more! Most kids love being the star of their own story!
Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kid-in-story-book-maker/id594403164?mt=8&uo=4
If your kids LOVE Flat Stanley (and who doesn’t) you may want to check out the FREE version of this iPad app – Learn the Sates with Flat Stanley FREE. This FREE version of the app features states in the west coast region. The full version is currently on sale for $.99 and it features all 50 states.
A mail truck has lost its cargo! Kids slingshot Stanley to the proper state so that he can help deliver letters to students. Kids must identify each state by its location and shape. The app uses colored stars to indicate how many states were identified correctly on the first try. If your class is involved in the Flat Stanley project, or reads the Flat Stanley books, you may want to take a closer look at this app. 🙂
ABC ZooBorns for the iPhone/iPad is FREE for a limited time. The educational app is geared towards 3 – 5 year olds to teach them about 50+ baby animals. The app opens to a grid arranged in ABC order. Kids can tap on a letter to bring up baby animals that begin with that letter or they can tap on a specific baby animal. As a baby animal’s photo appears, a child’s voice says the initial letter then reads the name of the baby animal which appears in writing at the bottom of the screen. A little cartoon person drops down on the left hand side of the screen with a link to a video clip about that baby animal or an interactive scene for your child to explore. They can also scroll to the left for additional pictures & videos about each animal. If your child taps the exclamation point on each page, he/she will learn an interesting fact about the baby animal pictured.
This app needs an internet connection to work because the 100+ videos are actually links to You Tube videos. They are chosen by Peapod Labs and checked to be interesting and safe for kids. Kids cannot link from this app into other You Tube content. This app is nicely done and the facts make it interesting for adults too!
Highly recommended!
Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/abc-zooborns/id543646069?mt=8&uo=4
FREE for a limited time – Walter’s Flying Bus, a story inspired by the real-life dreams of Walter and his friends (orphaned, special needs children in Uganda.) Walter finds an abandoned bus. With his friends and a little work, the engine soon roars to life! This e-book is inspirational – a celebration of the talents & beauty of every child. It is narrated in English, Spanish and Luganda (a primary language of Uganda). The educational app also includes mini-documentaries of the real-life children featured in the book. According to the developer – “ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of after-tax profits from App sales go to efforts helping orphans with special needs, including advocacy, care, and adoption assistance grants.” Nice story with a great message!
FREE – ICDL (International Children’s Digital Library) – Free Books for Children. This app brings thousands of free children’s books from 60 different countries to the iPad – it’s truly a worldwide collection of books at your fingertips. Books can be searched in a variety of ways – by age appropriateness, length (short, medium, long), genre, ratings, awards, picture vs chapter, and more. You may register if you wish, but it is not necessary. Some advantages to registering include – saving favorite books on a personal bookshelf, returning to the last page that you were reading, and selecting the language you prefer to use.
The feature that I really like is the “Browse Exhibitions” section. The exhibitions are theme based collections of books from around the world. Examples of some current themes are: Celebrating Differences, Everyone Needs Water & Water Needs Everyone, and Forever Friendship. Within each exhibition is an overview of the theme, links to the books included, descriptions of why the books are included, and related activities (in pdf format). As the world becomes more mobile, school systems are facing language barriers. For example, Chicago Public Schools has over 70 languages spoken by their students. What an awesome resource to promote worldwide citizenship and understanding!
The mission of the International Children’s Digital Library Foundation (ICDL Foundation) is to support the world’s children in becoming effective members of the global community – who exhibit tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, languages and ideas — by making the best in children’s literature available online free of charge. The Foundation pursues its vision by building a digital library of outstanding children’s books from around the world and supporting communities of children and adults in exploring and using this literature through innovative technology designed in close partnership with children for children.
Read more @ http://en.childrenslibrary.org/
FREE today – the full versions of Grammar Wonderland (Primary) & Grammar Wonderland (Elementary). In both games kids lead their characters through different adventures as they practice nouns, verbs, adjectives, and more. The primary version is for younger children – the words are read and some levels include pictures. The app does not teach the parts of speech but it provides lots of practice for kids in a fun game-like environment. After teaching a lesson about parts of speech, teachers can have kids show what they know with this app. Practice is provided for the following: common nouns, proper, nouns, concrete nouns, abstract nouns, singular nouns, plural nouns, possessive nouns, pronouns, action verbs, present-tense verbs, past-tense verbs, future-tense verbs, linking verbs, adjectives, articles, comparative/superlative adjectives, and more! Many parts of speech are taught in both apps – perfect for differentiating your instruction for a variety of reading levels. Both also apps permit multiple player – great for the classroom!
Recommended!! – Download them today 🙂
Grammar Wonderland Primary 
Grammar Wonderland Elementary
FREE – The Winston Show, an adorable app for kids 6+. Winston (a self-proclaimed, yellow fellow) and his sidekick Ellington have created the first talk show starring you! Special guests include Blackbeard the Pirate, Marie Antoinette, and the Blue Whale. Kids visit 6 different studios within the app. In Studio 1, they become a contestant on a quiz show called Win with Winston. Studio 2 features Fireside Chats on a variety of kid-friendly subjects such as magic and chores. In Studios, 3 kids can choose to become the star in two movies: Squabble Among the Stars or Winston Sly, Private Eye. They battle colorful characters (such as Lewis & Clark) in Studio 4’s You vs., another game show. Studio 5 is the Costume Department where kids can play dress-up in an assortment of costumes. And finally, Studio 6 features the Writing Room where kids choose the path of a story. This app is fabulous helping kids with conversational language because the characters listen and talk back! This app is quite ingenious and it’s really fun – for kids and adults. Adults will love seeing kids interact with Winston and friends. And, they will understand all of the jokes. 🙂 Delightful!!
HIghly recommended!
Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/winston-show/id669541931?mt=8&uo=4
FREE for a limited time – Pocket Tunes, an app which puts a selection of classic cartoons literally in your pocket via your iPhone/iPad. Over 100 cartoons are available each time you open the app. The list changes periodically so that there is always new content. Check it out – you may enjoy it more than your kids do. 🙂
Teachers – the app also permits you to add your own YouTube educational playlists. There are step-by-step, visual directions available. Just press the i button next to Add Playlist to begin. I was able to go into Safari and add the whole School House Rock playlist (53 educational videos) into the Pocket Toons app. Your students can have access to these videos and you don’t have to worry about the other things they might find.
Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-toons-youtube-for-kids/id406165193?mt=8&uo=4
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