Category Archives: educational apps for kids

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Little Fox Music Box

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Old MacDonald

Mr. Fox’s Sound Studio

The winter version of Little Fox Music Box, an educational app for 2 – 6 year olds, is currently FREE. The app has been downloaded over a million times and was featured as Apple’s App of the Week. The artwork design is from Heidi Wittlinger, an Oscar nominated artist. The app includes 3 children’s songs: Old MacDonald, London Bridge, and Evening Song. Kids can also visit Mr. Fox’s sound studio which is full of 100+ interactive  surprises. The app includes a Karaoke mode and it can be switched from English to German. Kids will be delighted with this adorable app!

Highly recommended!

Little Fox Music Box – Kids songs – Sing along - Shape Minds and Moving Images GmbH

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Mystery Math Museum

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FREE today – Mystery Math Museum, a fun & educational app. Kids help a friendly ghost rescue fireflies hidden in the museum. Along the way, they use their math skills to unlock doors rooms and passages. The app permits multiple players with the ability to customize math skills for each player. Kids practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division by building equations. This app has lots of “kid appeal” – bonus challenges, fun rewards, not to mention its very cool interface. Highly recommended!!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mystery-math-museum/id640754583?mt=8&uo=4

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McGraw Hill books: Little Red Hen, Jack & the Beanstalk, Why the Sea is Salty, Country Mouse & City Mouse, Little Red Riding Hood

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FREE again today – five interactive readers for your iPad from McGraw Hill. All of these titles usually sell for $1.99. These classic children’s tales can be read in two ways: read aloud or read to myself. All five books are nicely illustrated and have animations/interactivity on each page. Sound effects and music are also included – both of  these features can be turned on or off. The stories are all great but I especially enjoyed the Little Red Hen. Download them today  – there is no reason to pass these up.  🙂


Little Red Hen - Interactive Reader - McGraw-Hill School Education Group  Little Red Hen      Jack and the Beanstalk from McGraw-Hill Education - McGraw-Hill School Education Group  Jack and the Beanstalk     Why the Sea Is Salty - McGraw-Hill School Education Group Why the Sea is Salty

Little Red Riding Hood from McGraw-Hill Education - McGraw-Hill School Education GroupLittle Red Riding Hood    Country Mouse and City Mouse - McGraw-Hill School Education Group Country Mouse/City Mouse

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PlaySquare presents WordWorld’s Happy Birthday Dog

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FREE for a limited time – PlaySquare is billed as Touchable Television. Children (ages 3 – 6) play and learn words and letters as the play in Word World. In the first episode, Happy Birthday Dog, Dog thinks that everyone has forgotten his birthday. Kids are engaged in the story as they help gather things for a birthday party to surprise Dog.

There are so many wonderful things about this app. It is colorful and engaging. Early literacy skills (letter recognition, letter sound, word building, word recognition) are developed throughout the story. The characters are funny and lovable. But the best part is of the app is how the developers (media experts from Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop, LeapFrog, and MIT) have used the letters of the word to form the object being spelled – very clever! I LOVE this app!!

Watch the video from the developers @ http://playsquare.tv/

Highly recommended

PlaySquare presents WordWorld's Happy Birthday Dog - PlaySquare, LLC

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The Lonely Beast ABC

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FREE for a limited time – The Lonely Beast ABC, an educational app based on Chris Judge’s well-loved children’s book. Kids will be delighted with their hands-on adventure through the ABCs which features 26 fun & interactive scenes. Every letter has something to play with – switchable hats for H, a zoo for Z, twirling ties for T, a playable xylophone for X, etc. The app is top-notch. It is visually appealing with visual & audio feedback, great sound effects & music, plus it is really fun!! Highly recommended.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-lonely-beast-abc/id488126177?mt=8&uo=4

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Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flop Farm

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FREE for a limited time – Flip Flap Farm an educational app inspired by an original storybook. What do you get when you cross a dog with a turkey? A durkey. A sheep with a pig? A shig. Kids swipe through halves of animals and choose 2 of them to create a new animal. The result is 121 different combinations that will make preschoolers giggle. The app features original artwork and poems for each new creature which can be enjoyed in two modes – Read and Play or Read Myself. Little ones will have lots of fun with this creatively silly app. Teachers of older students might want to use this app to inspire kids to write their own creative books – Flip Flap Jungle, Flip Flap Desert, etc. 🙂

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/axel-schefflers-flip-flap/id681875831?mt=8&uo=4

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Curious George at the Zoo

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Curious George at the Zoo is currently FREE (again) for iPhone/iPad. Designed for preschoolers, this educational app has kids helping Curious George wake, clean, and feed animals in the zoo. Introduced by the Man with the Yellow Hat (of course), the app then asks your child where he/she would like to go. But, buyer beware  –  there is only one section of zoo (Sunny Safari) included with the initial purchase of the app – normally $.99.

There are 5 animals for kids to learn about in this app – the hippo. giraffe, lion, parrot, and elephant. First they wake the animal up, then they clean it and feed it – fairly simple activities. Also included are age-appropriate video clips about each animal. Kids can play a game (Safari Showers) and collect stickers.

I have always loved Curious George books – the stories are timeless and can be enjoyed by kids from preschool through first/second grade. The simplicity of this app makes it most appropriate for Curious George’s youngest fans (2 – 3 year olds). I am disappointed that kids are given “a choice” of where they would like go in the app when there is only one area available without additional purchases. Choices are presented in a cute pop-up book but 3 out of 4 pages are covered by a huge “tap here to purchase” button. It feels similar to having the candy in the checkout line of the grocery story. That being said, if you have a 2 – 3 year old that loves Curious George, you may want to download this app.

Curious George at the Zoo for iPad - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Animal Game Show – Whose Toes are Those? – Matching Fun for Kids and Family – Ultimate Edition

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toes

FREE again – the full version of Whose Toes are Those, a very cute app for preschoolers. The app has a game show host, music, and an audience. Kids (contestants) have to identify which animal/person is behind the curtain by their toes. If the child chooses correctly, the animal/person does a silly dance – really cute and sure to bring some giggles! Little ones will have fun building their matching skills with this app!!

Animal Game Show - Whose Toes are Those? - Matching Fun for Kids and Family - Ultimate Edition - Eggroll Games LLC

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Pan: The Fearless Beribot and Pan: Chasing the Keeper

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Pan: The Fearless Beribot and Pan: Chasing the Keeper, are FREE for a limited time. These e-books are the first two books in a series about Pan, a sweet purple panda on a quest to find her family. Both apps are beautifully illustrated and full of animations & interactivity. Kids can tap, swipe, and tilt their way throughout the story to uncover many interactive surprises. Highlighted text helps early readers. Also, pictures of the characters appear next to the text to indicate who is speaking. The app is professionally narrated with great sound effects and original music. No wonder the first Pan book was named as “New & Noteworthy” by Apple – these apps are beautifully done!!

Download links:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pan-the-fearless-beribolt/id648998642?mt=8&uo=4

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pan-chasing-the-keeper/id729686081?mt=8&uo=4

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Shadow Puppet

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Shadow Puppet

FREE for a limited time – Shadow Puppet, a photography app that was featured by Apple as one of the “Best New Apps” for 4 weeks in a row! 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.

And… 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. What a fabulous resource!!

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