Category Archives: FREE apps (for a limited time)

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Disney American Presidents

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presidents

Happy Presidents’ Day! Disney American Presidents, an award-winning educational app is free for a limited time only! Kids flip through the Unofficial Oval Office Scrapbook to learn about the American Presidency. The app includes more than 2 hours of presidential profiles which are entertainingly funny and historically accurate. Kids can flip through the app in chronological order or they can look at the presidents by era. The music, art styles, etc. of each era are also included to help kids gain a greater understanding of each time period. Each President (from Washington to Obama) has his own two-page spread, with fun interactive elements that link to interesting facts about his presidency. The app features presidential historians from the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress as well as experts/White House insiders like Wesley Clark & Sam Donaldson. It’s Airplay enabled – perfect for classrooms presentations. The app was listed as: Parent’s Choice Award Winner, Entertainment Weekly’s Best of 2012: The 10 Best Apps Of The Year, Scholastic Instructor – 50 Best Apps for Teachers. Highly recommended for a fun and factual look at history!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/disney-american-presidents/id559557889?mt=8&uo=4

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Beck and Bo by Avokiddo

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Beck & Bo

FREE today only – Beck and Bo by Avokiddo, a beautifully designed educational app for toddlers. The app consists of 12 interactive scenes that come to life – one piece at a time. Kids build animated scenes by dragging & dropping items to their proper places. As they do so, they learn the name & sound of each item. The multi-sensory scene comes alive – piece by piece! After each scene is completed, kids gain access to an interactive album for that scene. In that album they can view all the scene’s items, listen to their names & sounds, and see how the words are spelled. Kids will love the adventures of Beck and Bo as they join them on a beach, in the city, on a safari, for a swim in the ocean, at a theme park, and more. As they play, they will be learning vocabulary, making associations, and recognizing cause & effect. Beck and Bo is digital play at its best!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beck-and-bo-by-avokiddo/id557624393?mt=8&uo=4

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Star Rover HD – Stargazing and Night Sky Watching

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star rover

FREE for Valentine’s Day – Star Rover HD – Stargazing and Night Sky Watching. If you want to learn more about the sky, this is the app for you! Just hold your iPad up to the sky and Star Rover will identify what you are seeing – the stars, moons, planets, constellations in their proper place. Star Rover finds your location and updates your view of the sky as you move your iPad. The app features over 120,000 stars, 88 constellations, planets & their moons, moon phases, the Milky Way, and more. You’ll see twinkling stars, images of beautiful nebulae, eclipse simulations, sunrises and sunsets – a planetarium in your pocket. 🙂

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-rover-hd-stargazing-night/id437217048?mt=8&uo=4

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Strawberry Shortcake Berryfest Princess

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Strawberry

FREE for a limited time – Strawberry Shortcake Berryfest Princess from Cupcake Digital. Kids join Strawberry Shortcake & her friends as they plan the Berryfest Ball in this cute story about friendship and working together. The story is filled with fun animations and it has 3 after-reading activities: Tea Party, Crochet, and Coloring. The Tea Party game has kids helping to set the table and the Crochet game asks kids to complete words by finding the missing letter. There are 6 pictures and a blank page for kids to color in the app’s Coloring section. There is also a Grown Up’s Corner which has 2 sets of questions about the story. The questions address literal understanding of the story (thin questions) as well as extended meaning (fat questions). Also included in the Grown-Up Corner is information about the Common Core Standards addressed by this app which are predominately kindergarten standards. Print-outs and activities to supplement the story are available online at cupcakedigital.com.  This educational app is a must-have for Strawberry Shortcake fans!!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/strawberry-shortcake-berryfest/id735298184?mt=8&uo=4

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Make-a-Mosaic

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Make a mosaic

FREE for a limited time – Make-a-Mosaic, an educational app for creating beautiful mosaic pictures/patterns. The app has 3 modes: create a picture/pattern, vertical symmetry, horizontal symmetry. The “create a picture/pattern” mode is for free play. Both of “symmetry” modes display a line of symmetry on the board. As kids add tiles to one side of the board, the app automatically adds them to the other side to create perfectly symmetrical patterns. What a fabulous tool for teaching symmetry in the classroom! Kids can really see what it means to be symmetrical. All modes have kids placing tiles (14 different shapes/14 different colors) on a board to create their pictures/patterns. The user can also change the background color of the tiles to create more detailed pictures. Creations can be saved to the camera roll. Once they are in the camera roll, they can be pulled into other apps to write about them. Teachers can also use this app to teach kids about patterns. Nicely done!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/make-a-mosaic/id517593184?mt=8&uo=4

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DinoBoy Adventures

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dinoboy

FREE for a limited time – DinoBoy Adventures, a unique interactive book. In this first adventure DinoBoy moves from the country to the big city. It’s his first night there and he notices a big yellow slide out his bedroom window. So… he sneaks out to try it. This app really gets kids involved in the story – in 3 unique ways. As the they read the story or have the story read to them, kids must discover the interactive element on each page that moves the story forward. They do things like: switch on a light, unzip a door, change the traffic lights to green, etc. Then they get to choose one of 3 pets (dog, cat or bird) to join DinoBoy on his adventure. Finally, kids get to choose the place for DinoBoy to visit – a museum, a toy store, or a playground. Kids will love choosing a different pet and/or place to change the story each time they read it. The artwork is also unique –  a fun combination of the drawings & photos. Kids will want to read and interact with this story over and over again! Get it today and look for DinoBoy’s next adventure.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dinoboy-adventures/id455138887?mt=8&uo=4

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Phonics Tic Tac Toe Interactive Game

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tic tac toe

FREE for a limited time – Phonics Tic Tac Toe for the iPhone/iPad. This game reviews letter sounds (vowels, vowel combinations, consonant, consonant combinations) and syllables in a tic, tac, toe format. There is a lot of great phonics practice in this educational app. I really like that the app varies the placement of the missing sounds – at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the word. I also like how the app uses words with the same letters making different sounds. Since there is no sound, kindergarten/first graders might need help reading the questions. However, it would be perfect for independent practice for most second/third graders. Teachers could use it in a learning center, as independent seatwork with a friend, for small group intervention, etc. I only wish it had the option of having the questions read aloud for younger students. That being said, this app is definitely worth downloading!!

Common Core Standards met:

  • K. RF.3 – Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary sound or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant. Associate the short sounds with common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.
  • 1.RF.3/2.RF.3/3.RF.3/4.RF.3/5.RF.3 – Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.

Phonics Tic-Tac-Toe Interactive Game - Lakeshore Learning Materials

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PEEP and the Big Wide World apps

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FREE for a limited time – 6 PEEP and the Big Wide World apps from WGBH, the producers of the animated series of the same name. Major funding for these educational apps is provided by the National Science Foundation. These apps are designed to teach science to preschoolers (3 – 5 years) in a cute, fun way! The games begin simply but become more challenging as kids are successful. Each app also includes a “Try This Anywhere Activity” for you and your children to do together based on the lesson in the app. Your child will LOVE learning with Peep and friends. And you will too!

PEEP - House Hunt

PEEP and the Big Wide World House Hunt: Kids turn over leaves to pair animals with their homes in a match game that demonstrates that some habitats are home to many different animals.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/peep-big-wide-world-house/id536554271?mt=8&uo=4

PEEP - Hide & peep

PEEP and the Big Wide World Hide and Peep: Peep and friends are hiding in the tool shed. This app helps kids practice their observation and memory skills.

Download link:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/peep-big-wide-world-hide-peep/id536312346?mt=8&uo=4

Peep - Paint Splat

PEEP and the Big Wide World Paint Splat: Kids join two quirky characters named Quack & Chirp to experiment with mixing colors in a fun, silly way!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/peep-big-wide-world-paint/id536621786?mt=8&uo=4

Peep - Sounds

PEEP and the Big Wide World Sounds Like Fun!: Kids explore music and sounds as they mix and match sounds with this app. The characters represent different musical rhythms.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/peep-big-wide-world-sounds/id536623915?mt=8&uo=4

Peep - trash

PEEP and the Big Wide World Trash Stash: Kids practice their categorization skills by sorting objects using increasingly sophisticated criteria.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/peep-big-wide-world-trash/id536624731?mt=8&uo=4

Peep - Quack's Apples

PEEP and the Big Wide World Quack’s Apples: Kids roll Quack’s apples into a pond – testing and tweaking the design of their route as often as needed. As they play, they are practicing the engineering design process!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/peep-big-wide-world-quacks/id536623428?mt=8&uo=4

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BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr.

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BrainPOP has been around for more than a decade as an educational website. The site features short animated movies – 750+ lessons covering science, social studies, math, art & music, etc. The content is geared for grades 4 and above but I found that many movies were also suitable for third graders. When I was in the classroom, it was one of my favorite online resources.

Now you can download the BrainPOP Featured Movie, the educational app for FREE! Your child can learn something new every day. After watching the daily movie there is a short interactive quiz. And… if your child can’t get enough of this app, there are two subscription options: $1.99 per month/ 4 movies & quizzes a day OR $6.99 per month/full access.

Teachers could add the BrainPOP movie of the day to their daily routine. Watch it at a transition time – right before lunch, after lunch, while waiting for buses to called, etc. Interesting and educational!!

Highly Recommended!

BrainPOP Featured Movie - BrainPOP®

Also available for FREE is BrainPOP Jr. Movie of the Week, another educational app. Every week Annie and Moby (two lovable characters) help 5 to 9 year olds learn about a different subject. There is also a quiz and activities to accompany each animated movie. BrainPOP Jr. has been on the web since 2006 delivering content for younger students in science, social studies, reading, writing, math, and more.

Again, teachers could add the BrainPOP Jr. Movie of the Week to their routine. Start your Monday off with the “Movie of the Week” or use it on Friday. BrainPOP gives teachers another way spark kids interest in learning!

Highly recommended!

BrainPOP Jr. Movie of the Week - BrainPOP®

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The Tree I See

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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.  🙂

The Tree I See - Interactive Storybook - Aridan Books