Category Archives: FREE apps (for a limited time)

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Pillowcapers: A Sleepy Adventure

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pillowcapers

FREE for a limited time – Pillowcapers: A Sleepy Adventure, a super-cute book about a super hero. Sam receives a seemingly ordinary, striped pillow case for his birthday. That night his pillow transforms him into a masked, caped hero with special powers. He becomes part of S.H.H.H. (Society of Heroes, Heroines, and Haberdasher) and uses special powers to battle an army of robotic clowns in his town. The action-packed story features fun animations on every page. Additional actions can be triggered by tapping on the screen when the narration for that page is finished. Check out this beautifully illustrated & animated adventure for the little super hero in your life. It is the first in a planned series for kids 3 – 8 years old.
Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pillowcapers-sleepy-adventure/id739660071?mt=8&uo=4

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Word Wizard – Talking Movable Alphabet

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word wizard

FREE today, for the first time – Word Wizard – Talking Movable Alphabet. This educational app features advanced text to speech capabilities to help kids with reading and spelling. Emergent readers can utilize the phonics movable alphabet to explore and play with words and sentences. As they do so, the app pronounces and spell-checks their work. Consonant letters are blue and vowels are red – helping kids to become aware of the differences. The short pronunciation of the vowels is featured as the letters are moved onto the board. Once a word is spelled, the app changes the vowel’s pronunciation for that word if necessary. If a word is not recognized by the app, it is still pronounced (according to the rules of phonics) but it is highlighted in red. How cool is that?!

Word Wizard can also be used for spelling practice. The app features lists of words – more than 1,400 words in all. I love that it includes the 1000 most frequently used words. Learning to recognize these words is important to a child’s overall reading fluency. The app also lets you add your own word lists. Teachers can add in their weekly spelling list and track the progress of their students. Reports can be emailed from teacher to parent or from parent to teacher. There are lots of possibilities for using this app – teach letter sounds, explore word patterns, small group word building, spelling practice, the list goes on… It’s no wonder that this app was featured in the New York Times, featured by Apple as “New and Noteworthy” and named a winner of a Parents’ Choice Award.
Highly recommended!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/word-wizard-talking-movable/id447312716?mt=8&uo=4

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Fractions – by Brainingcamp

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fractions

FREE until January 17  – Fractions by Brainingcamp, an excellent educational app for teaching fractions. The app covers 7 topics: introduction to fractions, equivalent fractions, common denominators, comparing/ordering fractions, adding/subtracting fractions, multiplying fractions, and dividing fractions. Each topic includes: a narrated lesson (with visual models), virtual manipulatives for kids to explore, practice questions to check understanding, and a challenging game for additional practice. Kids earn badges as they work through the components of each topic.

WOW – I love everything about this app. The lessons are wonderful. The manipulatives are designed to promote understanding of the concepts presented. The practice questions give students and their teachers a check of their understanding. And, the challenging games helps kids further master the topic. It would be a fabulous for grades 3 and beyond!

Common Core State Standards met:

  • 3.NF.1. Understand a fraction 1/b as the quantity formed by 1 part when a whole is partitioned into b equal parts; understand a fraction a/b as the quantity formed by a parts of size 1/b.
  • 3.NF.3 – Explain equivalence of fractions and compare fractions by reasoning about their size. Understand two fractions as equivalent (equal) if they are the same size. Recognize and generate simple equivalent fractions, e.g., 1/2 = 2/4, 4/6 = 2/3).
  • 4.NF.3 – a. Understand addition and subtraction of fractions as joining and separating parts referring to the same whole.
  • 5.NF.3 – Interpret a fraction as division of the numerator by the denominator (a/b = a ÷ b).

Highly Recommended!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fractions-by-brainingcamp/id471353363?mt=8&uo=4

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Counting Dots

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Counting Dots

FREE again – Counting Dots, an educational app for young iPad users. Kids learn to recognize/count numbers by popping colorful dots in this simple but visually appealing game. The app has three settings – counting by one, fives, or tens. There are also settings for sound, hinting, and enabling vibrations (iPhone only). The app is advertised as helping kids count from one to a million. I counted by ones to 20 and by tens to 100  – didn’t quite make it to a million. 🙂 This app is by the same developer that did Rain Dots (see my March 1 review). Recommended!

Counting Dots - Helping kids count from one to one million! - Ellie's Games, LLC

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Fiete

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Fiete

FREE today – Fiete, an interactive picture book for 1 – 3 year olds. Kids help Fiete with his everyday tasks as they put tires on a car, pop a balloon with a pin, plant a seed, load a ship, etc. There are 17 interactive scenes and 3 memory games in this educational app. There are no written instructions which makes it suitable for a wide range of kids. The app is very intuitive – little ones can easily figure out how they are supposed to help Fiete. The cute, hand-drawn illustrations & animations are accompanied by relevant sound effects. The developers of this app created it for their own children so the app is ad-free and does not contain any in-app purchases or external links. It’s a perfect choice for the youngest iPhone/iPad users!!

Fiete - Wolfgang Schmitz

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Word Games: Brain Chain & Hollow Words

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brain chain

FREE today – Brain Chain, fun rhyming puzzles for kids of all ages. Each puzzle graphically represents two words that don’t necessarily go together; but, they rhyme. The letters needed to solve the puzzle are shown along the bottom. Just tap the letters in the correct order to solve the rhyme. Points are awarded for each puzzle that is completed correctly. If a player needs a hint, he/she can buy one with points. The first two puzzle sets are free. Additional sets can be unlocked with the player’s points or with in-app purchases. Kids will discover that some rhyming words look-alike (because of their spelling) and some rhyming words only sound alike. It would be fun to use these puzzles with kids then have them make up some of their own. 🙂 They remind me of hinky-pinky riddles which were always great for teaching kids about rhyming & syllables.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brain-chain/id680239315?mt=8&uo=4

hollow words

Also FREE today – Hollow Words, another fun puzzle game from the same developer. Each puzzle graphically represents a common word or phrase. As the puzzles are correctly solved, points are awarded. Hints can be purchased if a player becomes stuck. The first two puzzle sets are free. Additional sets can be unlocked with points or with in-app purchases. I LOVE these kinds of puzzles. They’re fun and make kids think. I wish the app permitted you to go back and revisit the completed sets. It would be fun to review them and discuss what the different phrases mean. Then kids could take other common phrases and try to come up with some of their own. 🙂

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hollow-words/id689596858?mt=8&uo=4

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That’s Baloney! Kids Quiz Game

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That's Baloney

FREE for a limited time – That’s Baloney! Kids Quiz Game, an app based on the best-selling card game by Edupress™. This educational app features almost 2,500 quiz statements for grades 2 – 6. Kids show off their trivia skills by determining whether the statements are true or baloney. The game can be set to 5 different categories: language arts, math, science, social studies, or mystery meat. Each snack round features 10 questions. Sandwich rounds can be set for 20 or 40 questions. Some examples of the facts/trivia included are: 8 is an ordinal number; An average American has about 20 square feet of skin, weighing about 8 pounds; The zip code 55555 belongs to Young America, Minnesota. Kids must answer carefully because the game is over if they lose 4 or 5 pickles along the way. This app is cutely deigned and appealing to kids – a fun educational app!

Teachers, this app would be a great time-filler for your classroom – perfect for the end of the day, right before lunch, while your waiting to be called to an assembly, etc.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/thats-baloney!-kids-quiz-game/id674156832?mt=8&uo=4

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Scanner Pro

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scanner

Get digitally organized in the new year!

Apple’s App of the Week and FREE for a limited time – Scanner Pro by Readdle. This easy-to-use app turns your iPhone/iPad into a portable scanner. You can scan documents, sketches, whiteboards, receipts, etc. The app uses edge detection and image processing to scan items quickly and save them as PDF files. Once your digital file has been created, it can be uploaded to Dropbox, Evernote, or Google Drive. You can also save, print, or email your scanned documents. There are so many uses for this app especially when you use it with other apps/software. Get it while it is FREE because it is normally listed at $6.99.

Teachers could use this app to digitize student files then upload the files into Evernote to create digital student portfolios. Whoohoo – how organized is that!?

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scanner-pro-by-readdle/id333710667?mt=8&uo=4

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iReward Chart: Reward Tracker Behavior Chore Chart for Parents

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FREE today – iReward Chart, an app that tracks your child’s behaviors & responsibilities. This app was featured on the Today Show, CNN-Money, the CNET Top 5, and AOL ParentDish Top 10. It is very simple to set up. Just type in your child’s name and check the behaviors/tasks you would like on the chart. Or, you can customize the chart by adding your own behaviors, tasks, healthy habits, responsibilities, etc. Then just tap a star for each day to reward that behavior. As the week progresses, the app keeps track of cumulative points. If you press balance, there is an option to payout the points. The app suggests rewards or you can create your own custom rewards. It also has sync services so that parents can share their charts across devices. The developers seem to have thought of everything. 🙂

What do I love about this app? I love that kids get double points for manners. I love that parents can customize the behaviors/responsibilities that they want to reinforce. I love that the rewards and the points to earn those rewards can be customized. Your child can work towards earning something he/she really wants. If you are looking for a method to keep track of your child’s behaviors, look no further. Try this basic version today.

The basic version of the app supports one child with 4 behaviors/tasks per week. There is a premium version available for $3.99 ( in-app purchase) that allows unlimited children and tasks.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/irewardchart-reward-tracker/id580042542?mt=8&uo=4

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Path On – Swipe to Type

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Path On

FREE today – Path On, a must-have app with many creative uses!! What does Path On do? It permits you to put text in a path across photos from your albums or taken with your device’s camera. It’s extremely simple to use. Text can be typed in a free path, square, circle, paragraph or spiral. You can also change font styles, colors, and effects. Path On is classified as a photo & video app but there are so many possibilities for using this app in education. Kids could type descriptions of themselves on their pictures, write poetry to go with an image, take photos then point out geometric shapes found in their environment, write a thank you note on a picture of them with the gift, create a timeline by using a series of pictures, create a travel log of the family vacation, and on and on and on. Creations can be saved and shared via Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Twitter & email. WOW – what a fabulous tool!!

Path on - Peta Vision