Category Archives: FREE apps (for a limited time)

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Star Rover HD

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Star Rover HD

FREE today only – Star Rover HD. This educational app turns your iPad into a planetarium. Just open the app, hold your iPad up to the sky, and it will identify what you see. Star Rover calculates all sky objects in real-time so the objects on the screen are exactly the same as the real ones. Features include: 120,000+ stars, 88 constellations, planets & their moons, moon phases, a realistic Milky Way and so much more. There is also a complete user guide available on the support website. This app has great ratings – 4.5 stars after 300+ reviews. Very cool – I plan on trying it out this evening. 🙂

Star Rover HD - Explore the Universe - EEFan Inc.

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Let’s Learn How to Draw

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Let's Learn How to Draw

FREE today only – Let’s Learn How to Draw.This educational app provides interactive drawing lessons for kids. Lessons are taught by breaking the drawings into individual strokes. Kids build their drawings one stroke at a time by following the app’s visual and written instructions. There is an “assist mode” that automatically corrects the strokes as they are made. The assist mode can also be turned off so that the child can practice drawing on their own. Personally, I prefer this option. 🙂 Both modes have lightly dotted lines for the child to draw over. There are currently 4 modules of this app – monsters, trains, and dogs. Each module has five lessons with slightly increasing difficulty; but, all lessons are fairly simple with step-by-step instructions. Kids can also color their creations when they are finished drawing. The app also includes a scratchpad for open-ended drawing and coloring. Finished creations can be exported into your photos. This app is a nicely done for your budding artist! FREE today – tomorrow it will be back to $1.99.

Let's Learn How To Draw - Playtend Apps LLP

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Baby View

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Baby View

FREE for a limited time – Baby View, an educational app for babies. This app features black and white images for baby’s developing vision. The app also includes movement and sound to catch your baby’s interest. The menu includes 11 high-contrast black & white screens and 11 color screens. The auto-mode cycles through the screens with no need to touch. Or… you can play with the interactive scenes while your baby watches and learns to help. This app is an electronic version of a toy I had in my baby’s crib for visual stimulation!

Baby View - Wayne Smith

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Play 123

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FREE again – Play 123, an educational iPad app for preschoolers and toddlers. Shapes, colors, and numbers come alive in this app from CJ Educations. Included in the “Best of 2012” in Australia/New Zealand App Store, it has 10 activities that teach colors, shapes and numbers to preschool-aged children. Kids learn about opposite and similar colors as well as mixing colors. They draw circles, squares, triangles and lines. The numbers 1 – 5 are  also taught. It’s simply done but appealing and engaging. It is definitely worth downloading. Your little one will be delighted!

PLAY123 - CJ Educations

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American History Time Line

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FREE again for a limited time from McGraw Hill – American History Timeline. Kids can navigate the timeline to read about the hundreds of important people, places, and events that have shaped American history. When kids tap on a thumbnail photo, this educational app brings up a larger image and an explanation of the person, place, or event. The majority  of the drawings/photos used are from Library of Congress. There are 7 categories (such as women, inventors, constitution, etc.) that can be turned on and off so kids can see figures and/or events specific to that category. World events are also included on a parallel timeline. Two games are included: Time Line Scramble and Memory. Kids sequence events in the correct order with the Time Line Scramble Game. In the Memory Game, they match the correct date with the correct event or person.

I really like the design of the app – the ability to customize what categories you want to look at, the authenticity of the drawings/photos, the parallel world history timeline for comparison. It would be great for teaching kids read or create timelines. I only wish that it included more. Hopefully the developers will add more information in updates.

American History Time Line - McGraw-Hill School Education Group

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Draw Along with Stella and Sam for iPad

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FREE for a limited time – Draw Along with Stella & Sam, an adorable & educational app for preschoolers. This app is based on the television show and book series by Marie-Louise Gay. The Stella and Sam books have been translated into 15 languages and have sold over a million copies. Disney Junior Canada sponsored a Draw Along Contest using this app last summer. Winners were featured on a special Stella and Sam event. What a cool opportunity for kids!

Kids choose one of 10 shapes to color, stamp, and/or add pictures to. Finalized creations can be shared with family and friends as images or animated videos clips. Here is a link to a You Tube video showing how this app works: Draw Along with Stella and Sam for iPad – YouTube.

5 other Stella and Sam Adventures are available on iTunes and are sold for $2.99 each: Into the Snow We Go, Rainy Days and Rainbows, Backyard at Twilight, Go There Square, Cocoons and Caterpillars. OR… you can purchase all 5 titles for $6.99  in the Stella and Sam Story Pack. These apps are also supported in French. Don’t miss this one!!

Highly Recommended for preschoolers.

Draw Along with Stella and Sam - zinc Roe

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123 Color HD, Premium Edition, Talking Coloring Book

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123 Color HD

123 Color HD, Premium Edition, Talking Coloring Book – FREE today only. This educational app will be back up to $7.99 tomorrow!

123 Color uses freestyle finger painting to teach numbers, letters (upper and lower case), and colors. The app can be set to be spoken in English, Spanish, French, and German. It comes with American English. Other languages require a free download. The app has 3 games – paint by letter, paint by number, and paint by color. Proper spelling of number and color names are displayed in the selected language. Each game features a themed artwork (shapes, winter, fall), music, sound effects, and animations. As kids correctly color the pictures they earn stars to purchase additional games. There are also in-app purchases available. Nicely done app for little ones!

123 Color HD, Premium Edition, Talking Coloring Book - Steve Glinberg

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Sand Drawing

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Sand Drawing

FREE for a limited time – Sand Drawing by Timbuktu. Kids can relax on the virtual beach by drawing in the sand. The app comes with 3 drawing tools and 12 decorations that kids choose to mix, rotate and resize. I wish sand drawings could be saved – then kids’ drawings could be pulled into a story writing app. Perhaps “saving” will be possible in an updated version. Waves clear the beach so to make way for new creations. Simple to use and fun!

Sand Drawing - by Timbuktu - Timbuktu Labs, Inc.

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Hopscotch HD

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Hopscotch HD

FREE for a limited time – Hopscotch HD, an educational app that teaches kids how to program their own games and animations! Introduce kids to computer science with this app. 🙂 Kids drag and drop “method blocks” into scripts. When they are done, they can press play to see their code in action! Why teach kids coding? According to the developer – there will be about 1.4 million computer jobs by 2020 and only 400,000 computer science students. Many coders first fell in love with coding when they were  8-12 year old children. Hopscotch is based on a visual programming language named Scratch which was developed by MIT. It promotes STEM education (science, technology, engineering and math) in a fun way – by making coding kid-friendly!  LOVE it!!

Hopscotch HD - Hopscotch Technologies

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ClickyySticky Superheroes

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ClickySticky Superheroes

Free for a limited time – ClickySticky™ Superheroes, an animated sticker app. The app has 4 great scenes: Save the Day, Create a Super-Car, Super Power, and Superhero Dress-up. Kids use an assortment of stickers to create a scene. Many of the stickers are animated and/or include sound effects – a twisting tornado, flashing lightning, crashing cars, etc. Please note that this app includes a few stickers that some parents/teachers may find objectionable (a character with a laser gun, fireballs, etc.) and I did not see an option to remove individual stickers in the settings. Once the scene is finished, kids can make it come to life by tapping the play button – VERY fun technology!! Scenes can be saved to your photo library or emailed. So… you can pull the scenes into a story creating app and write a superhero adventure. How fun (and educational) is that!!

ClickySticky Superheroes - Merge Mobile