Category Archives: FREE apps for kids

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ABC Aquarium

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abc aquarium

FREE for a limited time – ABC Aquarium for the iPhone/iPad introduces your toddler (3 – 5) to the marine world through sight, sound, and touch. This educational app opens to a grid arranged in ABC order. Kids can tap on a letter to find marine creatures that begin with that letter or they can tap on a specific creature to learn about it. As a photo appears, a child’s voice says the initial letter then reads the name of the creature (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 or an interactive scene. The child can scroll to the left for additional pictures and videos about each creature. Also included are fun facts (written and spoken) for each entry. The app can be used in English, Spanish, or dual language mode (permits switching back & forth between the two languages) – a VERY cool feature.

This app needs an internet connection to work because the 100+ videos are actually links from You Tube. 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  – great for building vocabulary and beginning to read/spell words.

Also check out my review of ABC Wildlife and ABC House by the same developers :)

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Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Movie Storybook

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Cloudy

FREE for a limited time – Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Movie Storybook, a narrated educational app based on the book/movie of the same name. Kids join Flint Lockwood & friends in this educational app. Flint invents a machine that turns water into food to help turn the town into a thriving “food tourism” destination. Eventually the food mutates until a tornado formed of spaghetti and meatballs threatens the town! The app also includes an activity book – available for only $.99 as an in-app purchase. Nicely done!!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cloudy-chance-meatballs-movie/id703020863?mt=8&uo=4

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Fetch! Lunch Rush

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From our friends at PBS comes Fetch! Lunch Rush, a very unique FREE math game app for iPhone/iPad.  In this multi-player game, it is the students’ task to keep up with the lunch orders from Ruff Ruffman’s movie crew. The challenge is to keep track of how many pieces of sushi everyone wants by adding and subtracting. Before the game begins, game pieces have to be printed from the PBS website and distributed around the room. As the sushi orders come in, students have to find the game piece with the correct answer to the problem. Using the camera lens on their device, they focus in on then tap the sushi. The sushi pieces magically move to the table in front of their character (as seen above). Students have to think fast and keep moving to fill all of the sushi orders before their friends do. What a fun educational app!

Common Core Standards met:

  • 1.OA.6 – Add and subtract within 20, demonstrating fluency for addition and subtraction within 10.
  • 2.OA.2 – Fluently add and subtract within 20 using mental strategies. By end of Grade 2, know from memory all sums of two one-digit numbers.

Highly recommended!

FETCH! LUNCH RUSH - PBS KIDS

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Miku’s Picnic and Squiggles – apps by Lazoo

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Miku's Picnic

FREE again for a limited time – Miku’s Picnic, an adorable interactive story designed to to support creative thinking. Kids join Bobu, the monkey & Miku, the rabbit on a chase after some jumping beans. The two need help capturing the beans before they bounce away! Along the way kids learn about using their imaginations and creative problem solving as the Bobu & Moku use “Squiggles” to… make a car go faster, make springs to get to the top of a tree, make binoculars to look for the beans, make a rocket zoom to the moon, and more. This educational app has 2 reading modes – “Read to Me” and “Read it Myself” as well as an option to record your own voice as the narrator. The story ends with a link to the FREE Squiggles app for kids so kids can “take a turn” drawing. Super creative and super cute!

Download link for Miku’s Picnic: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lazoo-mikus-picnic/id652945863?mt=8&uo=4

squiggles

Squiggles – This FREE educational app for the iPad is adorable! Kids are encourages to draw squiggles to create: rain clouds (to water flowers), waves (to help fish swim), wool on sheep, cotton candy, etc. Once the squiggles are drawn, they press GO and the drawings come alive. The app includes an interactive storybook and an animated short which introduces the characters – Bobu, the monkey  & Miku, the rabbit. It also includes 14 drawing pages (just add the squiggles) as well as a blank page for your child to create his/her own pictures. Tools included are stickers, markers, paint, chalk, a ketchup bottle, as well as 10 colors & a mystery color wheel. Work can be saved into the gallery of the parents’ section by pressing the piggy bank. This app is super cute!! It encourages children to be imaginative & creative – one of my favorites. 🙂

Highly recommended!

Squiggles! - Lazoo Worldwide, Inc

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Let’s Color

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FREE again for a limited time – Let’s Color, another educational app from the makers of Squiggles. And just like Squiggles, Let’s Color encourages creativity! The app includes an animated short in which the characters – Bobu, the monkey  & Miku, the rabbit use their imaginations to turn triangles into a strawberry, a dog, a mountain, etc. Then kids are encouraged to color different things to complete a page: what is coming out of a hose, who is riding in the train, etc. Once the coloring is completed, they press GO and the drawings come alive. There are 17 coloring pages as well as a blank page for your child to create his/her own pictures. Additional coloring pages can be purchased within the app. Tools included are stickers, markers, paint, chalk, a ketchup bottle, as well as 10 colors & a mystery color wheel. Work can be saved into the gallery of the parents’ section by pressing the piggy bank. This app is super cute!! Just like Squiggles, it encourages children to be imaginative & creative 🙂

Highly recommended!

Let's Color! - Lazoo Worldwide, Inc

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Bitsboard – Education, Games, and Flashcards for Learning Reading, Spelling, and more

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Bitsboard

Bitsboard is a FREE app for education with so many uses – it’s ideal for teaching languages, vocabulary, sight words, spelling, and more. This educational app comes with three games: Flashcards (10,000+ free flash cards with fully customizable settings), Explore (reviews all flashcards), and Photo Touch (spot the correct item game). There are 7 additional games available as in-app purchases. Bitsboard is easy to use and fully customizable so you can use it to create games for whatever you are teaching. And as an extra added bonus, you can see what other people have created – the app includes FREE access to the Bitsboard catalog which includes thousands of flashcards with lessons covering a variety of topics. If all of that hasn’t convinced you that you need this app, this feature certainly will –  Bitsboard supports multiple users and keeps track of their progress!!

Recommended – a great app with loads of potential!!

Bitsboard - Education, Games, and Flashcards for Learning Reading, Spelling, and more - GrasshopperApps.com

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Space Cakes

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Space CakeSpace Cakes (an educational app) is FREE – thanks to the support of Eli’s Cheesecake in Chicago. Kids use number sense and early math skills to complete intergalactic baking missions. They find themselves in a bakery filled with alien ingredients. They must follow a recipe to add the correct amount of each ingredient. Then they choose a 3D shape for their levitating batter and bake it. Next a topper, frosting, and sprinkles are added to finish their creations. Time for delivery – they steer the cake delivery spaceship back to Earth. Finally they celebrate their safe arrival with starburst, fireworks, and colorful confetti!  Kids can snap a photo of their creations to share them via email, save them in a gallery, or use them to inspire creative writing – descriptive paragraphs using math terms, a story about an intergalactic cake baking contest, etc. There is a section for parents/teachers which explains the educational value of the app and how it meets the CCSS. This app provides a fun way to work with math concepts AND a wonderful springboard for creative writing.

Space Cakes - Kids Bakery Game with Math and Numbers - Mrs. Judd's Games, LLC

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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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Mad Libs

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Over 120,000,000 Mad Libs have been sold to date. MadLibs.com gets 50,000 visitors per month. And now, Mad Libs is a FREE educational app for the iPhone/iPad with over 3.7 million downloads. Mad Libs are stories with words left out. 21 stories are included with this app. A reader selects a story but doesn’t tell what it is about. Writers (the other players) give words to fill in the blanks in the story. The reader calls out the type of word needed for the blank  –  adjective, noun, collective noun, verb, verb ending with ing, etc. Once all the blanks in the story have been filled, the reader reads the story aloud. The result is usually a silly, funny story. Kids love Mad Libs and in order to play, they have to know parts of speech. Mad Libs are a great classroom activity when you have 10 minutes before lunch, at the end of the day, waiting for a guest, etc. Who knew learning parts of speech could be so much fun!?!

Mad Libs - Penguin Group USA

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Trading Cards

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trading cards

Fabulous educational app!!! ReadWriteThink’s Trading Cards is powerful FREE app developed by the International Reading Association. This educational app provides a unique way for kids to share their understanding of topics, generate their own study aids, create a fictional world to use in their writing, make their own trading cards, and more. There are 7 categories of cards available within the app: fictional person, real person, fictional place, real place, object, event, and vocabulary. Kids start by choosing a category and typing in the title of the card. Each category has specific questions which help kids create information-rich trading cards. Images can be added by using the device’s camera or by accessing pictures in the photo library. Kids can also sort their cards into collections such as characters from a book, heroes or villains, landmarks, the 50 states, vocabulary by subject, etc. The possibilities are endless! Cards can be shared via email, saved to the photo library, or printed on a wireless printer. And… the kid appeal is tremendous. Kids will LOVE trading their cards with their classmates 🙂

Highly recommended!!

Trading Cards - International Reading Association