Category Archives: FREE apps for kids

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Tellagami

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Telegami

Currently FREE, Tellagami (rhymes with origami) is a unique storytelling app. Short stories called gamis are easy to create. First you select and customize a character by choosing his/her skin tone, eye color, hair color, and clothing. Then you choose an emotion – happy, sad, surprised, angry, scared, silly. Next you choose a background from the app, from your photo library, or create one by using your camera. You are now ready to create your gami. You can record your gami in you own voice or choose the text button to type in what your character will say  – the limit is 450 characters. Gamis can be shared via email, messaging, Facebook, or Twitter.

The educational app is fabulous!! Its uses are only limited by your imagination!! Kids can use gamis to introduce themselves at the beginning of the year. They can customize gamis to look like themselves and be reporters, scientists, teachers, etc. They can create the character (and setting) from a book they are reading. They can message or email a parent to explain what they are learning in class. Teachers could use gamis as interactive exit slips. The list is endless. Kids will LOVE creating gamis!

Tellagami ™ - Tellagami Inc.

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Fizzy’s Lunch Lab Fresh Pick

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Fizzy's Lunch Lab Fresh Pick

Fizzy’s Lunch Lab Fresh Pick (an educational app based on the PBS KIDS web series) is FREE ! It was developed by PBS with funding from a Ready to Learn Grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Professor Fizzy is holding a competition for 6 – 8 year olds to see who qualifies to be the next Lunch Labber. The app includes 8 challenges that use math and problem solving skills – deductive reasoning, mapping, sorting and classifying. Kids must navigate their way through a grocery store, buy groceries, count out the correct change in a check-out line, successfully serve the correct food to hungry customers, use reasoning to find Freddy, and more. This educational app supports multiple users with self-leveling games that make the challenge specific to each child. FUN!!

Fizzy's Lunch Lab Fresh Pick - PBS KIDS

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Jake’s Never Land Pirate School

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Ahoy Matey! Jake’s Never Land Pirate School for the iPhone/iPad is FREE from Disney. Kids 3+ join Jake and his crew (from Never Land Pirates TV) for pirate classes which include sailing, pirate band, map & spyglass, and pixie dust. In pirate school, kids practice listening & following directions, counting, tracing shapes, and more. You can import your child’s picture and create a pirate – very cute!  Kids can keep track of the levels they have completed and the badges they have earned in the Captain’s Log. This is a fun educational app  – especially for young fans of the show!

Recommended!

Jake's Never Land Pirate School - Disney

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Color Uncovered & Sound Uncovered

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Color Uncovered

Sound Uncovered

Two FABULOUS & FREE educational apps from the Exploratorium!! Both interactive books contain illusions, articles, and videos. These apps make science fun by answering questions like – What color is a whisper? Are there secret messages in music played backward? Kids will love the illusions and you won’t believe these apps are FREE! Very interesting –  for kids AND their parents/teachers.

Color Uncovered   Color Uncovered - Exploratorium          Sound Uncovered   Sound Uncovered - Exploratorium

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PBS KIDS Photo Factory

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Very cute FREE educational app for the iPhone/iPad from PBS KIDS. Add your favorite PBS character to your child’s picture in 3 easy steps. First take a picture or choose one from your photo library. The edit it as needed – zoom, rotate, or resize. Lastly frame it and decorate it by adding your favorite PBS characters. You can share the results on Facebook, Twitter, via email or save them into your photo library.

There are lots of fun ways to use this app. Take pictures of kids with the characters at a themed party based on one of the shows. Take pictures of students with Curious George, Arthur, or Clifford after reading books featuring those characters. Pull those pictures into a story writing app to create a new adventure of the PBS character and the student. Add the characters to settings – pictures of the school playground, pictures of the classroom etc. – use your pictorial creations as  springboards to creative writing. Pull your pictures into TellPic (see review July 31) and have the child explain. Fun!!

Recommended!

PBS KIDS Photo Factory - PBS KIDS

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Penguin Leveled Readers

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Penguin Leveled Readers

Just updated on June 6, named New & Noteworthy, and FREE for the iPhone/iPad – Penguin Leveled Readers. This educational app opens with a great introduction video that explains how it works. 4 books are included – one for each of the app’s reading levels.  The levels respond to the following guided reading levels: level 1 = levels A-D, level 2 = levels E-I, level 3 = levels J-M (about second grade), level 4 = levels N-P (about third grade). If you want to add to your collection, 75 additional titles are available as in-app purchases for $3.99 each. The majority of the additional titles are either level 2 or 3 so this app is best suited for first/second grade readers. The app permits you to record and store your child reading the story  – a GREAT feature for improving fluency.  If you have an early reader in your family, this app could be a wonderful resource!

Penguin Leveled Readers - Penguin Group USA

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Bill Nye The Science Guy

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Bill Nye The Science Guy

Just released (July 13) and FREE – Bill Nye The Science Guy. It’s Bill Nye’s 20th Anniversary and Disney is celebrating with the release of this educational app! Kids scan their thumbs to gain entrance to Nye Labs – a scientifically fascinating place. There they can play games, watch clips from their favorite shows, try some experiments, and more. This app is a place where science rules!!

Bill Nye The Science Guy - Disney

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BeBop Blox

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BeBop Blox

Newly released, listed as New & Noteworthy in the app store, and FREE – BeBop Blox is a puzzle app for young children from the makers of Endless Alphabet. This educational app is offered FREE with sponsorship or the sponsorship can be removed with an in-app purchase. Kids develop problem solving abilities, eye-hand coordination, and fine motor skills as they build 12 different block puzzles. Adorable little creatures called Bops play and sing inside blocks that are built into shapes such as trains, giraffes, and boats. Sure to make you smile, BeBop Blox offers a musical block building experience for your preschooler!

BeBop Blox - Callaway Digital Arts Inc.

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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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Space Cakes

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Space CakeSpace Cakes (an educational app) was released on April 25 and it 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