Category Archives: FREE apps for kids

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More FREE Christmas Apps

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Here are links to more FREE Christmas apps I have found. 🙂

boo

Boo, Where Are You?  –  a darling e-book for toddlers about a dog named Sammy and his friend, Boo the cat. Kids tap-the flaps in the story to try to find Boo. Really cute – read on your own story 🙂Boo, where are you? - Fleur van Zuilen

peekaboo presents

Peekaboo Presents is FREE as of today – not sure how long this offer will last. 13 gifts are under the tree for your toddler to unwrap. Each present comes with its own unique sound & action. Younger children will benefit from  hearing & seeing the word for each present. Older children can listen to the sounds coming from the boxes to infer what might be inside. The app has 2 modes – endless play or storybook mode. At the end, kids get a glimpse of Santa with all the presents.   Peekaboo Presents - Night & Day Studios, Inc.

santas jigsaw

Santa’s Jigsaw Puzzles – 3 holiday scenes that can become 9,16, or 25 piece puzzles for kids to put together.   Santa's jigsaw puzzles - jee-w

gingerbread

Gingerbread  Crazy Chef Cookie Maker  – Kids can virtually bake and decorate their own gingerbread cookies. An in-app purchase of the full version is available. There are also ads along the bottom. TabTale Books has several other free holiday titles that you can download when you open this app if you are comfortable with their model of delivery – ads, upgrades, etc.   Gingerbread Crazy Chef - Cookie Maker - TabTale LTD

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Puzzingo Holidays

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puzzingo

FREE from the maker of Puzzingo Puzzles – a holiday gift for your child, Puzzingo Holidays. Puzzingo (the original app in this series) was voted one of the best kid’s apps by the Chicago Tribune. The holiday edition includes 7 animated, interactive puzzles. Kids build their vocabulary while having fun – as each puzzle piece is moved into place, the name of  the object is pronounced. When each puzzle is completed, there is a celebration. Kids get to help build Santa’s workshop, have snow ball fight, deliver presents, pop fireworks, ride Santa’s sleigh, celebrate the New Year, and more. Great fun for little ones 🙂

 PUZZINGO Holidays Kids & Toddlers Puzzles Game - 77Sparx Studio, Inc.
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Juno’s Musical ABCs

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juno

Narrated by Brooke Shields, this e-book for the iPhone/iPad was created by Emmy Award winning composer, Belinda Takahashi. Kids join Juno and her friends on a musical journey through the alphabet. The book, written in rhyme, teaches kids what instruments look & sound like as well as some musical terminology. It has 3 reading modes: read it to me, read it myself, or autoplay.
Kids will enjoy interacting with the characters (who talk & move when touched) in this cute, colorful book. Nicely done – what a great ABC book to share with a music class!

Juno's Musical ABCs HD - The Juno Company

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Cooper’s Big Bear Hug

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cooper

This FREE animated e-book from Hallmark’s Story Buddy line is for the iPhone/iPad. It tells the story of  Cooper the bear who wants to find a way to show his mother how much he loves her. If your child owns the accompanying Cooper Story Buddy stuffed animal, it will respond to key phrases from the story. By going into the settings, you can record your own voice reading the story to your child. Also included are a puzzle and a game. Cutely illustrated, sweet story – even if your child does not own the accompanying bear.

Cooper's Big Bear Hug - Hallmark

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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 app for the iPhone/iPad with over 3,000,000 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.

Mad Libs - Penguin Group USA

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Christmas Apps

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FREE Christmas apps that you may want to download. Happy Holidays 🙂

Where is Santa Lite – Santa Tracker is FREE for the iPhone/iPad. The app keeps track of where Santa is and how long it will be before he arrives at your home. When using the “Where is Santa” page, it scans the world every 60 seconds to locate Santa and report on his activities. For instance, “Santa is in the North Pole and he is helping Mrs. Claus in the kitchen.” When using the “My Home” tab, it shows the location of your house and tells how many days, hours, minutes, and seconds it will be before Santa arrives. Beware – there are ads at the bottom of this app that are easy to click and will take your child to the app store. Teachers could use the app to make up math problems with the information given. Have kids convert days into weeks, days into hours, figure out the exact time he is scheduled to arrive, etc. Kids could write a story about what Santa is doing on a particular day, illustrate a timeline of what Santa has been doing for a week, etc. – lots of cute possibilities. Parents can use this app with kids to check on Santa daily – cute way to count down the days to Christmas!

Where is Santa Lite - Santa Tracker - Super Kiddo Studio

‘Twas the Night Before Jasper’s Christmas is FREE e-book for the iPhone/iPad. Jasper the dog and Smiley the cat are the stars of the classic tale. Kids can read the book to themselves or read along as it is narrated. In the read along mode, chimes let kids know when to advance to the next page. Background music (We wish You a Merry Christmas) can be turned off or on. The pages are not interactive but they are cutely & colorfully illustrated – appealing to kids. And, at the end of the story is a matching game. Beware – there are ads at the top of each page that are easy to click and will take your child to the app store. Cute FREE book – worth downloading 🙂

Twas The Night Before Jasper's Christmas (FREE) StoryChimes - Siena Entertainment, LLC

 

From the developers of Toca Boca apps comes this FREE gift for the holidays: Toca Hair Salon – Christmas Gift. Kids can go into the salon to groom Santa and/or his favorite Christmas tree, Topzy. They can use the tools in the salon to style their hair – cut it, comb it, make it grow, shave it, color it, and drag decorations into it. Great sound effects are also included in this fun app. Kids or parents can take a photo of the finished creation and save it to their camera roll. If parents wish, creations may be posted on the Toca Boca Facebook page. The developers have also built-in options to turn off sounds, pictures, and news. What a great springboard for creative writing – give Santa a whole new look and write a story to go with it. Thanks to the developers for a gift that inspires kids to be creative 🙂

Toca Hair Salon - Christmas Gift - Toca Boca AB

And if your child LOVES the above app, you may want to look into Toca Hair Salon which usually sells for $1.99.

It works the same way but it has 6 characters and  more tools than the Christmas version. Great creative fun!!

Here’s the link:

Toca Hair Salon - Toca Boca AB

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Snow Globes 3D!

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FREE for Thanksgiving – Snow Globes 3D! for the iPad. Get this fun interactive e-book to start the holiday season. Kids explore 7 different snow globe scenes with interactive surprises that are activated by tapping. And…when the iPad is tilted, snow floats around the scenes! Kids visit New York City to help light the giant Christmas tree . They also search for animals in a snow-covered forest, visit Santa & the elves while they load the sleigh, fly through the air with Santa & his reindeer, and more. The book can be read in 2D or 3D. In order to view the book in 3D, red/cyan 3D glasses are needed. The 3D glasses from a movie theater will not work. There are also 3 options for reading: read to me, read to myself, and autoplay. Nicely done app  – sure to delight your little ones 🙂

Snow Globes 3D! ~ 3D & 2D interactive storybook - See Here Studios LLC

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Grammaroplois

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Grammaropolis is billed as the place where grammar lives. It teaches 8 parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, interjections) using animated characters based on the roles that they play in sentences. Every part of speech has its own neighborhood. Kids follow a map which takes them through a series of activities (songs, books, videos, and quizzes) to learn about the featured part of speech. If they complete everything on the map, they earn a badge. Cutely designed and simple to use, this app teaches parts of speech in a fun, “Schoolhouse Rock”  like way. The songs are catchy and upbeat so kids will love them 🙂

Nouns is a FREE download with the other parts of speech available as in-app purchases. I was impressed that this app covered so many kinds of nouns – common, proper, concrete, abstract, compound, and collective. This app would work well to introduce/teach nouns in a one iPad classroom.

Common Core Standards:

1.L.1  – b. Use common, proper, and possessive nouns.

2.L.1  – a. Use collective nouns (e.g., group). b. Form and use frequently occurring irregular plural nouns (e.g., feet, children, teeth, mice, fish).

3.L.1  – b.Form and use regular and irregular plural nouns. c. Use abstract nouns (e.g., childhood).

Grammaropolis - Grammaropolis LLC

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Let’s Color

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This FREE app for the iPad is from the makers of Squiggles (see Oct. 10 review) and it too is very cute & very creative. 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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Frankenweenie

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Frankenweenie, the Disney movie opened October 8, 2012.  This app was released in conjunction with the movie. After seeing it, kids can Frankenweenie-fy their own pets with this app. First, take or upload a picture of your pet & edit. Then add eyes, ears, mouth, etc.  Next, choose a movie-themed background. Finally, share – via email, Facebook, etc. Super cute and so much fun to do with your kids – especially if you have been to see the movie 🙂

And can it be educational too …. have kids write a story to tell how their pet was turned into a monster. Just another example of how much fun learning can be!

Frankenweenie - Disney