Category Archives: language arts apps

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PlaySquare presents WordWorld’s Happy Birthday Dog

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FREE for a limited time – PlaySquare is billed as Touchable Television. Children (ages 3 – 6) play and learn words and letters as the play in Word World. In the first episode, Happy Birthday Dog, Dog thinks that everyone has forgotten his birthday. Kids are engaged in the story as they help gather things for a birthday party to surprise Dog.

There are so many wonderful things about this app. It is colorful and engaging. Early literacy skills (letter recognition, letter sound, word building, word recognition) are developed throughout the story. The characters are funny and lovable. But the best part is of the app is how the developers (media experts from Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop, LeapFrog, and MIT) have used the letters of the word to form the object being spelled – very clever! I LOVE this app!!

Watch the video from the developers @ http://playsquare.tv/

Highly recommended

PlaySquare presents WordWorld's Happy Birthday Dog - PlaySquare, LLC

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Oh, What a Tangle

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tangle

FREE for a limited time – Oh, What a Tangle!, an educational app from Digital Leaf that normally sells for $4.99. It is a fun story told in rhyme about Kiki, a little girl who doesn’t take the time to brush her hair. Why? Because, she always finds something better to do. A knot develops and Kiki allows it to get wildly out of control. It’s such a cute story with animation & interactivity on almost every page. Kids can help paint Kiki’s nails different colors, use a magnifying glass to find the tiny knot in Kiki’s hair, make the birds fly around Kiki’s head, etc. Kids also collect hidden brushes throughout the story to unlock puzzles at the end of the story. The story is rich in vocabulary – great for a lesson on context clues. 🙂

Oh, What a Tangle! - Digital Leaf

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Pixel and Parker

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Pixel

Spinlight Studio is celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas by giving away an app each day! Thank you, Spinlight Studio. Today’s FREE educational app is Pixel and Parker, a story that puts a new spin on storytelling – literally! Parker and Pixel (his cat) are best friends. One day Pixel is missing so Parker sets out to find him. Kids use a game spinner to determine the order of the story’s events in this cute tale. The story is never the same twice. The app also features 30+ activities that engage readers while advancing the plot of the story. This app would be great for a lesson on the elements of story. The characters, setting, problem, and conclusion are the same but the order of events can be changed! Cute colorful illustrations also add to the appeal of this story. Pixel and Parker is the first in a planned series of Spintale adventures. 🙂 Great idea!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pixel-and-parker/id548751986?mt=8&uo=4

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Grandma’s Kitchen

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grandma

FREE for a limited time – Grandma’s Kitchen, an adorable educational app for preschoolers. Kids join dancing grandma in her kitchen which has just been decorated for the holidays. The app features 8 educational games – all thematically linked. Kids will love helping grandma around the kitchen and they will be learning math & reading as they help. The app also features short videos of real kitchen tools in action. The following concepts are integrated into the games: consonant blends, telling time to the hour, colors, vocabulary, healthy eating choices, compound words, numeral recognition/counting, addition, identifying equal parts of a whole, pattern recognition, and more!

I love this app – it seamlessly integrates important educational content into fun thematic games. And, little ones will learn how kitchen items work. I especially like the when Grandma asks for a kiss on the cheek – so cute! Highly recommended.

Download: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/grandmas-kitchen/id602808356?mt=8&uo=4

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Gappy’s First Words

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gappy

Spinlight Studio is celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas by giving away an app each day! Thank you, Spinlight Studio. Today’s FREE educational app is Gappy’s First Words. This educational app has beginning readers constructing 200+ three-letter words – 174 of the words following the cvc pattern. There are also 37 three-letter sight words included. Kids start with basic letter and sound identification then progress to making words. As they work through the app, kids earn parts to redesign Gappy’s house – with over 700 possible combinations. Parents can disable the music, change letters from upper case to lower case, and control the number of word lists used in the settings. I like that the app varies which letters (beginning, middle, end) of the words are missing in the easy levels. In the medium level, two letters are missing and in the hard level, all letters are missing. Kids are gradually learning to spell – nicely done for little readers. 🙂

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gappys-first-words/id614840334?mt=8&uo=4

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World’s Worst Pet – Vocabulary

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world's worst pet

FREE educational app – World’s Worst Pet – Vocabulary. Snargg, a cute blue pet needs kids to use their vocabulary skills to get him out of trouble. The app’s four games teach context, word sorts, synonyms, & antonyms as they expose kids to over 1000 words across 5 levels: grades 4 – 8. Words are taught in sets – 10 conceptually related words per set. Kids are encouraged to replay each word set to improve their scores. Other features of the app include: clearly explained definitions with examples of how the word is used, multiple exposures to words, writing prompts, and… a really fun narrative with rewards. The app allows multiple players making it perfect for use in the classroom. Teachers can use it to differentiate instruction, as part of a center, for individual or group assignments, as homework, etc. There are so many great things about this app – meaningful content, a fun interface, and it meets CCSS. Fabulous!

Common Core Standards met:
4.L.5 – Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. c.Demonstrate understanding of words by relating them to their opposites (antonyms) and to words with similar but not identical meanings (synonyms).
5.L.5 – Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. c. Use the relationship between particular words (e.g., synonyms, antonyms, homographs) to better understand each of the words.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/worlds-worst-pet-vocabulary/id730540095?mt=8&uo=4

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Learn with Homer

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Learn with Homer

Released in August and listed as “New & Noteworthy” – Learn with Homer is an educational reading app for kids 3 – 6. The FREE download includes 30 stories and lessons (18 Learn to Read lessons/stories, 12 Discover the World lessons) as well as access to Homer’s Clubhouse and parent tools. Additional content is available through in-app purchases. BUT… For a limited time, you can go to the shopping cart section of this app and download additional lessons for FREE!! 

Homer, a gray pigeon, resides in an interactive world designed to help kids learn to read. The fun starts in the Hat Shop where kids have photos taken in the “thinking caps” of their choice. From there, kids can proceed to Story Time, Learn to Read, Discover The World, or Homer’s Clubhouse. The Story Time section includes 9 free stories representing 4 genres (rhymes, poetry, folktales, folk songs) as well as Homer stories.  The Learn to Read section teaches the phonemes (sounds) in sequence. Lessons start with sounds & letters, then move to words, and then to sentences. Discover The World is a series of adventures in science, history, art, etc. designed to increase kids’ basic knowledge and vocabularies. Finally, kids can go to Homer’s Clubhouse to draw and record what they have learned. And if that wasn’t enough… there is also a parent website to track your child’s progress and/or download printables  & book recommendations. This educational app seems to have it all – a well designed, comprehensive approach to learning to read with real kid appeal!!

For more information go to Homer: Parent Resources.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/learn-with-homer/id601437586?mt=8&uo=4

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Bug Games HD

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bug games

Singing crickets! Bug Games HD is FREE for a limited time. This super cute educational app for preschoolers has 4 sections: Cricket Concert, Bee Word Builder, Ant Tunnel Builder, and Spider Dot-to-Dot. In the Cricket Concert section, kids can select a song to hear the crickets sing together or they can tap on each cricket to play the song on their own. In Bee Word Builder, kids hear the phonic pronunciation of individual letters as they use them to put words together. Ant Tunnel Builder requires kids to rotate puzzle pieces so that the ants can march through a completed tunnel. Spider Dot-to-Dot has kids connecting dots in numerical order. Kids collect sticker rewards along the way. This app has a nice combination of learning games for preschoolers – cute, fun, & engaging! Who knew playing with bugs could be so much fun 🙂

Bug Games HD - by Busy Bee Studios - Busy Bee Studios

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Bogga Alphabet

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FREE today – Bogga Alphabet, an educational app designed by a dad. He created it to be a digital toy that encourages creative play and teaches the alphabet. Your child starts by choosing an upper case alphabet letter.  After the letter is named, your child can paint it one of 6 colors. Once painted, the letter becomes a refrigerator magnet. In “the kitchen” your child can use his/her letters to spell words or short messages. There is a wastebasket to get rid of letters that are not needed. There is also a camera to take a picture of your child’s creation (which is saved in your photos). This option allows you to create a scene that you can then pull into story telling apps such as Art Maker, Story Time, etc. (see earlier reviews). This app is straightforward – it is simple to use and there are no third-party ads or in-app purchases. the latest update includes letter sounds and lower case letters. Nicely done app for little ones. 🙂

Bogga Alphabet - Boggatap

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World’s Worst Pet – Vocabulary

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1384969712.jpg

FREE educational app – World’s Worst Pet – Vocabulary. Snargg, a cute blue pet needs kids to use their vocabulary skills to get him out of trouble. The app’s four games teach context, word sorts, synonyms, & antonyms as they expose kids to over 1000 words across 5 levels: grades 4 – 8. Words are taught in sets of 10 conceptually related words per set. Kids are encouraged to replay each word set to improve their scores. Other features of the app include: clearly explained definitions with examples of how the word is used, multiple exposures to words, writing prompts, and… a really fun narrative with rewards. The app allows multiple players making it perfect for use in the classroom. Teachers can use it to differentiate instruction, as part of a center, for individual or group assignments, as homework, etc. There are so many great things about this app – meaningful content, a fun interface, and it meets CCSS. Fabulous!

Common Core Standards met:
4.L.5 – Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. c.Demonstrate understanding of words by relating them to their opposites (antonyms) and to words with similar but not identical meanings (synonyms).
5.L.5 – Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. c. Use the relationship between particular words (e.g., synonyms, antonyms, homographs) to better understand each of the words.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/worlds-worst-pet-vocabulary/id730540095?mt=8&uo=4