FREE again – Buildo Museum is a spooky sticker book for kids. The goal of the Buildo series is to get  kids to thinking about creative story telling. Included in the app are 3 scenes inspired by ancient museums with 100 + stickers. Kids can scale, rotate and flip stickers to create a scene for their oral stories. This iPhone/iPad app is FREE for a limited time.

There are several good vocabulary apps on the market to use in the classroom. They can also be used for students who trying to boost their vocabularies. I wish some of them would have been around when my kids were studying for the SATs. 🙂

Words to Learn By by McGraw Hill has 300 words to study. It was offered for FREE when I downloaded it but it is currently $.99. The words are grouped into 3 levels – building, expanding and advancing. Each word includes a definition, an audio pronunciation, and a synonym. There are 4 options in the quiz mode – flashcards, definitions, fill-in-the-blanks (GREAT for teaching context clues), and a synonym shuffle game. This app is not too difficult and could be used with upper elementary and junior high students.

Word a Day was offered for FREE when I downloaded it but it is currently $1.99. This app takes a fun approach to expanding your vocabulary – one day/one word at a time! This app features a new word every day – each word has a humorous illustration and a narrated audio which pronounces the word, defines it, and uses it in context. If you feature a vocabulary word of the day in your classroom, you may want to look at this app – it’s a cute one!

Vocabology – Word of the Day was offered FREE the day I downloaded it but is currently $.99.  It offers words of the day from several sources on the internet: foreign language words (Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, French, Latin), Dictionary.com, Wiktionary, Merriam-Webster, TheFreeDictionary.com, Yahoo  Education, Common SAT words, Urban Dictionary, and WordSmith.org. The app also includes a quizzes. In-app purchases are available for SAT words, Latin words, and more. BEWARE – some of the words from the urban dictionary are explicit and NOT suitable for the classroom. You have the option of disabling this word source within the app. You need to do so before you put this app in the hands of kids! I appreciate that the developer has included this option.

FREE for  limited time – another sight words app, Sight Words & Spelling with Pixopop. In this app kids join Stitch Bunny and friends to learn 240 sight words arranged in 24 lists of 10. The app also permits you to create and record your own lists!

There are several things I really like about this app. 🙂 This app has 3 modes – flashcard, word challenge, and spelling.In the flashcard mode, I like that the word is shown but not immediately pronounced. This permits the child to read it then check his/her answer. In the word challenge mode, a word is pronounced and the child has to pick it from a list of 4 words. As the child picks the correct word, a character is constructed on the left side of the screen. I like that all words can be set to begin with the same letter so that the child has to look carefully. In the spelling mode, kids have to spell words using a keyboard. I like that it can be set to be arranged like a computer keyboard rather than an a – z keyboard. And the BEST thing about this app is that is keeps track of the child’s progress. It shows a score for each list, the date passed, and the time spent. AWESOME!!

FREE (for a limited time) app that teaches sight words from the Fry Word List. The Fry Instant Word List contains 1000 words arranged by their order of frequency in printed materials. In order to build reading fluency, it is important for early readers to recognize these words by sight. It is suggested that first graders learn the first 100 words, second graders learn the second 100 words, and third graders learn the third 100 words. The remaining words on the list should be mastered by the end of fifth grade.

The app presents the word in a manageable fashion – lists of 10 words. There is a learning mode and a quiz mode. In the learning mode, words are presented one at a time. In the quiz mode, kids have to choose the correct word from a list of 2 – 6 words. The app permits you or your child to pronounce/record the words in your own voice – a great option for kids working on articulation. This is a nice app for helping kids learn important sight words. If it only kept track of what was mastered – now THAT would be fabulous!

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