Petting Zoo

October 10, 2013 | appydazeblog

FREE for the first time – Petting Zoo, an adorable app for kids and adults who are kids at heart. 🙂 This educational app combines the charm of Christoph Niemann’s humorous animations with state of the art technology as one scene morphs into the next. The app is simple to use – just swipe and tap the 21 animals to see how they react. The results are delightfully surprising! Kids will discover what an elephant would do in the bathroom, if a dog can breakdance, how monkeys play soccer, and more. This app is suitable for kids of all languages because there are no spoken words. It’s perfect for discussion and predicting what will happen next. A really fun storybook app – creative, silly, and sure to delight!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/petting-zoo-animal-animations/id602773895?mt=8&uo=4

Smart White Board HD

October 10, 2013 | appydazeblog

FREE – Smart White Board HD, is super simple to use! One finger writes, 2 fingers erase, 3 fingers clears all. Press the save button or shake your device to save an image. You can write in black, blue, or red and in 3 thicknesses. The app also includes a simple voice recorder. Just press record, talk, stop & name your file, and it is saved to a list. You can then email your recording if you wish to share it. Teachers can get rid of their classroom whiteboards, markers, and erasers! Have kids show their work, explain their thoughts, etc. with this simple educational app!

Wonderopolis

October 8, 2013 | appydazeblog

FREE – Wonderopolis, the educational app. Now you can explore Wonderopolis (the website) from your mobile device.

Wonderopolis (Wonderopolis | Where the Wonders of Learning Never Cease) is a fantastic website that provides a daily Wonder of the Day®. An intriguing question is posed each day. There is a written explanation of the answer (which you can read on your own or listen to), vocabulary words (with a word challenge), a gallery of images & videos – all to inspire curiosity and learning about the day’s wonder. Other daily features include a “Try It Out” section which suggests activities based on the day’s question, a “Still Wondering” section which gives additional/related information. and a quiz. There is also a section for teachers/parents called the “Educator Sandbox” which has additional resources and opportunities to connect with the Wonderopolis community.

Using this app/website would be a fabulous addition to a daily classroom routine. Kids could read the daily Wonder of the Day® as part of their independent work time. They could journal about what they learned and/or are still wondering about. A class discussion could be scheduled for later. What a great way to encourage THINKING! Wonderopolis is a fabulous resource to ignite the natural curiosity and imagination of kids!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wonderopolis/id505247028?mt=8&uo=4

Halloween Apps

October 8, 2013 | appydazeblog

Even though I am a retired teacher, I still find myself thinking in themes. 🙂 Here is a list of some FREE (with a few exceptions) educational Halloween apps that you may want to download for your kids.

I am going to start with the exceptions – Millie’s Book of Tricks and Treats is currently $.99. The Millie books feature a very cute, lovable dog and kids LOVE them! If you own some of Millie’s other books: Meet Millie and Millie and the Lost Key, you will want this one too. This book presents a series of silly tricks and treats featuring Millie – nothing scary for little ones. Every time you read it, the randomly generated video clips change so the book is always different.There is also scratch-off picture & hidden sticker on every page. Love this series!

Also available for $.99 is the sequel – Millie’s Book of Tricks and Treats, Volume 2, featuring more doggy tricks or doggy treats. LOVE these books!Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/millies-book-tricks-treats/id569720229?mt=8&uo=4

Carve-a-Pumpkin from Parents Magazine is FREE for the iPhone/iPad. Kids first choose one of 5 pumpkins (orange, white, orange with green, black or orange & bumpy). They can “cut” it by hand or use premade eyes, noses, mouths, and faces. Instead of cutting the pumpkins, kids can choose to decorate them with stickers. In either mode, kids can manipulate the size and orientation of the objects that they add. There is an undo and redo button to change things easily. Once the pumpkins is complete, kids choose a background. The final project can be shared on Facebook. Twitter, & emailed, or saved as a photo. This app would be fun for kids to use as a planning tool for real pumpkin carving.

FREE again – Scrap It: Halloween HD for the iPad. You (or your child) can add a Halloween touch to your photos with this app. First take a photo or use an existing one. Using the photo editor, you can crop it and/or add an effect (about 40 filters available). Then its time to get creative – add stickers, change the papers & tiles, add letters & numbers/ribbons/word art, and add & manipulate text using the text editor. Items can be resized, shadowed, sent to the back, sent to the front, etc. Creations are saved in My Scrap Pages. They can also be shared on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, via email. They can be saved to your camera roll or printed. I think kids would love decorating pictures of themselves, their family & friends, and the family pet 🙂 You could also create an electronic postcard or invitation with this app. Lots of possibilities!!

Halloween Jigsaw Puzzles is FREE for the iPad. It includes 18 puzzles with the option to purchase more. There are 7 levels of difficulty ranging from 4 to 49 pieces per puzzle. Most puzzle images are appropriate for younger kids but there are a few that are a bit iffy: scary-faced pumpkins, a few skeletons, and a witch in questionable attire. So if your child loves puzzles, check it out and be selective if your child scares easily.

Dibu’s Monster Maker Lite is FREE for the iPhone/iPad. Dibu is a little boy who loves monsters so he created a machine to build them – I think this is how Dr. Frankenstein got started 🙂 The Monster Maker has hundreds of combinations of monsters waiting to be made. The lite version has 2 bodies to choose for the base.Then kids add hair, eyes, noses, mouths, hats & horns, tops, bottoms, and shoes. There is also a random monster generator which creates a monster with one tap. Finished monsters can be named then saved, printed, made into a puzzle, or emailed. This app also has a child lock that hides all promotional buttons and disables printing & emailing. And… there is a “parents only” button which gives written instructions for access to the app store. The developer does not want young children to end up there accidentally – how refreshing!

This app would be great to use with elementary aged kids. They could create a monster then write a descriptive paragraph about it. They could create two monsters and do a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the monsters. Lots of possibilities!

Phonics Tic Tac Toe Interactive Game

October 7, 2013 | appydazeblog

FREE for a limited time – Phonics Tic Tac Toe for the iPhone/iPad. This game reviews letter sounds (vowels, vowel combinations, consonant, consonant combinations) and syllables in a tic, tac, toe format. There is a lot of great phonics practice in this educational app. I really like that the app varies the placement of the missing sounds – at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the word. I also like how the app uses words with the same letters making different sounds. Since there is no sound, kindergarten/first graders might need help reading the questions. However, it would be perfect for independent practice for most second/third graders. Teachers could use it in a learning center, as independent seatwork with a friend, for small group intervention, etc. I only wish it had the option of having the questions read aloud for younger students. That being said, this app is definitely worth downloading!!

Common Core Standards met:

K. RF.3 – Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words. Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary sound or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant. Associate the short sounds with common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.
1.RF.3/2.RF.3/3.RF.3/4.RF.3/5.RF.3 – Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.

Math Duel

October 7, 2013 | appydazeblog

$Math Duel$

FREE for a limited time – Math Duel-2 Player Mathematical Game.This educational app pits two players against each other on the same device which makes it perfect for sharing iPads in the classroom. The app has a split screen interface – students sit facing each other on either end of the iPad. As kids answer math equations, the app keeps separate scores for each student. The best thing about this app is that it is fully customizable (on both sides) which makes it a fabulous tool for individualizing instruction for a wide range of students. Equations can be set with 1 – 5 terms. Largest numbers possible can be from 1 – 100. Negative numbers can be turned on/off. Kids can practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, division or any combination of these operations. Fabulous and fun for daily classroom math practice in multiple grades!

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.
3.OA.7 – Fluently multiply and divide within 100, using strategies such as the relationship between multiplication and division or properties of operations. By the end of Grade 3, know from memory all products of two one-digit numbers.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/math-duel-2-player-mathematical/id495077699?mt=8&uo=4

Go There Square: A Stella and Sam Adventure

October 7, 2013 | appydazeblog

Go There Square: A Stella and Sam Adventure is FREE again today! Stella and Sam educational apps are based on the television show and the bestselling picture book series by Marie-Louise Gay. The books have been translated into fifteen languages & have sold over one million copies. Stella and Sam find magical places with the help of their go-there-square. Kids go along to pop musical bubbles, collect dandelions and build a bridge out of flowers. Beautifully done and fun for preschoolers!

Other Stella and Sam Adventures that are available on iTunes for $1.99 each include: Into the Snow We Go, Rainy Days and Rainbows, Backyard at Twilight, Cocoons and Caterpillars. All Stella and Sam apps are also supported in French. With the current update of Go There Square you can easily change from English to French/French to English in the app’s settings. Great educational apps for kids!

Toontastic, Toontastic Jr. Shrek, and Toontastic Jr. Pirates

October 7, 2013 | appydazeblog

If you haven’t tried the original Toontastic, do yourself a favor and check it out….

Parents and teachers love Toontastic and kids can’t stop creating! Named by the NY Times as one of Top Ten iPad educational apps of 2011, Toontastic is a fabulously creative FREE app for kids. This app allows kids to draw, animate and share their own cartoons AND it teaches them the elements of a story! Kids are able to use backgrounds and characters from the app or create their own with the drawing tools that are provided. The basic app is FREE but there are several in-app purchases available. Final creations can be shared online via ToonTube, Toontastic’s global storytelling network. Over 2 million cartoons have been created in over 150 countries. Unleash your child’s creativity with this great educational app!!

Here is a link to more information: Toontastic: Play, Create, Learn on the iPad!.

Not only are the possibilities for using this app are endless but a child’s work can be shared with parents, grandparents, other classes, etc.

Toontastic Jr. Shrek is FREE again for a limited time. This storytelling app, from the creators of Toontastic, has kids creating their own Shrek cartoons. They start by choosing a beginning, middle, and ending. Then they animate the story by moving the characters and recording their voices at the same time. The educational app features 12 classic Shrek scenes and a cast of characters to get kids started. If kids would like to create a story with friends or family, they can utilize StoryShare, a new feature in Toontastic Jr. which is very cool! It enables kids to talk & create stories with friends or family anywhere in the world!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toontastic-jr.-shrek/id632359329?mt=8&uo=4

Toontastic Jr. Pirates is also FREE again for a limited time. This storytelling app, from the creators of Toontastic, has kids creating their own pirate cartoons. They start by choosing a beginning, middle, and ending. Then they animate the story by moving the characters and recording their voices at the same time. The educational app features 12 story starter videos and a cast of characters to get kids started. If kids would like to create a story with friends or family, they can utilize StoryShare, a new feature in Toontastic Jr. which is very cool! It enables kids to talk & create stories with friends or family anywhere in the world! Yo ho ho – how fun is that??

ABC Spy HD

October 4, 2013 | appydazeblog

ABC Spy for the iPhone/iPad is currently FREE. It challenges kids to create their own ABC book with photos of items that start with each letter. Children can take their own pictures, use pictures from the app’s library, or use photos from their own library. After the child has the photo, he/she chooses a frame for it then types in the text to go with the framed picture. When the book is finished, it can be turned into a movie and saved or shared via email, text message, or You Tube.

Kids can create ABC books of almost anything – animals, a vacation, their town, etc. Since this educational app allows you to pull things from your photo library, kids can create their own artwork in another app and pull it into this one. VERY cool with loads of potential!

Highly Recommended!

Sago Mini Bug Builder

October 3, 2013 | appydazeblog

FREE again for a limited time – Sago Mini Bug Builder, an educational app for toddlers/preschoolers. Kids create, hatch, and play with cute little critters. They can transform 1 of 8 shapes into a colorful bug, add some color, then bring it to life. They can also add a funny hat, feed it a snack, clean up its mess, and take its picture. Kids can make unlimited number of unique bugs using this app – very cute & creative!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sago-mini-bug-builder/id657821775?mt=8&uo=4

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