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Math Animations Grades (1 – 8)…

math animations

FREE for a limited time – Math Animations (Grades 1-8). This app Includes numbers, decimals, fractions, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, geometry (perimeter and area of parallelograms, triangles, trapezoids), measurement, algebra for elementary and middle school students. The title says it all! The purpose of this app is to show kids how math works – visually. The app features 55 animations that explain everything from counting to beginning algebra. There are no words used. Math concepts are visually explained in step-by-step illustrations. If you have kids that need to “see” how things work, you may want to add this app to your list of teaching resources!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/math-animations-grades-1-8/id579825429?mt=8&uo=4

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Star Walk™ 2 – Guide to the Night Sky to Watch Stars, Planets, Meteor Showers & Constellations

star walk 2Apple’s App of the Week and FREE – Star Walk™ 2 – Guide to the Night Sky to Watch Stars, Planets, Meteor Showers & Constellations. Just point your iPhone or iPad at the sky to begin your journey through the stars, comets, and constellations. Star Walk™ 2  is the next generation of the best-selling Star Walk which has been used by over 10 million people. Summer is the perfect time for you and your children to learn the position of stars, planets, constellations, comets, ISS, satellites, star clusters, nebulae and meteor showers in the night sky. Grab your telescope and Star Walk 2 and have a family stargazing party tonight!

Direct Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-walk-2-guide-to-night/id892279069?mt=8

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Mr. Sandman

imageFREE for a limited time – Mr. Sandman is a beautiful, interactive bedtime story for the iPad/iPhone. The story does a nice job of addressing a common fear of childhood. It is about a young boy who is afraid of the dark. The sandman appears and the boy drifts off to sleep. In his dream, he meets an owl who shows him wonderful & magical things about the dark. The app features incredibly beautiful artwork and dreamy music – perfect to set the mood for the story. But the most wonderful thing about this app is the way that it transitions from page to page. Kids move the story forward in a variety of unique ways. They help the sandman sprinkle the sand, say “Shhh” to calm the frogs, scratch the owl’s belly, touch the moon, and more. Each page transitions to the next page in a uniquely delightful way. And, the app can be switched different languages – nine in all. Mr. Sandman is wonderful – don’t miss it! 🙂

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mr.-sandman/id511273529?mt=8&uo=4

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Non-Scary, Educational Apps About Sharks

It’s Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, a week of TV programs dedicated to sharks. Shark Week began in 1988 and is now broadcast in 72 countries.

Here’s some educational apps about these creatures who capture the interest of so many people – young and old!

Shark Goes to the Doctor

SeaWorld: Ruckus Reader presents – Shark Goes to the Doctor, an engaging story that follows a sand tiger shark as it is checked by vets. Kids learn interesting facts about sharks’ lives. The cost is currently $3.99.

Download link for SeaWorld: Ruckus Readerhttps://itunes.apple.com/us/app/seaworld-ruckus-reader/id515220048?mt=8&uo=4

Shark tank

FREE – Sea TV is a collaborative effort between Adobe and Monterey Bay Aquarium (a highly ranked U.S. aquarium) to bring its Open Seas Exhibit to your mobile device! The Open Sea is a million gallon exhibit with a 90-foot window. You may see sharks speed past, sardines swimming in glittering schools, and/or sea turtles on the live video stream. You can also watch videos on demand.

Download link for Sea TVhttps://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sea-tv/id530529039?mt=8&uo=4

shark track 1

shark track 2

FREE – Global Shark Tracker lets you follow the navigational pattern of sharks that have been tagged with satellite tracking technology.  The purpose of this tracking is for shark conservation and the collection of data on the health of sharks. Very cool!

Download link for Global Shark Tracker:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/global-shark-tracker/id570772231?mt=8&uo=4Discovery Kids Sharks

Currently $4.99 – Discovery Kids Sharks for kids 6+. If your child loves sharks, this is a must-have educational app! Kids will learn: shark anatomy, types of sharks, how sharks hunt, where sharks live, and about shark families. The app includes 5 interactive games and 30 digital trading cards that can be shared via email. This app has a great mix of videos (from Discovery’s Shark Week files), fabulous photos of sharks in their natural environment, 150+ interesting shark facts, and a few games. Teachers could use the information in this app to teach a lesson on comparing and contrasting – using a Venn diagram or other graphic organizer. Kids will love learning about sharks using this fun, cool app!

Discovery  Kids Sharks - Parragon

Treasure Kai and the Lost Gold of Shark Island is an adventure story of a 10-year-old treasure hunter named Kai. Kai is always dreaming about treasure and looking for it in his parents’ store: The Treasure Shop. Kai’s dreams magically transport him to Shark Island where he finds a treasure chest. And so the adventure begins…. Kids help in the hunt for gold by choosing from 8 different treasure chests. Each chest reveals another clue – leading Kai through more adventures. Along the way there are animations to discover, great sound effects, and an original score. This digital story is similar to the “choose your own adventure” books with an “Indiana Jones” feel to it. It is different every time it is read with thousands of ways to find the treasure. This app would be great for kids who are a bit older and becoming independent readers. Very cool. 🙂

Visit the website for a preview http://treasurekai.com/. After reading the story, your child can go back to the website for a variety of extras: watch fun fact videos, go behind the scenes, play a video game, work some puzzles, and more.

Treasure Kai and the Lost Gold of Shark Island - Interactive Book App for Kids - Treasure Bound Books

ocean

Currently $2.99 – Ocean – Animal Adventures for Kids, an educational app for preschoolers. Kids will become sea life experts as they explore 3 ocean scenes – a coral reef, a shark reef, and the deep-sea. The app has two modes – one for tapping/interacting with the creatures and the other for listening to/learning facts about them. Kids will learn fun facts about more than 30 animals and be delighted with the 60+ animations. The app is narrated in 12 languages – English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Turkish, Dutch and Italian. Check out this cute interactive book for your 1 – 5 year old today. 🙂

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ocean-animal-adventures-for/id819165012?mt=8&uo=4

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Halftone 2 Comic Book Creator

 

Apple’s of the Week is FREE! halftone 2

Halftone 2 – Comic Book Creator is FREE for a limited time. This app was named by Apple as one of the Best of 2013, an Editors’ Choice, and now it is featured as App of the Week. Halftone 2 is a categorized as a photography app but it has many educational uses. This app makes it easy to turn your photos into comic book pages that your friends and family will love! The app includes a large assortment of paper styles, captions, speech bubbles, graphic stamps, and fonts for your projects. And… it’s so simple to use. First choose a page layout, then apply photo filters. Next add text by using captions and/or speech & thought bubbles. Then finish your project with some fun graphics like WHAM, BAM, or POW. You can even add a few sound effects. Your creation can be shared as an image, a multi-page document, or high-definition video. Because it is so easy to use, this app would be great for creating visuals to go with classroom projects such as stories, book reports, newsletters, etc. And… it would be really fun to use this app to create comics of your family vacation. Get started today – there are SO many creative & educational uses for this app!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/halftone-2-comic-book-creator/id603139024?mt=8&uo=4

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Star Walk™ 2 – Guide to the Night Sky to Watch Stars, Planets, Meteor Showers & Constellations

star walk 2FREE today – Star Walk™ 2 – Guide to the Night Sky to Watch Stars, Planets, Meteor Showers & Constellations. Just point your iPhone or iPad at the sky to begin your journey through the stars, comets, and constellations. Star Walk™ 2  is the next generation of the best-selling Star Walk which has been used by over 10 million people. Summer is the perfect time for you and your children to learn the position of stars, planets, constellations, comets, ISS, satellites, star clusters, nebulae and meteor showers in the night sky. Grab your telescope and Star Walk 2 and have a family stargazing party tonight!

Direct Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-walk-2-guide-to-night/id892279069?mt=8

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Toca Boca’s 4th of July Sale

I LOVE Toca Boca apps!! They make learning what it should be – fun, creative, and joyful!

12 of their apps are on sale for $.99 each. These apps are usually $2.99.

Toca Hair 222,198 reviews can’t be wrong so you don’t want to miss this one. Toca Hair Salon 2, a creative educational app, is $.99 for a limited time. This app is the sequel to the original – Toca Hair Salon. In this app, kids go back into the salon to groom NEW characters in this app. Using the tools in the salon, they cut hair, comb it, curl it, straighten it, make it grow, shave it, color it, etc. Great sound effects are also included in this fantastically fun app. Kids or parents can take a photo of the finished creation and save it to the 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 a character a whole new look and write a story to go with it. Use this app to inspire creative writing on Wacky Hair Day!!

Download Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-hair-salon-2/id569632660?mt=8&uo=6&at=&ct=

hair salon meOnly $.99 – Toca Hair Salon Me, the newest addition to the popular Toca Hair Salon apps. Using this app, kids can create a whole new look for themselves and/or their family & friends. They simply import a picture from the camera roll and “the styling” can begin. The salon is equipped with all the right tools to style hair. They can cut it, comb it, make it grow, shave it, color it, etc. They can also wash it, blow it dry, curl it or straighten it. Great sound effects add to the fun! After they finish the styling, they can add fun accessories – glasses, bow, mustaches, etc. They can even use their own photos for the background. Kids or parents can take a photo of the finished creation and save it to their camera roll. What a great springboard for creative writing – give yourself a whole new look and write a story to go with it. What a fun activity for a Wacky Hair Day!!

Download Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-hair-salon-me/id730873197?mt=8&uo=4

Toca BuildersAlso $.99  – Toca Builders, another wonderfully creative app from Toca Boca. Kids (ages 5+) create things with the help of 6 builder friends: Blox, Cooper, Vex, Stretch, Connie, and Jum-Jum. Each builder has unique skills which kids can control with simple gestures. The builders help move, stack, drop, spray, smash, paint, & lift blocks as kids create/construct new objects.The educational app also has a snapshot feature and an autosave feature to share & save the world that your child has created. If your child can imagine it, he/she can build it with the help of the Toca Builders – creative fun for your budding engineer/builder!

Download Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-builders/id652077009?mt=8&uo=4

toca kitchen

Also on sale – Toca Kitchen, another fun educational app from Toca Boca. Kids take to the kitchen to cook for four lovable characters. In the frig they will find 12 different foods that they can prepare 180 different ways. They can slice, blend, boil, fry, microwave, and/or mix the foods together. They can also add seasoning to the food; but they need to be careful not to add too much. Once the food is prepared they plate it up, serve it to the character, and wait for a reaction. Kids will learn which foods each character prefers in a fun creative way. I love the questions and conversations that Toca Boca apps inspire. It’s no wonder that this app was a Gold Winner of the Parent’s Choice Awards in 2012. Teachers – use this app to inspire creative writing. Write stories or poems about being a cook and the preferences of your consumers. Or, you could have kids compare and contrast the food preferences of the different characters on a graphic organizer. This app also inspires conversation about healthy eating. There are lots of possibilities for learning while having fun!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-kitchen/id476553281?mt=8&uo=4

Toca Kitchen 2:  https://tunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-kitchen-2/id943869618?mt=8

toca pet

Toca Pet Doctor is another creative app for preschoolers from Toca Boca. The app guides kids (ages 2 – 6) through activities that teach them to care and feel for animals. Fifteen animals need some tender loving care. Kids come to their rescue in a variety of ways. They help to clean & medicate Rascal’s ear, flip over Tarzan the upside down turtle, untie the knotted worm, and more. After the animals are cured, kids feed them and they go back to sleep. If your child likes the other Toca Boca apps, you’ll want to add this one to your collection today. These apps do not go on sale or free that often. Another great app from a developer that makes learning fun. 🙂

 

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-pet-doctor/id808108897?mt=8&uo=4

toca miniToca Mini, another creative app from Toca Boca. With this app kids can create silly monsters, imaginary animals, or playful friends. Toca Minis can become whatever you want them to be. To start, kids add colors to the mini’s body, arms, & legs. Then they add details using a wide variety of stamps – bows, hats, buttons, polka dots, etc. Next, kids add facial features which brings their minis to life – they, ooh, ah, sneeze, smile, blink, and more. Kids can also add hair, eyebrows, beards, mustaches, etc. With 60 different colors and 78 different stamps, there are thousands of possible combinations. When kids finish creating their own unique mini, they can take a snapshot and save it to the camera roll. Then they can print it, share it, pull it into a story writing app, and more. Creating a mini could be a great springboard for creative writing – descriptive paragraphs, a story about their created character/creature. Toca Boca has created another open-ended, creative app!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-mini/id718082838?mt=8&uo=4natureToca Nature is one of the latest apps from Toca Boca. Kids explore nature with this educational app. They can carve out lakes, create mountain ranges, plant trees to grow a forest. Then they can watch as animals move in to populate their new habitats. Kids can also can collect berries, nuts, and mushrooms to feed the animals. As they explore, they will find out what different creatures eat and learn about their natural habitats. Thanks, Toca Boca, for another great app that encourages kids to learn through exploration and use their imagination!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-nature/id893927401?mt=8&uo=6&at=&ct=

Also on sale:

Toca Boo: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-boo/id919097064?mt=8

Toca Train: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-train/id521640355?mt=8&uo=4

Toca Lab: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-lab/id748057890?mt=8&uo=6&at=&ct=

Toca Cars: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-cars/id689936776?mt=8&uo=4

Enjoy!!

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Toca Mini

image

On sale for $.99 – Toca Mini, another creative app from Toca Boca. With this app kids can create silly monsters, imaginary animals, or playful friends. Toca Minis can become whatever you want them to be. To start, kids add colors to the mini’s body, arms, & legs. Then they add details using a wide variety of stamps – bows, hats, buttons, polka dots, etc. Next, kids add facial features which brings their minis to life – they, ooh, ah, sneeze, smile, blink, and more.  Kids can also add hair, eyebrows, beards, mustaches, etc. With 60 different colors and 78 different stamps, there are thousands of possible combinations. When kids finish creating their own unique mini, they can take a snapshot and save it to the camera roll. Then they can print it, share it, pull it into a story writing app, and more. Creating a mini could be a great springboard for creative writing – descriptive paragraphs, a story about their created character/creature. Toca Boca has created another open-ended, creative app!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-mini/id718082838?mt=8&uo=4

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Slice Fractions

slice fractions

On sale for only $.99  – Slice Fractions was recently listed as one of Apple’s Best of 2014:Apps. Kids learn about fractions as they slice through ice and lava to clear a path for a cute mammoth. Along the way they collect silly hats for the mammoth to wear. As they solve the app’s 90+ physics puzzles, they are exposed to key concepts of fractions – partitioning, equivalent fraction, numerator/denominator notation, ordering, subtracting from a whole, etc. Kids will enjoy learning about fractions in this wordless environment that seems more like a game than math lessons. I love that the app encourages kids to be problem solvers. Its replay button permits them to try each puzzle again and again until they figure it out. Hints are only given when support is needed. The end result is that kids are learning through discovery!  It’s no wonder that this app has received so many accolades: Apple Editor’s Choice, Editor’s Choice for Excellence in Design: Children’s Technology Review, Winner of a Parents’ Choice Gold Award 2014, Gold Medal Winner 2014: International Serious Play Awards, and Best Family Friendly Game 2014: Indie Prize Showcase Awards.

Common Core State Standards met:

  • 2.G.2. Partition a rectangle into rows and columns of same-size squares and count to find the total number of them.
  • 2.G.3. Partition circles and rectangles into two, three, or four equal shares, describe the shares using the words halves, thirds, half of, a third of, etc., and describe the whole as two halves, three thirds, four fourths. Recognize that equal shares of identical wholes need not have the same shape.
  • 3.NF.1. Understand a fraction 1/b as the quantity formed by 1 part when a whole is partitioned into b equal parts; understand a fraction a/b as the quantity formed by a parts of size 1/b.
  • 3.NF.3 – Explain equivalence of fractions and compare fractions by reasoning about their size. Understand two fractions as equivalent (equal) if they are the same size. Recognize and generate simple equivalent fractions, e.g., 1/2 = 2/4, 4/6 = 2/3).
  • 4.NF.2. Compare two fractions with different numerators and different denominators, e.g., by creating common denominators or numerators, or by comparing to a benchmark fraction such as 1/2.
  • 4.NF.3b. Decompose a fraction into a sum of fractions with the same denominator in more than one way, recording each decomposition by an equation.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/slice-fractions/id794730213?mt=8&uo=4

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Halftone 2 Comic Book Creator

halftone 2

Halftone 2 – Comic Book Creator is FREE for a limited time. This app was named by Apple as one of the Best of 2013 and an Editors’ Choice. Halftone 2 – Comic Book Creator is a categorized as a photography app but it has many educational uses. This app makes it easy to turn your photos into comic book pages that your friends and family will love! The app includes a large assortment of paper styles, captions, speech bubbles, graphic stamps, and fonts for your projects. And… it’s so simple to use. First choose a page layout, then apply photo filters. Next add text by using captions and/or speech & thought bubbles. Then finish your project with some fun graphics like WHAM, BAM, or POW. You can even add a few sound effects. Your creation can be shared as an image, a multi-page document, or high-definition video. Because it is so easy to use, this app would be great for creating visuals to go with classroom projects such as stories, book reports, newsletters, etc. And… it would be really fun to use this app to create comics of your family vacation. Get started today – there are SO many creative & educational uses for this app!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/halftone-2-comic-book-creator/id603139024?mt=8&uo=4