Tag Archives: apps for kids

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My Story – Book Maker for Kids

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One of my favorite writing apps – FREE for one day (Dec. 2) only.

My Story – Book Maker for Kids is a great educational writing app for the iPad. The cost is normally $3.99 but it Is currently FREE. Kids can easily create an unlimited number of their own books using this app. Each page has an area for writing and an area for pictures. In the picture area kids can draw their own illustrations, take photos, or use pictures from their photo library. They can also record themselves reading their books. Finalized stories can read directly from the app, be published to iBooks, and/or shared via email with anyone who owns an iPhone or iPad.

Watch the video and learn more about this app here: My Story – Book Maker for Kids.

What a great medium for your child to share his/her life experiences with grandparents and other loved ones – take photos of your day (at the zoo, in the park, etc.) and let your child narrate the experience! The voice recordings remain intact when the book is shared. The words can be typed in after your child has provided the narration so that kids make the connection that the words in books are really just “talk written down.”

In the classroom kids can share their stories with friends through iBooks, write and present digital reports, keep ongoing vocabulary books and/or journals etc.

Highly recommended!!

My Story - Book Maker for Kids - HiDef Web Solutions

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Look Out Larry & Lost Larry

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Look Out Larry

FREE for a limited time – 2 interactive books from Wasabi: Look Out Larry & Lost Larry. Larry is an adorable green lizard and the main character in these two adventures for 2 – 6 year olds.

In Look Out Larry, kids help Larry stay safe and find a cozy place to sleep by helping to protect him from the dangers of the Australian bush – a spider, a snake, a brush fire, etc. At the end, there is an alternative version of the story called Larry’s Dream. Larry dreams of defending himself against the dangers of the bush in some cute & clever ways. The educational app also includes a matching game.

In Lost Larry, kids help Larry find his way home across rivers, over canyons, over a rickety bridge, etc. This is Larry’s third and most ambitious adventure! Kids will love helping Larry make it home. They pet his little green head to put him to sleep once he gets there! Cute educational app!!

Look Out Larry! animated story book - Wasabi Productions - Wasabi Productions   Look Out Larry          Lost Larry interactive story book - Wasabi Productions - Wasabi Productions   Lost Larry

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Toca Builders

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Toca Builders

FREE again for a limited time – 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

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Educreations

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Educreations is great FREE app that turns your iPad into a recordable whiteboard. The app was just updated a few days ago – November 22, 2013. It is simple to use and permits you to build lessons with multiple pages or slides. The editing tools in Educreations allow you to resize and move images as well as create “animated playback” by dragging objects as you record.

Another bonus of this app is that free accounts are available at http://www.educreations.com. There users can share their work as well as look at lessons created by others. This app is being used at all levels of education including the college level. The features of Educreations make it a standout among the recordable whiteboard apps! What a fabulous educational app!!

Highly recommended!

Educreations Interactive Whiteboard - Educreations, Inc

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Math Racer®

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FREE for a limited time – an educational app that  normally sells for $4.99. Math Racer times how fast kids can answer 10, 20, 50 or 100 problems in 7 different games: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, add/subtract, multiply/divide, or all operations. I like kids being able to practice related operations together – it makes them pay attention to operational signs & see connections. The app keeps high scores for all areas. It shows which problems were missed and how long it took to answer each question (to the hundredth of a second). Teachers and parents can use this tracking system to document kids’ progress.

This app provides a simple but fun way for kids to practice their facts. I can’t imagine that they won’t love racing the clock to improve their scores. If it is loaded on an iPhone, kids could easily practice their facts in the car on their way to after-school lessons. 🙂

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.

Recommended!

Math ® - i4software

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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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Friendly Shapes and Friendly Christmas

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FREE app for the iPad and iPhone – Friendly Shapes. This cute little story for toddlers/preschoolers starts as Circle goes looking for his friend, Star. Along the way he meets other shapes: Triangle, Square, Rectangle, Pentagon, Heart, and Oval. As each shape joins the search, the group morphs into more complicated vehicles. There are three modes: auto-play, read-it-to-myself and play. There is also an option to record your own voice as you read. Each page also has fun animations, and/or puzzles in addition to the story. All in all, this is a nicely done app for little ones to learn shapes, colors, left/right, etc. So how can it be FREE? Well, this app that gives you the option of removing the ads for $.99. The ads are placed at the bottom of each page between the backward and the forward arrows. I think little fingers would end up hitting the ad bar somewhat regularly which could be frustrating. Check it out and decide for yourself. Recommended!

Friendly Shapes - funny interactive adventure HD. - TabTale LTD

Also FREE – Friendly Christmas.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/friendly-christmas-funny-shape/id562847602?mt=8&uo=4

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Doodle Buddy – Paint, Draw, Scribble, Sketch – It’s Addictive

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FREE – Doodle Buddy (for the iPhone/iPad), a great educational app for drawing and creating pictures. It comes with five kinds of tools. The drawing tool has several options – a brush, chalk, glitter, smudge, an eraser, and a color picker with thousands of colors. The stamper tool includes 80+ stamps with the option of making them small or large. Each stamper makes a funny sound when used. The stencil tool comes 6 stencils (basic shapes) with the option to buy other sets as an in-app purchase. Sets available to purchase are theme-based such as fashion, beach, cars, princess, dinosaurs, Christmas, and more. The text tool has 4 fonts with the ability to resize them. Text can be written in any color you choose. The background tool has about 30 backgrounds to choose from or you have the ability to pull in your own photos. Armed with such great tools, you can only imagine the fun you or your child will have creating a works of art! And…. the finished masterpieces can be saved to your photo album and/or shared via email. Fun!!!

There are so many fun ways to use this app. Kids can use it to illustrate their stories because saved illustrations can easily be pulled into a story writing app such as My Story – see my review from June 27. Have kids draw pictures of their vacation then save into photos and use as additional pictures or backgrounds for a photo vacation booklet created on Snapfish, etc. Make a book for Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, a grandparent, etc. – incorporating your child’s drawings and family photos. If creating a family cookbook, have kids do the illustrations. The list goes on……

Highly recommended!

Doodle Buddy for iPad – Paint, Draw, Scribble, Sketch – It’s Addictive! - Pinger, Inc.

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Little Fox Music Box

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Old MacDonald

Mr. Fox’s Sound Studio

The winter version of Little Fox Music Box, an educational app for 2 – 6 year olds, is currently FREE. The app has been downloaded over a million times and was featured as Apple’s App of the Week. The artwork design is from Heidi Wittlinger, an Oscar nominated artist. The app includes 3 children’s songs: Old MacDonald, London Bridge, and Evening Song. Kids can also visit Mr. Fox’s sound studio which is full of 100+ interactive  surprises. The app includes a Karaoke mode and it can be switched from English to German. Kids will be delighted with this adorable app!

Highly recommended!

Little Fox Music Box – Kids songs – Sing along - Shape Minds and Moving Images GmbH