Tag Archives: apps for kids

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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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Axel Scheffler’s Flip Flop Farm

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FREE for a limited time – Flip Flap Farm an educational app inspired by an original storybook. What do you get when you cross a dog with a turkey? A durkey. A sheep with a pig? A shig. Kids swipe through halves of animals and choose 2 of them to create a new animal. The result is 121 different combinations that will make preschoolers giggle. The app features original artwork and poems for each new creature which can be enjoyed in two modes – Read and Play or Read Myself. Little ones will have lots of fun with this creatively silly app. Teachers of older students might want to use this app to inspire kids to write their own creative books – Flip Flap Jungle, Flip Flap Desert, etc. 🙂

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/axel-schefflers-flip-flap/id681875831?mt=8&uo=4

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Pan: The Fearless Beribot and Pan: Chasing the Keeper

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Pan: The Fearless Beribot and Pan: Chasing the Keeper, are FREE for a limited time. These e-books are the first two books in a series about Pan, a sweet purple panda on a quest to find her family. Both apps are beautifully illustrated and full of animations & interactivity. Kids can tap, swipe, and tilt their way throughout the story to uncover many interactive surprises. Highlighted text helps early readers. Also, pictures of the characters appear next to the text to indicate who is speaking. The app is professionally narrated with great sound effects and original music. No wonder the first Pan book was named as “New & Noteworthy” by Apple – these apps are beautifully done!!

Download links:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pan-the-fearless-beribolt/id648998642?mt=8&uo=4

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pan-chasing-the-keeper/id729686081?mt=8&uo=4

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Shadow Puppet

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Shadow Puppet

FREE for a limited time – Shadow Puppet, a photography app that was featured by Apple as one of the “Best New Apps” for 4 weeks in a row! Using this app, it’s easy to create “puppets” – recorded explanations of your photos. First you choose your photos and put them in the order. Then you talk about your pictures. Everything is recorded. Finished “puppets” can be shared via email, SMS, Facebook and/or Twitter. There are so many ways for everyone to use Shadow Puppet: to teach something new, to share adventures with friends, to record children talking about their experiences, to tell the story behind old family photos, etc.

And… the classroom uses for this app are only limited by your imagination: Take pictures of a child’s work and have him/her explain it to parents. Send pictures and voice recordings of the class field trip. Have kids give a step-by-step explanation of what happened in a science experiment. Draw & sequence pictures to retell a story. Make a “talking timeline” by sequencing photos of historical events. Have kids use it to present mini reports on any subject. Have virtual “pet day” – kids bring in pictures/recordings of their pets. Because you can use anything saved to your photo library, you can explain photos from the web, artwork created in other apps, and so much more. The possibilities for using this educational app are endless. What a fabulous resource!!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shadow-puppet/id700902833?mt=8&uo=4

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Bluster

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Bluster is a FREE app for the iPad developed by McGraw-Hill. It was designed to teach vocabulary and word development to students in grades 2 – 4. Topics covered are rhyming, prefixes & suffixes, word roots, synonyms, homophones, and adjectives. There are 3 modes of play – single, team, and versus. Team mode permits collaboration with a friend. Versus mode allows head-to-head play with the ability to disrupt your opponent by causing weather related attacks. Kids start by choosing their mode of play, grade level, and word match type. They then swipe through the list to match 3 words with the same meaning, rhyme, prefix, suffix, or word root. There are 10 groups of 3 to match in each round of play. What a fun way to present over 800 vocabulary words!

Common Core Standards met:

  • 2.L.4 – Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known prefix is added to a known word (e.g., happy/unhappy, tell/retell). Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root (e.g., addition, additional).
  • 3.L.4 – Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known affix is added to a known word (e.g., agreeable/disagreeable, comfortable/uncomfortable, care/careless, heat/preheat). Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root (e.g., company, companion).
  • 4.L.4 –  Use common, grade-appropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., telegraph, photograph, autograph).
  • 4.L.5. Demonstrate understanding of words by relating them to their opposites (antonyms) and to words with similar but not identical meanings (synonyms).

Recommended!

Bluster! - McGraw-Hill School Education Group

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Teacher Clicker – Socrative / Student Clicker – Socrative

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Still FREE and now even better!! Socrative has added two additional quiz features: # 1 – Teachers can now add images to their questions. #2 – The system can now grade short answer questions. Teachers just input the acceptable answers and the system does the rest.  🙂

This website and app are unbelievably cool – they turn any device with a web browser (iPhone, iPad, laptops) into a student response clicker. If a teacher has access to any kind of wireless lab, he/she can engage the entire class in a game or quiz and watch the results in real-time. Teachers begin by using their teacher app or logging into t.socrative.com with their email and password. Once logged in, teachers are assigned a room number to share with their students. Students log in using their student app or at m.socrative.com and enter the “virtual room number” provided by the teacher. Teachers initiate an activity and students respond on their devices. Multiple choice and short answer quizzes are easy to create – types of questions can be mixed. Teachers can also choose to run the quiz as a Space Race game. The students’ responses are visible to the teacher in real-time. Teachers can see what each child answered individually as well as what the group answered collectively. And the best part is… the app grades, graphs the results, and generates a report as an Excel spreadsheet or an email.

What a powerful tool for teachers – a short quiz at the end of a lesson can pinpoint what students understand and what needs to be reviewed. Hours of grading and analyzing test results are done immediately. Every student is involved – wow!

Highly recommended!

Teacher app Teacher Clicker - Socrative - Socrative           Student app Student Clicker - Socrative - Socrative

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Happi and the Pirates

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Pirates

FREE for  limited time – Happi and the Pirates, an educational app from Happi Pappi. Kids use their spelling skills to solve word puzzles. They are presented with picture clues and a grid printed on a piece of treasure map. Kids have to use their knowledge of word structure & word building to spell the words and place them in the correctly on the grid. When they complete the puzzle, they earn keys to treasure chests. The more accurately and quickly they complete the puzzle, the more keys they earn. As they game progresses, they earn the tools and map pieces that lead them to the pirates’ treasure. While this app is primarily a word game, it also requires kids to use logic and deductive reasoning. I love the way this app is designed – it’s appealing to kids but it requires them to think. 🙂 The timer can be disabled for younger students to give them more “think time” and/or to allow teachers to use the app for a lesson on problem solving. This educational app has been featured by Apple in New & Noteworthy in USA, UK, Ireland. It was awarded the Editor’s Choice Award by the Children’s Technology Review in 2013.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/happi-pirates-spelling-math/id622075576?mt=8&uo=4

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ABC Farm

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ABC farm

FREE for a limited time – ABC Farm. This educational app introduces your toddler (3 – 5) to over 50 farm words through sight, sound, and touch. The app opens to a grid arranged in ABC order. Kids can tap on a letter to find objects that begin with that letter or they can tap on a specific object to learn about it. As an object’s photo appears, a child’s voice says the initial letter then reads the name of the object (which appears in writing at the bottom of the screen). A little cartoon person drops down on the left hand side of the screen with a link to a video clip or an interactive scene. The child can scroll to the left for additional pictures and videos about each object. The app also contains “Read To Me” Fun Facts about each farm word featured. The app can be used in English only, Spanish only, or in dual language mode – great for ESL students. 

This app needs an internet connection to work because the 100+ videos are actually links from You Tube. They are chosen by Peapod Labs and checked to be interesting and safe for kids. Kids cannot link from this app into other You Tube content. This app is nicely done  – great for building vocabulary and beginning to read/spell words.

Also check out my reviews of ABC Wildlife, ABC House, ABC Music, and ABC Aquarium by the same developers. :)

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/abc-farm/id615898597?mt=8&uo=4

 
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Super Duper Idioms

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Super Duper 2

Super Duper

Newly released educational app – Super Duper Idioms helps kids (and adults) understand 500 common English idioms. Try the first 50 for FREE. You may purchase additional packs of 50 for $2.99 per pack. The app is cutely illustrated and features 4 fun games: multiple choice, super-duper secret decoder, fill in the blank, and search & circle. The questions are written but there is also audio support for students who have difficulty reading. The level of difficulty can be adjusted by choosing to have  2, 3, or 4 choice answers. The app can be set to read the correct answer after incorrect and/or correct response which is helpful to students who are learning the meanings. An unlimited number of players are permitted – making this app perfect for use in the classroom. And the best part…. it keeps track of data so teachers and parents can see student progress over time. The app uses graphs which can be emailed, printed, and/or shared – awesome!  This app would be great for kids as well as adult ESL students who are learning English idioms – nicely done!

Common Core Standards met:

  • 4.L.5b and 5.L.5b Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. b. Recognize and explain the meaning of common idioms, adages, and proverbs.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/super-duper-idioms/id657415898?mt=8&uo=4

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The Hippo, the Rhino, the Elephant and Me

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Hippo

FREE yesterday (but $1.99 today) – The Hippo, the Rhino, the Elephant and Me, an adorable story about a little girl and her 3 best friends. Told in rhyme and full of interactivity, the story follows the characters through a week of fun. Kids join the fun as the characters play hide & seek, make music in a band, color, pretend to be monsters, race through the house, go to the park, and last but not least – clean up their mess (an ending that parents are sure to appreciate.) The story has 2 reading modes: read it myself or read it to me. The Hippo, the Rhino, the Elephant and Me is beautifully illustrated by British artist Lisa Hunt  – a cute story that your kids are sure to enjoy!