Tag Archives: apps for kids

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Toca Hair Salon

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FREE again today – Toca Hair Salon, one of my favorite educational apps for toddlers! Kids go into the salon to groom 6 different characters. They can use the tools in the salon to style their hair – cut it, comb it, make it grow, shave it, color it, etc. Great sound effects are also included in this fun app. Kids or parents can take a photo of the finished creation and save it to their 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. What a fun writing activity for a Wacky Hair Day!!

Toca Hair Salon - Toca Boca AB

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EyePaint Animals

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Eye Paint Animals

EyePaint Animals is FREE again for a limited time. This educational app let your child paint illustrations from Japanese artist, Mitsue Haya, in a very unique way. Kids”paint” using their cameras to capture the colors, textures, patterns around them. To begin, a child chooses one of the 10 included illustrations. He/she taps to select the area to be filled in and the creativity begins! Work can be saved to the photo library for sharing or printing. Easy, fun, and very creative!!

Eye Paint Animals - Curious Hat

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Hickory Dickory Dock

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Hickory Dickory Dock, an educational app for the iPhone/iPad is FREE again for a limited time. Your child can learn to read a clock to the nearest hour while playing with an adorable, purple mouse. Kids begin by setting the time on the clock. For each hour there is an exploration that sends the lovable little mouse bouncing, springing and sleeping his way through the nursery rhyme accompanied by catchy music, sounds effects, and fun animations. The explorations in Hickory Dickory Dock simulate principles of physics –  gravity, collision, friction, weight, etc. as kids play pinball with the mouse, balance weights on a set of scales, and bounce the mouse off the walls of the clock. Very cute for preschoolers – a fun way to learn how to tell time with some physics slipped in as a bonus 🙂

Hickory Dickory Dock - Mindshapes Limited

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Let’s Color

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FREE for a limited time – another educational app from the makers of Squiggles. And just like Squiggles, Let’s Color encourages creativity! The app includes an animated short in which the characters – Bobu, the monkey  & Miku, the rabbit use their imaginations to turn triangles into a strawberry, a dog, a mountain, etc. Then kids are encouraged to color different things to complete a page: what is coming out of a hose, who is riding in the train, etc. Once the coloring is completed, they press GO and the drawings come alive. There are 17 coloring pages as well as a blank page for your child to create his/her own pictures. Additional coloring pages can be purchased within the app. Tools included are stickers, markers, paint, chalk, a ketchup bottle, as well as 10 colors & a mystery color wheel. Work can be saved into the gallery of the parents’ section by pressing the piggy bank. This app is super cute!! Just like Squiggles, it encourages children to be imaginative & creative 🙂

Highly recommended!

Let's Color! - Lazoo Worldwide, Inc

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Apps for Shark Week!

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It’s Shark Week – a week of TV programs dedicated to sharks on the Discovery Channel now broadcast in 70+ countries. Here are some FREE educational apps that I found about these creatures who capture the interest of so many people – young and old! Education is about teachable moments – take advantage of them when you can!

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.

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

Shark tank

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 TV: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sea-tv/id530529039?mt=8&uo=4

shark track 1

shark track 2

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=4

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KIDS DISCOVER – Constitution and Galaxies

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Constitution

Galaxies

2 more Back to School Specials: Constitution by KIDS DISCOVER and Galaxies by KIDS DISCOVER are FREE for a limited time! KIDS DISCOVER has been creating award-winning content for kids for over 20 years. Get the interactive, digital versions of these books for FREE. 🙂

Download links:

Constitution  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/constitution-by-kids-discover/id668593395?mt=8&uo=4

Galaxies  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/galaxies-by-kids-discover/id593605368?mt=8&uo=4

 

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Miku’s Picnic and Squiggles – apps by Lazoo

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Miku's Picnic

FREE for a limited time – Miku’s Picnic, an adorable interactive story designed to to support creative thinking. Kids join Bobu, the monkey & Miku, the rabbit on a chase after some jumping beans. The two need help capturing the beans before they bounce away! Along the way kids learn about using their imaginations and creative problem solving as the Bobu & Moku use “Squiggles” to… make a car go faster, make springs to get to the top of a tree, make binoculars to look for the beans, make a rocket zoom to the moon, and more. There are 2 reading modes – “Read to Me” and “Read it Myself” as well as an option to record your own voice as the narrator. The story ends with a link to the FREE Squiggles app for kids so kids can “take a turn” drawing. Super creative and super cute!

Download link for Miku’s Picnic: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lazoo-mikus-picnic/id652945863?mt=8&uo=4

Squiggles – This FREE app for the iPad is adorable! Kids are encourages to draw squiggles to create: rain clouds (to water flowers), waves (to help fish swim), wool on sheep, cotton candy, etc. Once the squiggles are drawn, they press GO and the drawings come alive. The app includes an interactive storybook and an animated short which introduces the characters – Bobu, the monkey  & Miku, the rabbit. It also includes 14 drawing pages (just add the squiggles) as well as a blank page for your child to create his/her own pictures. Tools included are stickers, markers, paint, chalk, a ketchup bottle, as well as 10 colors & a mystery color wheel. Work can be saved into the gallery of the parents’ section by pressing the piggy bank. This app is super cute!! It encourages children to be imaginative & creative – one of my favorites 🙂

Highly recommended!

Squiggles! - Lazoo Worldwide, Inc

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KIDS DISCOVER – Cells and Ancient Greece

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Cells

Ancient Greeece

Educational apps – Back to School Special: Cells by KIDS DISCOVER and Ancient Greece by KIDS DISCOVER are FREE for a limited time! KIDS DISCOVER has been creating award-winning content for kids for over 20 years. Get the interactive, digital versions of these books for FREE. 🙂

Download links:

Cells https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cells-by-kids-discover/id593624778?mt=8&uo=4

Ancient Greece

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ancient-greece-by-kids-discover/id643330967?mt=8&uo=4

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Pic Collage

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Pic Collage

FREE with in-app purchases – Pic Collage, a fabulous app for creating collages! With PicCollage you easily create creative collages with your pictures and/or pictures from the internet. You can change photos into backgrounds, clip them into cutouts, apply filters, add borders, and more! You can also add stickers and text.  So many fun uses of this app for education – have students make a Pic Collage to introduce themselves at the start of the year, send students on a scavenger hunt of geometric shapes then have them make a Pic Collage of what they found, add a PIc Collage to a science report, Make a Pic Collage representing the main character of a book, etc. The list is only limited by your imagination! I LOVE educational apps like this – open-ended with great potential for creativity! WOW!!

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pic-collage/id448639966?mt=8&uo=4

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Learn with Homer

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Learn with Homer

Released on August 1 and already listed as “New & Noteworthy” – Learn with Homer is an educational reading app for kids 3 – 6. The FREE download includes 30 stories and lessons (18 Learn to Read lessons/stories, 12 Discover the World lessons) as well as access to Homer’s Clubhouse and parent tools. Additional content is available through in-app purchases.

Homer, a gray pigeon, resides in an interactive world designed to help kids learn to read. The fun starts in the Hat Shop where kids have photos taken in the “thinking caps” of their choice. From there, kids can proceed to Story Time, Learn to Read, Discover The World, or Homer’s Clubhouse. The Story Time section includes 9 free stories representing 4 genres (rhymes, poetry, folktales, folk songs) as well as Homer stories.  The Learn to Read section teaches the phonemes (sounds) in sequence. Lessons start with sounds & letters, then move to words, and then to sentences. Discover The World is a series of adventures in science, history, art, etc. designed to increase kids’ basic knowledge and vocabularies. Finally, kids can go to Homer’s Clubhouse to draw and record what they have learned. And if that wasn’t enough… there is also a parent website to track your child’s progress and/or download printables  & book recommendations. This educational app seems to have it all – a well designed, comprehensive approach to learning to read with real kid appeal!!

For more information go to Homer: Parent Resources.

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/learn-with-homer/id601437586?mt=8&uo=4