Tag Archives: apps for kids

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Read Me Stories – Children’s Books

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Read Me Stories is an app for the iPhone/iPad that offers a selection of read along picture books for kids ages 4+. The FREE version of the app is loaded with the series, Tuffy’s First Adventure, and 6 books from other series for you to try. Available as in-app purchases are: additional books (from other series) and a new book every day. There are two options: “read to you” or “read yourself.” In the “read to you” option, the words are highlighted as they are read. Other than that, the interactivity is limited.

The stories are brightly illustrated and the story lines are fine but not wonderful (in my opinion). Teaching elementary school for 30+ years & reading literally thousands of kids’ stories has made me very picky. I do agree with the philosophy – the way to develop the habit of reading is by reading every day; but personally, I prefer the selection of books available through the Reading Rainbow app  – see my July 18th review.

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Intro to Geography – North America

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Happy Birthday, Maria Montessori – August 31, 1870!! Enjoy this iPad app FREE (today & tomorrow) in honor of Maria Montessori’s birthday. Kids learn the shapes, names, locations, and flags of North American countries.This app is based on the methodology of Montessori  – it progresses through a well-organized sequence of activities using puzzle maps. Excellent learning tool!

Highly recommended!

Intro to Geography - North America, by Montessorium - Montessorium, LLC.

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Hiding Hannah

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FREE today, Hiding Hannah is an interactive book for kids 2+ for the iPhone/iPad. Hannah loves to hide everything, including herself. Narrated by Tom Kenny (the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants) and illustrated by Melanie McCall, this book is adorable! Your child will love reading through the story and finding where Hannah has hidden things. And the best part is that the hiding places change every time you read the story. Really cute!!

Highly recommended!

Hiding Hannah - Squeaky Frog

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Fetch! Lunch Rush

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From our friends at PBS comes this very unique FREE math game app for iPhone/iPad.  In this multi-player game, it is the students’ task to keep up with the lunch orders from Ruff Ruffman’s movie crew. The challenge is to keep track of how many pieces of sushi everyone wants by adding and subtracting. Before the game begins, game pieces have to be printed from the PBS website and distributed around the room. As the sushi orders come in, students have to find the game piece with the correct answer to the problem. Using the camera lens on their device, they focus in on then tap the sushi. The sushi pieces magically move to the table in front of their character (as seen above). Students have to think fast and keep moving to fill all of the sushi orders before their friends do. What fun !!

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.

Highly recommended!

FETCH! LUNCH RUSH - PBS KIDS

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The Tree I See

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This storybook app for iPhone/iPad normally sells for $1.99 but I was able to download it on a FREE day. Geared towards toddlers, it is a story about a little boy and a tree who willingly gives and shares what he has with his wilderness friends. The Tree I See is a beautifully animated story about sharing and what it means to be a friend  🙂

Keep reading my blog to find out when apps are offered for FREE.

The Tree I See - Interactive Storybook - Aridan Books

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Goodnight Safari

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FREE  for the iPhone/iPad, Goodnight Safari is a sweet interactive story for bedtime. Kids (ages 2-4) help the animals of the savannah complete their evening activities in 7 different scenes –  a giraffe eating dinner, a monkey climbing into bed, a hippo taking a bath, etc. Optional counting & color activities are available as an in-app purchase. Very sweet story for a peaceful end to your child’s day 🙂

Recommended!

Goodnight Safari - Polk Street Press LLC

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Teacher Clicker – Socrative / Student Clicker – Socrative

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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 retaught. 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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Toy Story

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I could probably review this app in 5 word: FREE, Disney’s Toy Story, download… It’s a winning combination 🙂

This app is a FREE interactive reading adventure for the iPad created by Disney Pixar. Kids can choose to have the story read to them, explore at their own pace, or record their own narration. The app also has coloring pages, games, singalongs, and video clips. Animations and surprises are found throughout the story. It is a fun interactive book with a positive message about friendship. A must have for fans of Toy Story!

Recommended!

Toy Story Read-Along - Disney

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Math Magician

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This app for the iPhone/iPad was just launched on August 7, 2012 and it has already been offered for FREE twice. There are 3 levels with several math concepts covered within each level. The easy level covers counting 1-120, skip counting by 2 & 5, addition 1-20, subtraction 1-20, and greater/less than 0-20. The medium level covers: skip counting (10 and 100), addition 0-100, subtraction 0-100, add/subtract by 10, greater/less than 0-100, multiplication 1-10, and division 1-10. The hard level covers: addition 100-500, subtraction 50-200, multiplication facts 0-12 and division facts, 0-12.

Kids earn treasure from the magician as they solve problems in the magic crystal ball. As kids answer correctly, the magic meter bar fills so they can keep track of their progress. Correct solutions are shown in the meter bar after the question is answered. Kids have to answer about 30 questions correctly in order to earn a treasure – which seems a little high to me. The other concern I have is that the answers do not reflect common mechanical mistakes. Kids can arrive at the correct answer by just adding or subtracting one’s place. Example:  386 + 199 = ?? and the 4 answers are 586, 585, 587, 589. If a student knows that 6 = 9 is 15, he/she will pick the answer with the 5 in one’s place. The more common error that kids make is forgetting to move the 10 over. So… 4 better answer choices might be 485, 585, 575, 475. That being said… there is a lot of good practice in this app.

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.

Keep reading my blog to find out when apps are offered for FREE.

Math Magician - abcteach

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I Hear Ewe

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This simple to use app for the iPhone/iPad is designed for toddlers and is FREE. When your child taps on an animal’s picture, a voice says “This is the sound a ____ makes” and the sound follows. This app is so easy to use and the buttons are big enough for little fingers. 24 animal sounds and 12 vehicle sounds are included. Also, there are 5 language options: English, Spanish, Chinese, German, and Japanese. This app is perfect for little ones who love naming animals and making their sounds 🙂

Recommended!

I Hear Ewe - Animal Sounds for Toddlers - Claireware Software