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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

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Toca Town

toca town

FREE for a limited time – Toca Town, a digital town where kids rule. Toca Town features twenty-one playful characters and seven locations to explore – park, pond, store, police station, restaurant, house, and apartment. As kids move around the town, they choose their own adventures. They can grocery shop, cook thirty different dishes at the restaurant, visit the police station, or just hang out with friends. With a tap of the sun, kids can change day into night – perfect for camping in the dark! The app is full of interactive surprises for kids to discover – presents to wrap, lights that turn on and off, etc. Toca Town is great for vocabulary development and oral story telling. Don’t miss this great app from Toca Boca.

Direct Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/toca-life-town/id871694174?mt=8&uo=6

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Smart Whiteboard HD

super white boardFREE – Smart Whiteboard HD, an educational app that is super simple to use! One finger writes, 2 fingers erase, 3 fingers clears all. Press the save button or shake your device to save an image. Writing can be done in black, blue, or red with 3 Width choices. The app also includes a simple voice recorder. Just press record, talk, stop & name your file, and it is saved to a list. You can then email your recording if you wish to share it. Teachers can get rid of their classroom whiteboards, markers, and erasers! Have kids show their work, explain their thoughts, etc. with this simple educational app!

Smart White Board HD - Pad read

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Shadow Puppet

Shadow Puppet

Use the power of this app to create a unique Father’s Day tribute or greeting!!

Fabulous and FREE – Shadow Puppet is a photography app which has been featured by Apple as a Best New Apps. 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.

Recent updates have added many new features. Now you can include video clips, add music, search the web for images, overlay text/stickers, and more! The FREE version of the app permits you to include up to 10 photos/video clips. For $1.99 you can get Puppet Essentials which allows you to add up to 100 items to each video and have access to more drawing & decorating tools. The update made this great app even better!

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. For more suggestions go to http://get-puppet.com/education. What a fabulous resource!!

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

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Chili Fish

chili fishFREE for a limited time – Chili Fish, a fun art app for children. Kids use their imaginations to create fish for their very own underwater kingdom. First they use a variety of colors to paint and/or stamp their fish. Then they choose from different eyes, tails, fins, mouths, etc. The result is a completely new fish every time. Each fish has its own personality, speed, and taste in food. They can also lay eggs to create new fishy friends. Kids can snap pictures of their fish and save them to the camera roll. Then they can print, share, or write about them. Check out this open-ended and interactive app. Kids will enjoy exploring and interacting with the aquatic world that they help to create!

Direct Link https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chili-fish/id907053583?mt=8&uo=6

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Pepi Bath 2

pepi 2FREE for a limited time – Pepi Bath 2. This educational app is the second installment of a role-playing game that teaches kids (ages 2 – 6) about personal hygiene. Kids start by choosing one of four characters: a boy, a girl, a cat or a dog. Then they choose one of six situations: brushing teeth, taking a bath, washing clothes, using the toilet, ironing or choosing an outfit.  In each scene kids learn to take care of themselves and they have fun along the way – adding bubbles to the bath, popping bubbles, etc. There are also some good lessons built into the app. For example – when the scissors are chosen, the character shakes his/her head no. Also, the characters are VERY polite – always saying thank you! Check it out for some good clean fun!

Direct Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pepi-bath-2/id957345067?mt=8&uo=6