Many homeschoolers, well, actually, all parents, are turning to the use of education apps on their smart phones and tablets to entertain and educate their children on the go. Though I have always been anti-video game, I find myself in a bit of a quandary. As a smart phone user, and a tablet user wanna-be, I continue to read about the latest educational apps and wonder about their place in our educational lives.
I have downloaded a few on my smart phone – sight word flashcard and Spanish alphabet review. I even have a cute one for my toddler – Toddler Trifling — which allows drawing and working with shapes and colors. But I rarely use them.
As I read about other applications available and those using them in their homeschooling, I wonder if they do have some value. Especially with our on-the-go lifestyle that occasionally takes over.
Though I have stuck to the free apps to this point, I’m considering venturing into the paid apps and seeing what they have to offer. Here are some apps I’m looking into.
Super Why! – From PBS, we love the show so the app is appealing.
RockNLearn – From the DVD Rock N Learn we love – though it appears they only have iPhone/iPad apps and nothing for Android yet.
Sight Words – From Dolch Sight Words
Dr Seuss ABC – ABC for beginning readers
What apps do you use for your children? I would love to hear about them.
I don’t homeschool, but I do have an inquisitive toddler 😉 She loves SuperWhy, but at 2 isn’t ready for the app yet. She does, however, love the PBSKids app that shows full episodes (and it’s free!). I recently downloaded a free alphabet flash cards app, simply called ABC Flashcards Mobile Edition. It has a trace-the-letter feature that will be great when she’s older. There is also iTubeList, which lets me save YouTube playlists that I prescreen to the app for her to watch at will. Her favorite is the Elmo list 🙂 You can add any YouTube videos, so the door is open with how educational you want to make it.
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Thanks for the tip. I will have to check them out. My 2 year old loves Super Why. My 7 year old plays online at the PBS website but I haven’t found the free episodes. Thanks.
Thanks for the tip on the iTubeList – I didn’t know about that. What a great idea! Thanks for sharing!
Fabulous suggestions – I would have never found these on my own! Thanks for sharing Tawnee!!!
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Thanks. Hope they help 🙂
My boys are 3 & 4 and while we haven’t officially started ‘school’ yet we try to keep as many of the ‘games’ and movies as educational and nurturing as possible. 🙂 Here are a list of some of the favorites are our house:
kindergarten.com has probably 8-10 different FREE flash card apps. From ABCs to Shapes, Instruments, Fruits, Veggies, Clothing, Vehicles, etc. Both my boys LOVE to ‘play’ with those.
“Peekaboo Barn” had animals hiding in a barn and before you ‘open’ the barn doors you can hear the noise each animal makes — Big hit with my youngest.
We have the Thomas & Friend “Thomas Game Pack” which has puzzles and mazes.
There is an iPad app called ‘Awesome Eats’ that is sorting and matching fruits and veggies. We just got it last week (it’s new and also free). They love it.
Oh, there was a Dora app that I had on our iPad that was free and really great for the alphabet and learning to write– Unfortunately it had a game that you had to tilt the iPad to play and you cant ‘skip’ that. SO, I ended up taking it off the iPad because my boys just weren’t ready for that type of ‘game’ yet. I was afraid it (the iPad) would get dropped. 🙂
I’ve wondered about the SuperWhy app, it didn’t have the best reviews when I checked it out last time. I’ll have to think about grabbing that. Both of them love to watch superwhy.
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Love the Peekaboo Barn. Thanks for sharing. My son loves anything Thomas and for some reason I had not searched for it. Yikes! Thanks. I did see the SuperWhy reviews but we have had good luck with it. Thanks for sharing.
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