Apps (these have been rated the BEST!)

The List and the Links

The Details...

Sight words come to life with this colorful cartoon app! From the makers of Endless Alphabet, this app lets children scroll through the alphabet and spell out different words. The new words are instantly animated to help your youngsters understand the meaning behind the letter combination. There are sentence puzzles that accompany each word to promote reading comprehension. With beautiful graphics and engaging cartoon characters, early learners will love Endless Reader. This app is free to download and requires in app purchases to access the full alphabet.

The Human Body by Tinybop ($2.99)

This comprehensive app is a must-have for curious elementary and middle school students. The Human Body by Tinybop is a powerful tool for children to explore the skeletal, muscular, nervous, circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems. Your kids can check out how the brain responds to different musical instruments and how the human body digests different foods. This is a fantastic app to help students learning about the human body and supports parents looking for a way to explain these biological systems to their children.

Learn With Homer (Free)

An amazing early childhood app, Learn With Homer is the perfect tool to help kids learn how to read. The activities are designed for children building their foundational skills and will definitely support youngsters getting ready for the Common Core State Standards. Children will learn letter sounds, become stronger spellers and build their reading fluency. This app exposes kids to high quality texts and is definitely worth adding to your app toolkit. Learn With Homer is free to download and requires in app purchases to access all activities.

TinyTap, Make Games & Learn (Free)

TinyTap is a unique app that is fantastic for families! Parents can design their own games for young children using pictures, recording their voice and adding text. School aged kids can make games too that can easily be shared with friends and family members. This app fosters creativity in children of all ages and can be tailored to meet the needs of individual kids. TinyTap is truly fun for the whole family and is free to download.

Math Champ Challenge (Free)

For upper elementary school students and middle schoolers, Math Champ Challenge is a great tool for preparing kids for the Common Core State Standards. When you unlock all levels, users will have access to thousands of questions that meet the standards in 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th grades. There are games and traditional questions as well as feedback for parents that can also be shared with teachers. Math Champ Challenge provides a bright and colorful platform for helping children meet the new national standards!

Toontastic (Free)

One of my favorite apps is Toontastic and this year they’ve added new features that make this wonderful app even stronger! This app lets children create stories by asking them to choose a setting, move characters around the screen, and add their own voice for dialogue. New Special FX features bring storytelling to the next level by giving kids the chance to add explosions and storms to their creations. Students can share videos with friends and families to demonstrate their creativity!

Hopscotch (Free)

There are apps for the iPad that support students as they prepare for success in the growing fields of STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Hopscotch is designed to help children learn basic coding skills while playing an iPad game. This engaging, colorful app lets students build and customize code to move cartoon characters around their screen. With Hopscotch, elementary school aged children will practice the fundamentals of computer programming to help them prepare for a future filled with careers in technology.

Shout Science! (Free)

Interactive books are a great way to get children excited about reading and help build their prerequisite knowledge on a variety of topics. Shout Science! introduces children to famous scientists through engaging cartoon biographies of historical figures from the Scientific Revolution. This beautifully illustrated app will help your youngsters build an understanding of scientific history and place events in a timeline. Easy to navigate and chock full of information, Shout Science supports social studies, reading and inquiry.

U.S. Geography by MindSnacks ($1.99)

MindSnacks has a suite of engaging games that help children with reading and vocabulary. This year they’ve added a wonderful United States Geography app that helps children build a foundational understanding of important concepts. This app is full of activities that will help children learn state capitals, recognize states shapes, identify physical features and much more. There are eight different games that students can unlock as they move through the app. Perfect for elementary through middle school, U.S. Geography is definitely worth checking out!

Meerkat Math HD ($4.99)

Flashcards are great, but apps like Meerkat Math HD help children practice core math concepts through fun games. This app includes eight activities designed for elementary school students who need to build math fluency. Kids should be able to quickly answer addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems. By building this skill, kids will be able to tackle the tougher problems presented to them at school. With this attention-grabbing cartoon app, your children will learn and play at the same time!