≡ Menu
≡ Categories
Turn Coloring Pages Into 3D Playground post image

I have seen some apps using augmented reality to turn ordinary coloring pages into 3D pictures on mobile devices. Today I am sharing an app that can do that and more. DreamWorks Color is a free app that brings coloring pages to life into 3D pictures. Additionally, kids can collect the objects they colored, and put them into a 3D setting and interact with their colored animals or other objects in the new 3D settings. When you first start the… Read more

Fun STEM App for Kids – Crazy Gears post image

I loved gears. We used to play with LEGO and created a lot gear models with it. There are many engineering concepts involved, but when doing it right, it is fun for young children to see and understand those concepts. I am very excited to see now there is an app about gears designed for kids. Crazy Gears is from Seven Academy, who also designed Busy Shapes. The app incorporated many science and engineer concepts in the simple puzzle play… Read more

Free App: Scratch Jr Coding App for Young Children post image

Scratch Jr is a free app from the developers of Scratch at MIT. It is designed for younger children to learn coding. Different from other coding apps for young children, it encourages storytelling as well. With the many interactive functions, parents and teachers can use it as a customizable tool to teach kids many other subjects, such as following instructions, counting, coloring. When you first start the app, there is a tutorial video. I highly suggest going through the video… Read more

Free App: The Foos Teaches Preschoolers Coding post image

This week is Computer Science Education week. To correspond to the campaign Hour of Code, we are sharing a fun coding app designed for preschool kids, and it is Free.  The app is called The Foos: Code for an Hour. The app introduces programming concepts through exciting puzzle adventures. It is for kids or adults who know nothing about coding or programming. So get started, download the app, put in your hour of code this week! There are 24 levels… Read more

Flexible Mobile Plan with Incredible Parent Control Options post image

I participated in an Influencer Activation Program on behalf for Virgin Mobile. I received a sample device to facilitate my review and a thank you item for participating. Do your kids have cell phones? No matter when do you feel comfortable to give a cell phone to your child, the first several months when they carry the phone with them will always be a critical time for them to learn how to take care of the device, and how to use… Read more

Free App Teaching Young Children Coding post image

We have reviewed several apps teaching kids coding, like Hopscotch and Codecademy. Today we have another free app for kids to learn computer programming – Kodable. Kodable starts from the very simple concepts and is great for kids as young as preschool to gain the fundamental concepts of coding. When kids start the app, they will see a path built with little square tiles on the grass. On some of the tiles there are gold coins. Kids need give instructions with… Read more

Tynker

Are you looking for teaching programs that help kids learn coding or computer programming at home? Coding is an important skill for today’s kids to master, even if they don’t want to be a programmer. Because computers will be in our kids’ life more than they do in ours, and the better you know about it, the better you can work with it. Computer programming is essentially a language enabling you to talk to computers, to understand how computers work… Read more

How It Works

How It Works is a clear, simple, textbook style app.  It visually shows kids how things function and do what they are supposed to do. There are 9 items featured in the app: a car, a rocket, a steam engine, a windmill, a lawn mower, a pump, a washing machine, a vacuum cleaner and a hair dryer. The app displays a transparent outline of each of these items as their insides wait in the wings ready to be placed together to… Read more

Smithsonian Channel App

I recently find a great educational app from Smithsonian – Smithsonian Channel. It has many of Smithsonian channel’s videos, some are full episodes, and they are free! It is available on almost all the different devices, iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android, Kindle. If you want to watch the videos on bigger screen, it is also available on their website, so you can watch the shows on your computer. I loved Smithsonian, and I simply can’t believe I can watch Smithsonian Channel… Read more

Move the Turtle App

Move the Turtle is an innovative and thought provoking app that teaches kids some of the basics of coding.  This app performs a service as more than a programming app but as a thinking app.  Really, it helps kids learn how to think.  It shows kids how to break things down by degrees and ask what happens when you change this but not that? that but not this? switch the order of this and that? and finally how crazy can… Read more

LEGO Fix the Factory

Fix The Factory is a new free app from LEGO. LEGO calls it a puzzle game, but I view it another cool game app teaching kids about programming. The story of the game features a humanoid robot fixing the factory, where battery packs are dropped in all the wrong places.  The players’ jobs are to write instructions in code blocks to guide the robot move to the right spot, pick up the mis-placed batteries, and put them back to the… Read more

Robots for iPAD

Robots for iPAD is a very cool app about Robots. It is developed by IEEE (Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers). It has pictures and videos of 126 robots from 19 countries, with tons of information about each one.  I suggest all kids take a look at it, even you are just remotely interested in robots – it will open your minds up, learn the potential of technology and its impact in our everyday life.  It is currently FREE, and… Read more

Hopscotch

Does your child like games?  Would he/she be interested in make games of his/her own?  Hopscotch is a FREE app allowing kids to create their own games and animations.  Even if the child has not shown much interest in programing, it is still worth a try on this free app.  Why?  Here is the information on App Store Hopscotch introduction: “By the year 2020, there will be a projected 1.4 million computer jobs but only 400,000 Computer science students. Computer… Read more