Do you have your child do math or reading practices with worksheets? I have found many free printables recently while searching for some fun learning activities for the summer. These printables are great, but I don’t feel like to print out all of them, so I found a way to read and write on PDF or image files on iPAD directly. All you need is the app GoodNotes. GoodNotes can read files from your device’s photo album, your Dropbox, or… Read more

European Exploration: The Age of Discovery is a FREE app my son shared with me a while ago.  They played at school.  It is a simulation or a role-playing game like Oregon Trail. The app lets kids role-play as 15th Century captains responsible for exploring the world. The goal of the game is to discover the entire New World. In the game, kids are in charge of everything from hiring a crew, to building the ships, to planning the trip… Read more

Green$treets: Unleash The Loot! is an innovative game for children to learn money management and financial responsibility in a game setting. It is FREE.  In the game, kids are on a mission to save animals that are close to being extinct. For each endangered animal, kids must initially design a budget that is enough to sustain the animal’s lifestyle in natural habitat, such as animal’s food, shelter, and toys. They also need take care of the animal by feeding and playing with him. Once… Read more

Easy Studio – Animate with shapes is a fun app you and your kids will all like.  Just like the app title suggested, it lets kids put together animations on the iPad using only geometric shapes. There are two play modes: Easy and Expert.  When kids first start the app, they will be in Easy mode.  Kids will watch a tutorial on the basic functionalities – how to move pieces onto the canvas, how to take single pictures, how to play the… Read more

I have been looking for text free solutions for a while.  When I first got my iPhone, I thought I was not going to text much, mostly just use it for phone calls, so we bought the mobile plan with monthly phone call coverage, and then pay text by number of texts we send and receive.  But now more and more of my friends started texting instead of call, I feel we need to re-evaluate our mobile program, and I… Read more

I found this app at our Google Plus Educational Apps for Kids community. If you are not a member yet, I highly recommend joining the community. I learned many apps from the community, and many app deals shared by the community members. All you need do is to open a Google account and join the community. You don’t even need a gmail account, you can use any email account to open a Google account. If you already have a Google account, simply click the… Read more

Madagascar Math Ops has a free version of the app. It is a math app with physics-based game play. The Zoosters, Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria, are in trouble, and it’s up to your child and the Penguins to save the day! Your child will help Skipper, Kowalski, Private, and Rico as they embark on a wild mathematical covert operation to free their friends from the enemy agents! Kids will have fun by using intuitive, simple gameplay as they race… Read more

Summer is a great time for young readers to practice the Language skills they have learnt this year. As a Parent it can be daunting to know where to start in helping your child better comprehend what they read. Today I am reviewing Reading Comprehension Camp by Smarty Ears Apps. It features 50 stories and five reading levels. The stories in Level one are for Grade 2-3 and are a single paragraph. The highest level, 5, are several paragraphs long and designed for Grades 6-7.  Like all Smarty Pants… Read more

The Buildo Museum is an interactive sticker book. It  allows your child the opportunity to create their own scenes inside a spooky museum. They have three options to choose from: 1. The gallery floor where they can hang paintings (or perhaps stage a heist!). 2. The dusty museum attic full of cobwebs and discarded artifacts. 3. The creepy museum basement where maybe monsters are created Each of these places is the potential backdrop for the scenes your child can create with digital… Read more

Fraction is a math concept that is easy to understand conceptually, but can get tricky when doing comparisons. Oh No Fractions is a simple FREE math app helping kids understand fraction comparison with intuitive visuals. Opening the app, kids will see two fractions. They need decide if the one on the left is GREATER or LESS than the one on the right, and slide their answer into the middle of the screen. After tapping on “I’M SURE”, they can check if… Read more

Summer is a time kids can take a break from their regular school work.  However, this doesn’t mean they should stay away from learning completely.  If they do, you will see a lot catch up work in the fall just to bring them back to where they were before the summer.  Ideally we want something that is fun and educational at the same time.  Math Evolve is a perfect app for this.  It is FREE now for limited time.  Mastering… Read more

I spot this app on App Store yesterday.  It is a very interesting music app – no key boards, but random objects shaped like a square, a round button, a triangle.   To make music, you simply move different objects around, the interactions among the objects create different sound, thus a beautiful piece of music.  The movements of the objects follow some physics principles: if you throw an object towards a wall, it will bounce back.  If you swing an object… Read more

I recently came across an app called Book Creator for iPAD. Just like the app title suggested, it is an app kids can use to create digital books. I reviewed some other apps with similar functions, like StoryKit. Comparing to StoryKit, both apps have the basic functions like adding pictures and text, recording voices and sound effects. Book Creator is more versatile than StoryKit. Some neat functions I liked: 1. Kids can resize the picture and rotate the picture into… Read more

Are you ready for summer?  While, ready or not, it is here.  What are you going to do with the kids, now they stay home most of the time?  Are you concerned about them forgetting what they’ve learned during the year?  It is a long break for them.  I have read articles about how important it is to help kids retain what they’ve learned in the summer.  But summer is meant for fun!  How can we, as parents, build in the learning activities into… Read more