Critical thinking and problem solving skills are very important for a child’s academic and future career, or even life success. How do you teach a child critical thinking skills? How do kids get better at it? There are many elements in critical thinking, assesse, analyze, compare, question, create, … I find the best way to help kids improve the critical thinking skills is to present age appropriate challenging problems and encourage them to solve the problems in their own ways. Today… Read more
I have always liked Kidaptive Leo’s Pad series. I like how the kids are addressed as holistic persons and how the app is designed to help kids to develop multi-dimensional skills, such as social emotional skills besides knowledge. Now Kidaptive took the part I like the most of the series and expanded it into a separate app Learner Mosaic. It is like a personalized parenting advice handbook. Like Leo’s Pad, it is a free app, but the content it carries… Read more
Who Lives In A Tree is an app about forest animals living on trees. Kids learn many fun facts about the animals. With the simple interface and safe settings, it is a fun app for even young children to use on their own. It is available on both Apple and Android devices. It is a very simple app. When kids start the app, they will see a tree. Scroll the screen up and down, kids will see animals on the… Read more
We reviewed the interactive math toy Tiggly toy when they just came out. It is a fun learning toy integrating the interactive feature of the touch screen. The first set is focused on shapes. This 2nd set is about numbers and additions. It is a great idea for a holiday gift or birthday present for kids 5 and younger. What is Tiggly? Tiggly is a set of toys that interact with the touch screen. With this new set of toys… Read more
My son loves watching videos and short movie clips. He would go into Youtube, search for videos he wants to see. He found many good ones. We found some educational YouTube channels to follow. I am glad he can find educational movies and videos for free, but am also concerned that he may see something he’s not supposed to when searching for videos. That is why I immediately downloaded MagicFlix when I first read about it. MagicFlix is a collection of videos and… Read more
I’m always on the hunt for the best literacy ideas to use with my own children and those that I work with on my blog, Growing Book by Book. I’ve come across some wonderful digital resources for building literacy skills. Here are some of my favorite apps, eBooks and websites to help young children grow as readers and writers. Digital Literacy Ideas Apps Short Vowel Word Study and Spelling is a wonderful app for children who are learning to spell… Read more
Underwater ABC is a fun ABC app teaching kids alphabet and ocean animals at the same time. It couldn’t have come into my life at a better time. Correctly writing his letters can be a struggle for my kindergartener. Writing letters isn’t the issue, it is the correctly part that trips him up. This app teaches printing in a methodical yet fun and engaging way, all the while learning the names of some ocean animals. Each letter is taught in upper case and lowercase. For each letter, before… Read more
Making friends is an important life skill for everyone. How to teach kids about friendships? How to teach them the skills of making and keeping friends? There are many things you can do, such as reading books, role modeling. Today we focus on educational movies for kids teaching friendships. Most these movies are available on Netflix, which is the app we use to watch movies and TV shows. For more information about Netflix, please visit Netflix offers good movies for… Read more
It is always good to start a 2nd language early, as kids are in the natural stage of grasping a new language. iGameMom has reviewed some good learning tools for kids to learn a new language other than English. As part of our best learning tools for kids on iPad series, today we have Best Learning Tools for Kids to Learn a Languages Other Than English. This is part of our Best Learning Tools for Kids on iPad series. For… Read more
Phonics with Phonzy is a phonics app for kids. It is unique in ways of encouraging kids to practice the letters and words out loud, which is essential in any language learning experience. It also demonstrates mouth movements to show kids how to pronounce the sound. It is a free app right now. However, I don’t know how long it will stay free. If you need phonics help for your kids, this might be a good one to try and… Read more
It is hard to believe it is time to think about holiday gifts already. This year I am putting a list of our favorite tablet toys and accessories for kids. If you already have an iPad or iPhone, or are planning to get one this holiday season, these toys will go well with iPad and iPhone, and all are educational and fun! For more gift ideas for kids, please visit 15 gift guides for kids from real moms. We also… Read more
Teaching kids social skills is never easy. One challenge we face very often is to teach kids how to behave in different social settings. Do you usually explain to kids about a new place they are going to visit? Like a dentist’s office, or a new school? I always found it helpful to tell my child about the places he’s going to visit, be it the first grocery store trip, or the first dentist appointment. It helps the kid understand… Read more
Helping children learn to read should be a fun and enjoyable experience. The Joy of Reading is a reading app for preschool and kindergarten kids, with a comprehensive collection of 9 multi-level games designed to encourage early reading. Kids will progress along the reading journey with the support from their favorite animals. The app evaluates the child’s reading level, and systematically provides practice at the right level for the kids, starting with letter sounds, phonics, to sight words and simple… Read more
We have been using the app iF Poems for a while and liked how easy it is to use and how rich the content is. iF Poems is an app carries 270 classic poems for kids. It allows users to search poems by categories and kids age. It is a gentle introduction of poetry for kids. On the opening page, you can see there are 12 categories of poems: Growing UP, Nature Seasons and Animals, Humour and Nonsense, Love and… Read more
I like storytelling activities and storytelling learning tools. Storytelling helps kids develop oral language skills, boost thinking skills, creativity, and imagination. While learning to put a story together, kids in fact gain skills in better listening and reading. Also storytelling helps kids express their emotions and feelings that many times are hard to do. Today we share top storytelling learning tools for kids on iPad, many are also available on other devices. This is part of our Best Learning Tools… Read more
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