Highlights is not a stranger to most parents. You can see their magazines in many places, like doctors’ waiting room or other kids places. Now Highlights are bringing their magazines to mobile devices so kids can have the fun on the go, no matter where you take them. I recently had a chance to take a look at the Highlights All About series. It is a magazine-style book series designed for preschool to early elementary school kids. You can have… Read more

Math Pop is a fun math practice app for grade 1 to 5. It is designed by learning scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and all content is common core aligned. The best part is you get to do two practice sessions each day for free. The interface is very fun that makes the game addictive. To start, you want to register a user, so you can track the progress. Then you can pick the practice you want to do. The… Read more

I remember one of the early games my son played was Oregon Trail. It is a history simulation game for kids to role play as a pioneer traveling west along the Oregon Trail in the old days. My son learned so much by playing the game. It is a fun way for them to learn the history first hand. Those visuals, pictures, and games really bring the history to life, help the kids to understand what was going on in… Read more

I just read the news that LaunchPad the company who created Toontastic app is bought by Google. As a celebration, they set two of their apps free: Toontastic and TeleStory. We reviewed Toontastic, which is a fun app letting kids create their own stories and making them into movies. Toontastic also teaches kids how to arrange the storyline to make the stories more interesting. Different from Toontastic, TeleStory is an app letting kids create their own TV shows with provided… Read more

Are you comfortable to let your kids watch news on TV or news website? If not, how do your kids stay updated on what is going on around them, in the community, in the country, and in the world? I have reviewed some child-safe news resources, and today I found one more great news resource for kids: Youngzine. It is a free website of news articles for kids. Youngzine is a website created due to the fact that it was… Read more

City Nights is a beautiful picture book for kids on iPad. It depicts the feel of the night in the busy city through a child who is ready to go to bed. Beautifully illustrated and with short rhymes, it is a perfect bedtime book app to read with kids before they going to sleep. The book starts with a child who is ready for bed, and watching the street from the window. “In the city, in the city night, sunset… Read more

No matter what time of the year, there are always moments that you have to stay home, and try to find things to do with kids. We’ve shared many fun activities for kids on iGameMom STEM, but many times you just need some inspiration on ideas, and sometimes, need help figuring out how to do those fun experiments. Good movies for kids and educational videos to the rescue! Today we share YouTube channels that have cool science experiment videos for kids… Read more

Do you have pets? Do your kids like pets? Pets could be very good companions and friends. We’ve seen many wonderful stories about pets and kids. Today we share good movies and TV shows for kids featuring pets. As we are Netflix members, these movies are all available on Netflix. Good Movies for Kids Featuring Pets As usual, we list movie titles by kids age groups. Movies for younger kids are listed at the top of the list, and movies… Read more

Knowing sight words is an important step towards children’s reading and communicating fluency. It seems easy, but learning sight words involves several elements: recognize the print, so kids know the word when they see it on paper; recognize the sound, that kids can speak the word; connect the word with real object or action; know how to use the word in every day communication, including use it in sentences and being able to spell the word. We used to use different… Read more

We reviewed the first book app in ABCmouse Search and Explore series, The Grand Canyon. Today we are sharing another book app in the series: The Golden Gate Bridge.  Like The Grand Canyon, The Golden Gate Bridge app is also free. In this app, kids will follow the mice ABC and 123, learn the history and fun facts about the famous bridge. After finishing the books, kids will know why it is called Golden Gate Bridge, who designed the bridge… Read more

We love Smithsonian. This institute has done so much in education! Recently I found an excellent non fiction reading program from Smithsonian. It is called Smithsonian Tribune. It collects appropriate news stories that will interest kids and deliver these stories on the website or the free apps, and invite kids take quizzes or post comments. All readings are leveled by Lexile score. The content includes passages, photos, graphics, and audio and/or video materials about current events, history, art, culture and… Read more

Storm and Skye is an animated story app for kids. It is designed for kids age 5 and up, but younger kids can enjoy the story as well, as long as they are not afraid of knight and dragons. The whole story is narrated vividly, with no text to read. It is a 45 minutes long story with 9 chapters. It is almost like a short movie to me. Storm is a boy. One day after shopping, his mom drove… Read more

Teaching kids creative writing is a complex process. It involves many elements, such as idea generation, plot structure, vocabulary, character development, review and revision, … and many more. We are trying to put some learning tools we discovered over time that are helpful in our writing learning journey. Hope this is helpful to you as well. I’d also like to hear from you what tools do you use while teaching kids writing. This is part of our Best Learning Tools for… Read more

Sight word recognition is an important stage for kids’ literacy development. Sight words, like is, of, you, make up 50% of texts.  If kids can read and understand sight words, they are well on their way to being fluent readers. Although sight words are used frequently. they usually cannot be easily sounded out. Most times, kids learn sight words by simply memorize them, some with the help of flashcards. Today we have an app that makes learning sight words more… Read more