October is National Bullying Prevention Month. Having heard many stories about bullying, and nowadays, cyber bullying, and how much kids involved suffer from the experience, we, as parents and educators, should all work with our kids, help them gain skills in recognizing bully behavior, and be equipped with strategies on handling bully situation. Many times, it is hard to bring up a discussion about bully with kids, so today I want to share some resources that will make the talk about… Read more

In the spirit of Halloween we have an interactive book app to share. My Beastly ABCs is an alphabet book about a boy and his journey through the alphabet and the various ‘beasts’ he encounters. Books are a great way for children to learn words, experience letter recognition, and expand their vocabulary. When mixing a book with the tablet world, it transforms it into something even greater: an interactive educational tool. This book is narrated by Jim Dale. If you… Read more

Shutterbugs: Wiggle and Stomp is a new free iPad app from Smithsonian Science Education Center and Filament Games. The game teaches children recognize and describe the movements of animals. The game is also available on Smithsonian website for free and the link is provided at the bottom of this post. In the game, children follow a zoo keeper visit animals through a virtual zoo. As they go through the zoo the zoo keeper asks kids to take pictures of animals… Read more

KidZania is a free photo editing app designed for kids. It is a fun one to have around Halloween, because you can dress up kids, in the app, in different customs and put them in different settings. The app offers several themes, such as crazy games, zombies, fire house, and hospital.  Within each theme, there are some themed pictures of different human body parts, such as a picture of someone wearing doctor’s white coat holding a bottle of medicine –… Read more

Lola Panda series launched a new app Lola’s ABC Party 2.  We reviewed Lola’s ABC Party , and this new app is a sequel to the first app. The first app is designed for preschool kids, focusing on letters with some sight words. Lola’s ABC Party 2 is an app designed for kids age 5 to 8, helping kids learn sight words and spelling. In this app, kids will help Lola set up a picnic – they have to help… Read more

We love the iPAD and the numerous learning apps we have for our little one.  My toddler loves drawing and coloring apps and at almost two years of age, he has even started tracing some letters.  I like the drawing and doodling apps on the iPAD because it allows kids to have fun and we don’t have to worry about printing or wasting papers.  However I was wishing there was a little pen he can use on the iPAD, as drawing with a finger is not the same… Read more

Have you ever played tangram? The traditional tangram is a 7 piece puzzle game, each piece in a different shape, such as square, triangle, diamond. Using the 7 pieces, you can create endless pictures and patterns. We used to play with it a lot. There are many variations of the game now, and Dragon Shapes: Geometry Challenge is a great app that expands the original idea to a full array of 50 shape puzzles. Kids will learn to recognize different… Read more

Earth 101 for iPAD is a beautiful 3D model of the entire earth, with tons of geographic features and landmark information. Upon opening the app, kids will see the globe. Spinning the globe, kids can visit different areas on the earth. Tapping on any place brings up information of the area or the feature, such as the Atlantic Ocean, the London Eye. The information available depends on the zoom level.  When you zoom in, you can see more features and… Read more

Recently I had a discussion with a friend about games and education. I believe games are not all bad. There are many good games out there. As long as being used wisely, games can help kids learn in many areas. I have discussed this topic in several articles on iGameMom, two of them are How to Teach Physics with Angry Bird and Tiny Tower: What Can You Teach Your Child. Today I share more game apps that are educational and you will be happy kids are playing. 10 Free Game Apps that… Read more

Room on the Broom Game app is based on the beloved children’s book of the same title.  With its witch lead activities, it is a perfect game app for Halloween. There is no scary scenes in the app nor in the book, it is a great Halloween app for young children. It will be really helpful to read the book before playing the game. It is a charming book with repeating rhymes that children love. The story is fun: A witch… Read more

Whether we like it or not kids love gaming apps. Thankfully the creators of Gozoa have found a prefect balance between fun and learning with Gozoa Play and Learn Math. Gozoa (a little blue critter) needs the help of your 4-6 year old! A sneaky villain with a cute vacuum cleaner has taken all the star numbers from Gozoa’s village. The only way to get them back is to follow the map of Math challenges and collect gold coins. The storyline continues throughout the game. The little villain pops… Read more

Do your kids like to help in the kitchen? Do they like baking?  BakingFun is a very interesting app they will love to play.  Although it is called BakingFun, the app starts the baking process from the very beginning – planting the wheat seeds.  With a series of mini-games, it shows what it takes to have a loaf of bread on the dinner table: planting the seeds, watering the plants, harvesting the crop, milling the flour, making the dough, baking… Read more

Today I have a very nice website to share.  It of course works on mobile devices, iPhone and iPAD included.  Oxford Owl  is a fun learning website designed for kids up to 11 years old. It has eBooks, Math games, learning activities ideas, and printables, all are free. To access the content, you need first sign up for a free membership. Then you can choose between Math and Reading. In Reading, there are over 250 eBooks, all can be read on… Read more

I always like simulation games, because they offer open-ended play, kids gain skills in problem solving and creative thinking. They are usually easier for parents to get involved and play together with kids.  Some of my favorites are Tiny Tower and Oregon Trail. I am really excited to find out Dinorama is free today.  It is a simulation game designed for kids, with no in-app purchase.  In the app, kids will create and manage their own dinosaur theme park: buy land; build buildings… Read more