With the season change, being sick is not avoidable some time.  Here are two books hopefully will help kids feel better and get over the sickness quicker. Sick of Being Sick is a book app.  A girl is sick and she is sick of being sick.  While lying in bed taking her temperature, her imagination takes her to all over the world performing in different kinds of occupations…  It is a beautifully illustrated book with peaceful music.  A great app for… Read more

Real Friends vs. The Other Kind is the 2nd book app in the Middle school confidential series. As the title suggests, this book app addresses friendships among middle school kids. What is a real friend? What do you mean when you call someone friend? What do you do if a friend gets her way all the time? What do you do if a friend ask you do something you don’t want to? … These are all real questions from real… Read more

Even if you don’t like games or never played Angry Birds, you probably have seen those red birds somewhere – toy store, candy store, …  I have heard two completely different opinions about Angry Birds from parents.  Some think it is a great educational game.  Some believe kids are wasting time playing Angry Birds.  As you can guess, I am in the first camp.  I think Angry Birds is a great physics game.  If you are interested, here is an… Read more

The Oregon Trail is an educational simulation game teaching kids what it was like to be a pioneer traveling west in the 1800s.  It is based on the classic PC simulation game The Oregon Trail, which was created in the 1970s. It is a fun app that kids can play games and learn history at the same time. In the game, kids join a historic wagon train traveling west ward from Missouri to Oregon. To start, kids can choose who they want to… Read more

Do you like watching birds?  When kids are out of school, it is perfect time to hit the trail, walk in the woods, and watch birds.  I have found a wonderful app that will help you on birds: Audubon Birds – A Field Guide to North American Birds. Audubon Birds is an encyclopedia on birds.  The Audubon Institute has been working on ecosystems, with focus on birds and other wildlife, for decades.  They made field guides that help people identify plants… Read more

Since I reviewed Stack the States and Stack the Countries, I became a big fan of Dan Russell-Pinson, the developer of the two wonderful educational apps.  Once I found out he just released another app Monster Physics, I knew I have to get one!  Monster Physics is a unique physics app for kids. It is a building app that lets kids play with physics! Kids can build and operate their own machines, moving devices with wheels, joins, ropes, propellers.  After they… Read more

I had always wanted to write about Fruit Ninja, but there were always something else came up.  Now it is the time.  Fruit Ninja is one of the first games my son and I played together.  We had a good time every time we played. It is a game for all ages, even little babies.  When the game starts, there will be all different types of fruits flying up from the bottom of the screen, you job is to chop… Read more

Have you read Five Little Monkey stories?   Do you like it?  Now they are available in apps.  Five Little Monkeys Collection #1 by Oceanhouse Media was released about a week ago.  This is the digital version of the print collection, released in 2009 for the 20th-anniversary of the Five Little Monkeys books, by Eileen Christelow. This collection includes the following titles: • Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed: a charming bedtime story sure to send children giggling off to bed… Read more

Oceanhouse Media just released another Dr. Seuss book a few days ago – Horton Hatches the Egg. They are giving a promotion right now. The story: Kind-hearted Horton the elephant is persuaded to sit on an egg while its mother, the good-for-nothing bird lazy Maysie flutters off on a vacation. Horton is teased and taunted by his jungle friends, “How Absurd! Old Horton the Elephant thinks he’s a bird!” He’s captured by hunters, even placed in a traveling circus, but he keeps his… Read more

Since an earlier post recommended a geography app for kids 6 or older, I felt I should find one for younger kids too. I found Kids Maps. This is a map puzzle game. I can easily see a toddle play this game. How to play: When you start, you see an empty US map. Pieces of various states will show up and your job is to drag the state piece to the right position on the map, then drop it… Read more

If you are like me, you have tons of different things to keep track of – child’s after school activities, vacation plans, shopping lists, blog ideas, birthdays, work projects, school projects, …. It is so hard not to miss anything and stay updated on everything, till using Evernote. Evernote is a free, cross-platform application that greatly simplifies the process of keeping track of notes, ideas, memos, lists, pictures, web clips, etc., into a single place and keeps them in sync… Read more

After playing Flight Tycoon for a while, my son is in the mood to build a city. I found Tiny Tower for him. It is not about building a city, instead it is a simulation game building a tower, creating and managing businesses in the tower. You can have apartments, tea shop, photo studio, comedy club, laundromat, … You make money from apartment rents, and from selling the products. When you make enough money, you can build more floors. One… Read more

I don’t know much of the video games my son plays. But at least when he mentioned the name, I know what it is about. When the games got on iPad, the situation became worse. All I see is the little icon on the screen, I did not get to watch him play anymore, since it is so portable and so small, he can easily hide in a corner and I would not know where he is. One day, I… Read more