We like to watch movies as a family. When you have a good movie for kids, these movie watching experience can be very educational. Last month we started using Netflix again.  I really liked Netflix movies stream program.  We tried Netflix a couple years ago, but discontinued due to concerns that my son may be exposed to some content that are not appropriate for his age.  Now with the new feature Kids Movie, we decided to give it another try… Read more

Millie is an interactive adventure app series for kids. We are big fans of Millie and have been so ever since her first adventure, Millie Was Here. By her second adventure, Millie and the Lost Key, we fell in love with her even more as she roamed and combed vast and mysterious regions (some of which look suspiciously like Central Park in New York) in search of a lost key. She encountered several treacherous obstacles and enemies on her quest and no… Read more

Tellagami is a free storytelling app for kids.  It lets you create and share a short animated story called Gami, a fun app kids will love to use.  It is free on app store. Kids can create an animated story in 3 simple steps. First, they can customize the storytelling character. Features they can choose from are: gender, skin tone, hair style, eye colors, clothing, and emotions. Next, kids can choose a background for their story.  They can choose one from those… Read more

I am very excited to find a great free app goREACT. It is designed by the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. It lets kids explore the chemical reactions of different elements on mobile devices – safe and fun! It is not only a good learning app for middle and high school students, with the visual and interactive features, it is also a fun exploratory app for younger kids, even kids in kindergarten or preschool, as long as parents are… 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

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

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

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 find another great free app at Educational Apps for Kids community on Google Plus.  It is a math game called Panasonic Prime Smash, from Panasonic Corporation.  It is a great game for kids to reinforce the concept of prime numbers and learn to recognize them. One the open screen, there are four options: How to Play, New Game, Collection, and Fun Facts. I highly recommend visiting How to Play first.  Read through the instruction, then you are free to… Read more

Have you used Starfall? If you have a preschool to kindergarten kids, you should really check it out.  It is a great website with tons of free reading materials and printables for kids in preschool and kindergarten age. When my son was that age, he liked it a lot.  I have not been recommending it here, because it uses flash, and flash doesn’t function on iPAD and iPhone.  Now I find a solution to access a website with flash via a… Read more

What do you do after dinner as a family?  For a while, we have been doing tongue twisters and we all love it.  It is a fun way to bond with kids and it is a good activity to help kids understand the importance of speaking words clearly when they talk.  Kids learn words and phrases, practice their mouth muscles, and enjoy the family fun. The book we’ve been using is a FREE iBook Tongue Twisters for Kids. It is… Read more

Classical Kids is a music app that tells stories about famous composers in an engaging and fun way.  There are 7 composers’ stories in the app, and one is free with the full story – Beethoven. Beethoven Lives Upstairs tells Beethoven’s story via the voice of Christoph, a young boy living in Vienna, at the time when Beethoven comes to stay in his family home.  It is told through back and forth letters to his uncle with Christoph complaining about Beethoven and his… Read more

Kids Picture Dictionary is just like the app name suggested a picture dictionary app for early readers.  It can also serve as a sight word flash card app for younger kids. The layout of the app is very simple.  When kids open the app, they see pictures of words arranged in alphabet order.  Tapping on each letter opens up the words that start with the letter, one by one.  Each word is shown with a big picture illustrating the word… Read more