Have you visited Instructables.com? Every time I stopped at the site, I find something amazing and interesting. Even if I am not looking for something to make, I can always get cool creative ideas from the designs on the site. I am so glad to find out that they have free apps for Apple, Android and Windows devices. It just makes search for ideas a lot easier. If you have not used Instructable before, it is a website with tons… Read more

Recently my son has been using a YouTube channel for his American history study. I remember hearing about Crash Course, but never got the chance to actually check it out. From what my son was watching, I found the learning videos are really interesting, and decided to explore a little more. I am so glad I did, and it is a wonderful YouTube channel that covers a lot subjects. The content is great for school age kids, either for the… Read more

Who like the movie Frozen? If you have an Anna and Elsa fan at home, you may want to try this coding program, that kids will learn coding with Anna and Elsa. It is a free coding program from code.org that teaches kids the basics of coding. With the program, kids not only learn fundamental coding concepts but also learn to love coding. At least, they won’t think coding is mysterious. To access the free program, you just need get… Read more

Would you like to have your child to learn Spanish? They all say it is better to start the 2nd language when kids are young. However, if you don’t speak the language yourself, it will be hard to teach your child the 2nd language at a young age. Signing up for a class? I don’t feel it is a good idea for young children. Kids need play, not another class. One solution I found is to read bilingual books for… Read more

Do you know why birds have white and dark meat? How about human? Can you prove that the Moon Landing isn’t fake? Do you know basketball teams with teammates touching each other more often perform better? I learned all these with the free app Curiosity. It gives 5 fun facts with pictures and videos everyday. If you want to, you can also use their website on your computer. I love how broad the topics are. You will find interesting topics… Read more

A while ago a teacher friend told me she lets her students do KenKen in the classroom and spoke very highly of the program. I checked it out, and agree it is a very helpful math game for kids of any age, as long as they have learned single digit addition. It not only develops kids’ math skills, but also logic thinking and concentration stamina. It is available on their website or via the free app. What is KenKen? It… Read more

Recently Amazon launched a new service Amazon Underground Apps. With Underground, you can have over thousands of apps for free, including the parts via In App Purchase. I believe many people will like and use the service. But why they are giving all these apps for free? As a consumer, you need know what you are losing before using it. I tried to use the service after it is launched. This is what I found out. First you have to… Read more

When kids first start learning math, a lot of the learning is to remember math facts. However, memorizing math facts is not enough to be good at math. Kids have to fully understand the number system structure and number relationships to gain real fluency in math computation. How to help them gain real number sense and improve computational fluency? The free app Door24 is just designed for this purpose. Door24 is a free math app designed for kids in grade… Read more

Many studies have shown that taking notes by handwriting helps kids better understand the material, better at connecting the dots of what they know, and memorizing more of the content. However, we also know digitized notes are easier to keep and organize. It will be ideal if you can take handwriting notes on iPad or other tablets then easily digitize the notes. MyScript Smart Notes is just an app letting you do that. It is best to go through the… Read more

We are all familiar with the concept of photo editing thanks to the many photo editing tools and apps like photoshop. We can not only change the lighting and color of the picture, we can also add or take away parts of pictures, or combine several photos into one. You might think these photo editing is relatively new, but as I learned from Faking It, photo editing has been used for long time. Faking It is a free app from… Read more

Do your kids like dinosaurs? How about trucks? and How about combining both into one? Dinotrux is a new Netflix show by DreamWorks for kids age 4 and up. It is based on the picture books of the same title, but the show has expanded the stories from the book tremendously. To accompany the show, DreamWorks also launched a free app of the same title. If you have kids like dinosaurs and trucks, you don’t want to miss Dinotruk. Netflix… Read more

I have heard of SimCity for a long time, and my son has played the game. However I have not really get the chance to really look into the game till now. It is a free app available for both iOS and Android. After spending sometime on it today, I like it. In the game kids will build a city and learn city planning and building. It is another simulation game I don’t mind my child playing. When kids start… Read more

Many kids have free access to internet. As parents and educators, we all know there are many good educational content out there, however, there are also content that are not kids appropriate and we don’t want our children to see. A lot of app developers and educators are working hard to create safe environment for kids, and today’s app WonderBox is a wonderful example. It is a completely free app, where kids can find articles, visual, videos on educational topics… Read more

Recently I met several parents whose kids have different levels of difficulties in handwriting. The poor penmanship is due to some handwriting disabilities, like dyslexia or dysgraphia. It could be very frustrating for both parents and kids when they have to write for the school projects or tests. Today I found a free app that can help kids with handwriting difficulties – SnapType. SnapType is designed by a Occupational Therapist who had a student with dysgraphia, a condition that impacts… Read more