We recently have been playing with Just2Fun a lot. It challenges your mind to create compound words or phrases based on pictures. This reminded me another compound word app designed for younger kids: Make Compound Words. It is designed for kids 5-9, who have learned some sight words or at least know most common words. Compound words are fun to learn and a great way to help kids gain more vocabulary. The game play is fairly easy. Kids choose a… Read more

Learning synonyms and antonyms is a fun way to expand kids’ vocabulary. It also helps kids get the concept that there are different ways to express the same idea. Today I have an app helping kids learn synonyms and antonyms, and it is free for limited time. First Grade and 2nd Grade Antonyms and Synonyms is a fun app designed for kids to learn and master synonyms and antonyms. It has 4 activities covering about 250 pairs of antonyms and… Read more

Ready-K is a Kindergarten readiness app that charts the progress of your child according to Common Core Standards, so of course we love that!  It’s very comprehensive in helping kids get ready for kindergarten. It covers the following topics: 1. Quantitative language 2. Early literacy (including print awareness, vocabulary, alphabetical knowledge and phonological awareness 3. Visual discrimination (including visual scanning, event sequencing, size comparison, classifying and pattern recognition) 4. Color Awareness 5. Geometry 6. Math and numbers awareness (including number… Read more

Learning phonics is an important step towards reading success. But sometimes it is not that easy to distinguish the short vowel and long vowel sounds. Today’s app is a great phonics app helping kids get efficient on short vowels and long vowels. It is a fun game like workbook for kids, it is free for limited time. In addition to short vowel and long vowel practice, it also has letter tracing, spelling, and sight words, so even you think your… Read more

The iSort Words app teaches children various forms of word patterns.  It teaches how the beginnings and endings of various words can be split up and combined to form different words and in doing so also teaches vocabulary, spelling and rhyming. There are four games in the app: Swipe Sort, Push Sort, Speed Sort, and Explore. In Swipe Sort, kids swipe a line through the words whose endings match the top word.  The words jump up from the bottom of the… Read more

Learning alphabet is essential for kids’ literacy mastery. It could become repetitive at times, and kids may lose interest in learning. There are many fun ways to learn ABC, and today’s app is one of the best. Avokiddo ABC Ride is a playful app helping kids learn ABC with various fun games.  When kids open the app, they will see a boy and a girl, Beck and Bo, waiting to get on the bike ride. Kids get to choose who… Read more

Recently I found a wonderful free resource from National Geographic for kids – National Geographic Young Explorer Magazine. It is available for free on their website, and as apps for both iPad and Android devices. There are 7 issues every year. Each issue covers 3 topics about nature, such as rain; plant roots; animals cover – fur, feather, and scales. Each page is mostly a big image with one line of text. The images are stunning. Kids can choose to… Read more

Does you child like to play hide and seek? Now they can have the fun on iPad too. Monki Hide and Seek is a fun game app designed for kids 2 to 6. Kids learn to follow instructions, to recognize animal names and sounds, while looking for the hiding animals. It is a fun game app for the rainy or snowy days. The game play of the app is very simple. When kids start the app, they can choose one of the… Read more

Phonics apps are tough to create. They need to be able to keep a child engaged without distracting them too much from the learning at hand. Froggy Phonics app is based on an award-winning board game. In the app kids are engaged as they hop a cute frog from lily pad to lily pad in search of a correct word. Even as an adult, I must admit it’s a pretty good time. At the bottom of the screen kids will find… Read more

As I was struggling to find an app to help my 5 year old stay on top of his ABCs while on school break, Niki Words came across my path.  While it can surely help my son, this app can do so much more.  This app comes with settings that make it completely customizable and able to grow with your child. It is a versatile reading app for kids of a wide age range. The app has three areas: Playing with Words, Crosswords, and Magic… Read more

Super Why Phonics Fair is another early literacy app for kids from PBS Kids. PBS really knows what they’re doing with all of their early childhood education programs. They make their characters so adorable and relatable, kids jump at the chance to play and learn along with them. When I told my son we had a new phonics app starring his friends from Super Why he nearly fell out of his chair. This app of course meets common core standards… Read more

All kids love nursery rhymes. They are usually the first songs babies listened and learned, and they stay with the kids for the rest of their lives. Babies never get too many of nursery rhymes. Nursery Rhymes for Kids is an interactive nursery app for babies and toddlers. With the app, parents and babies can sing and dance with the songs, watch the fun videos, and interact with scenes on the screen. In addition to listening to nursery songs, I… Read more

There are so many ways to learn alphabet, and it is never too many if you find a good way to associate words with alphabet for young kids. Jamaroos musical ABCs is a fun alphabet app with a little different musical twist, and it might just be the one your little one will love. The pictures and characters are inviting and entertaining. With bright colors, fun music and easy interface, kids will be playing in the Jamaroos musical jungle for… Read more

The Key Word Kids language app, by Learning and Language Steps, gives parents an opportunity to offer at home speech and language intervention. The program was developed around the Derbyshire Language Scheme (Masidlover, 1983), an intervention style used by many speech language pathologists. Keywords are the words in a sentence that carry information. Using the Key Word Kids app kids under 7 years old can improve language comprehension using key words by following instructions. Kids will enjoy the play based aspect of… Read more