YouTube has become more and more popular and more and more parents and teachers are using videos they find on YouTube as teaching materials for kids. Although there are so many great content on YouTube, parents worry about that kids may run into videos they are not supposed to watch. To solve the problem, Google launched YouTube Kids, where kids can watch age appropriate videos, and parents and teachers can have the peace of mind knowing all contents are child… Read more

Zap Zap Fractions is a free app for kids explaining the basic concepts of fractions. I like the good visual help when the meaning of fraction is explained. If your children just start to learn about fraction, this is a great tool to help them to have a good understanding of the real meaning of fraction. The app has two parts: lesson and challenge. The lesson starts from a division, and shows to kids that fraction is essentially a division… Read more

Math Pop is a fun math practice app for grade 1 to 5. It is designed by learning scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and all content is common core aligned. The best part is you get to do two practice sessions each day for free. The interface is very fun that makes the game addictive. To start, you want to register a user, so you can track the progress. Then you can pick the practice you want to do. The… Read more

After using ABC Mouse for a month with my four year old and his cousins who are four and five respectively, I have come to this conclusion: Kids love it and parents can feel good about it. As far as curriculum goes ABC Mouse knows of what they speak. A quick Wikipedia search will show you ABC Mouse was created by award winning educators, some of whom are affiliated with PBS. The site won several awards in 2010, the year it became available… Read more

We love Smithsonian. This institute has done so much in education! Recently I found an excellent non fiction reading program from Smithsonian. It is called Smithsonian Tribune. It collects appropriate news stories that will interest kids and deliver these stories on the website or the free apps, and invite kids take quizzes or post comments. All readings are leveled by Lexile score. The content includes passages, photos, graphics, and audio and/or video materials about current events, history, art, culture and… Read more

Switch Zoo is a free app about animals. It is a little weird, but definitely fun to play. Kids mis-match parts of different animals to create new animals, along the way, learn facts of the original animals. After they create a new animal, they can write a story about it. So it is a good writing app too. Kids start the app with a busy interface filled with fun. In the middle is the frame showing the animal creation. Below… Read more

This week is Computer Science Education week. To correspond to the campaign Hour of Code, we are sharing a fun coding app designed for preschool kids, and it is Free.  The app is called The Foos: Code for an Hour. The app introduces programming concepts through exciting puzzle adventures. It is for kids or adults who know nothing about coding or programming. So get started, download the app, put in your hour of code this week! There are 24 levels… Read more

We reviewed the interactive math toy Tiggly toy when they just came out. It is a fun learning toy integrating the interactive feature of the touch screen. The first set is focused on shapes. This 2nd set is about numbers and additions. It is a great idea for a holiday gift or birthday present for kids 5 and younger. What is Tiggly? Tiggly is a set of toys that interact with the touch screen. With this new set of toys… Read more

My son loves watching videos and short movie clips. He would go into Youtube, search for videos he wants to see. He found many good ones. We found some educational YouTube channels to follow. I am glad he can find educational movies and videos for free, but am also concerned that he may see something he’s not supposed to when searching for videos. That is why I immediately downloaded MagicFlix when I first read about it. MagicFlix is a collection of videos and… Read more

Learn World Geography is a free geography app from Brainscape. It is a flashcard app, but the algorithm is designed by learning cognitive scientists leveraging the latest cognitive science techniques, so you can master the content faster. From the surface, it is just a flashcard. After using the app for a while, you will find that memorizing the geographic facts is not that hard, and in fact it is quite easy. According to Brainscape, their objective of the app design… Read more

Teaching kids social skills is never easy. One challenge we face very often is to teach kids how to behave in different social settings. Do you usually explain to kids about a new place they are going to visit? Like a dentist’s office, or a new school? I always found it helpful to tell my child about the places he’s going to visit, be it the first grocery store trip, or the first dentist appointment. It helps the kid understand… Read more

We like Disney movies, from those classic movies like Snow White, Dumbo, to recent ones, like Frozen; from action movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, to comedies like Wreck It Ralph. Disney makes good movies for kids with great moral and educational value, and entertaining enough that the whole family can enjoy. If you like Disney movies, you will like the free app Disney Movie Anywhere. It was launched on Apple App Store earlier this year, and recently, it is… Read more

Recently I found a wonderful website that offers free digital picture books for kids: Unite for Literacy. It is a website, so you can access on your computer. It also works well on iPad and iPhone. All books have professional narrations, plus there are more than 20 languages to choose from. When you get on the website, the program does ask you to choose location, but that is it. You don’t need put in name or contact information. On the… Read more

I recently discovered a great free documentary app that streams documentary films. It is called Docurama, and it is free. I like the wide subject selection and the high quality of the films. The app provides easy on-demand access to over 600 films, a number expected to increase to over 1,000 by the end of 2014. With so many good educational movies for kids, it is a great resource for family, homeschool and classroom learning projects. The Docurama app currently has 16… Read more