Today marks the 2nd anniversary of the Unlimited Potential forum. It's a wonderful, supportive place with many knowledgeable moms who are always ready to lend a helping hand. Topics vary from supplements, latest research, neurodevelopment, alternative therapies to everyday things like breastfeeding. I just checked the stats & we are just shy of 400 members! Wow! This is way beyond anything I expected when Laura, April & I started the group 2 years ago.
If you haven't already made your way over there here is the link:
Unlimited Potential
Monday, August 26, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
K's Favorite Apps August 2013
I did a post a few years ago on K's favorite iPad apps.
It's way past time for an update. These are some of the apps we've
enjoyed since then. Many of them are great for doing program.
First things first - Where to get the deals! I like Smart Apps for Kids & App Friday
If you watch these sites often you can get some really great deals. There are also a couple of good FaceBook groups that post lots of deals. One of them is Free Apps For Kids. I'm Sure there are a couple of other real good ones but they don't seem to be coming up on my FaceBook feed now & I can't find them so please leave me a comment if you have any other suggestions.
Language Builder is an app that we have used for speech. It contains photos of people engaged in various activities & allows you to record a sentence about the picture & then play it back. I was lucky to find this one for free but it is now listed at $9.99
We've just recently started using an app called Speech Sounds on Cue. According to their description it contains over 500 videos, sound clips and colour photos designed to help adults and children to produce the consonant speech sounds in isolation, in words and in sentences.
Thankfully, I found this one on sale as the cost now is $24.99.
Rainbow sentences is going to be my next purchase ($7.99) as soon as I get to town to pick up a new iTunes card. From their description:
Rainbow Sentences is designed to help students improve their ability to construct grammatically correct sentences by using color coded visual cues. The who, what, where, and why parts of sentences are color coded to help students recognize and understand how combinations of these parts create basic sentence structure.
Students will learn how to recognize the parts of sentences such as nouns, verbs, and prepositions, improve their understanding of how combinations of these parts create basic sentence structure. Students have the opportunity to record their sentences in their own voice to improve their receptive and expressive language skills.
Sounds pretty cool right?
Simply Smarter Kids - Memory - Memory is one of the apps that was fairly recently released by NACD. This is a great app for working on sequential processing, short-term and working memory & really follows the neurodevelopmental approach to developing memory. The app is a pretty good price at $1.99. K loves animals though so to keep her interested I ended up adding on the animals package which cost another 99 cents.
Mem Magic is another memory game. In this game there is a circus theme. 3 performers are shown for several seconds, then one disappears & the child must remember which one is missing. Its not either of our favorite but K likes it & I like that it approaches memory in a different way than most. Free!
Fun with Directions & More Fun with Directions are two grat apps for auditory processing. You can set it to easy intermediate or advanced. I loved this app but I wish it had a couple of higher levels as K is outgrowing it. I like that you can set this app to voice or written commands so it can be used to practice reading comprehension as well. The downside is the price. I've had it for a couple of years & must have either gotten it when it was cheaper or when it was on sale as I know I'd have been too cheap to pay the $15.99 price tag :)
Splingo's Language Universe is my favorite auditory processing app - K loves it too. Help an alien get home to his planet by following directions. Correct answers help him build his spaceship. There are four difficulty levels:
•Level 1 -contains instructions of 1 main word and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 18 months onwards, e.g. “find the apple”
•Level 2 - contains instructions of 2 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 2-3 years, e.g. “find the red apple”
•Level 3 - contains instructions of 3 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 3- 4 years and upwards, e.g. “find the big red apple”
•Level 4 - contains instructions of 4 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 4 years and upwards, e.g. “give the big red apple to the boy”
In my opinion, Splingo's Language Universe is well worth the price at $2.99.
Letter School is our favorite printing app - Each letter on this app starts out with a little song. That says the letter followed by an object that starts with that letter. There are three levels of difficulty when writing each letter. The first level guides you right through whereas the 3rd level requires the child to write quite independently although it does start to give hints if the child is having trouble. Numbers are also included & the quantity for each number is sthown before the printing begins. The special effects include fireworks, songs, trains with the whistle blowing, flowers growing, neon lights & lots more- very exciting stuff to motivate kids. Well worth the $2.99.
Another handwriting favorite of ours is Write My Name by Injini. This app allows kids to practice writing letters, sight words & most importantly lets you program in words such as your child's name. This app costs $3.99
Daily Art - We use this app for encyclopedic knowledge. It is great for people like me teach my kids about art when I don't have a lot of knowledge in that area.
K really enjoyed Monkey Preschool Lunchbox when she was younger. It has games that teach concepts such as shapes, letters, colours, & matching. This app costs 99 cents.
Bugsy Kindergarten Math is an entertaining math game in which the child guides the hamster as it tries to fill it's fridge with food. K enjoys this & plays it often. This $2.99 app teaches math concepts such as:
- Numbers — 0-30
- Counting — count by 1, 2, 3 & 5
- Comparisons — quantities & numbers
- Writing Numbers — 0 - 9
- Pattern Recognition — simple & complex
- Number Bonds — number relationships
- Basic Arithmetic — addition & subtraction up to 20
Park Math was K's favorite math app for a long time. While it's not an absolute favorite now she still enjoys it a lot. There are quite a few activities for th e $3.99 price tag. The child wanders through all the playground activities with various animals such as hippos, ducks & dogs while doing various math activities.
There are 3 Levels for Preschool, Kindergarten and First Grade
- Level 1: Count up to 20; addition/subtraction with numbers up to 5
- Level 2: Count up to 50; addition/subtraction with numbers up to 10
- Level 3: Count up to 100; addition/subtraction with numbers up to 20
We used the I Like Books app quite a bit when Kas was about 4 years old. This app has 37 stories to choose from with nice photographs on each page. She still uses this app from time to time. Free!
Lakeshore Learning has an app called Beginning Sounds Sorting Game in which the player sorts each object depending on the initial sound. 99 cents.
Find them all is a game that requires the child to search for various animals on the farm. An in app purchase opens up a number of other habitats but we have only used the free farm habitat.
K has several Stella & Sam apps. While she's never watched this program on TV, she loves all of the apps.
K enjoys the Miss Spider apps such as Miss Spider's Tea Party. $2.99.
Toca Doctor was one of K's favorite games last year. The list price is $2.99 but I've seen it come up for free. The crunchy mama in me sometimes cringes at some of the "medical" types games but for a kid who occasionally has to go for blood work & see specialists etc. I think it's good to have some playing doctor fun.
What are some of your kids favorite apps?
First things first - Where to get the deals! I like Smart Apps for Kids & App Friday
If you watch these sites often you can get some really great deals. There are also a couple of good FaceBook groups that post lots of deals. One of them is Free Apps For Kids. I'm Sure there are a couple of other real good ones but they don't seem to be coming up on my FaceBook feed now & I can't find them so please leave me a comment if you have any other suggestions.
Language Builder is an app that we have used for speech. It contains photos of people engaged in various activities & allows you to record a sentence about the picture & then play it back. I was lucky to find this one for free but it is now listed at $9.99
We've just recently started using an app called Speech Sounds on Cue. According to their description it contains over 500 videos, sound clips and colour photos designed to help adults and children to produce the consonant speech sounds in isolation, in words and in sentences.
Thankfully, I found this one on sale as the cost now is $24.99.
Rainbow sentences is going to be my next purchase ($7.99) as soon as I get to town to pick up a new iTunes card. From their description:
Rainbow Sentences is designed to help students improve their ability to construct grammatically correct sentences by using color coded visual cues. The who, what, where, and why parts of sentences are color coded to help students recognize and understand how combinations of these parts create basic sentence structure.
Students will learn how to recognize the parts of sentences such as nouns, verbs, and prepositions, improve their understanding of how combinations of these parts create basic sentence structure. Students have the opportunity to record their sentences in their own voice to improve their receptive and expressive language skills.
Sounds pretty cool right?
Simply Smarter Kids - Memory - Memory is one of the apps that was fairly recently released by NACD. This is a great app for working on sequential processing, short-term and working memory & really follows the neurodevelopmental approach to developing memory. The app is a pretty good price at $1.99. K loves animals though so to keep her interested I ended up adding on the animals package which cost another 99 cents.
Mem Magic is another memory game. In this game there is a circus theme. 3 performers are shown for several seconds, then one disappears & the child must remember which one is missing. Its not either of our favorite but K likes it & I like that it approaches memory in a different way than most. Free!
Fun with Directions & More Fun with Directions are two grat apps for auditory processing. You can set it to easy intermediate or advanced. I loved this app but I wish it had a couple of higher levels as K is outgrowing it. I like that you can set this app to voice or written commands so it can be used to practice reading comprehension as well. The downside is the price. I've had it for a couple of years & must have either gotten it when it was cheaper or when it was on sale as I know I'd have been too cheap to pay the $15.99 price tag :)
Splingo's Language Universe is my favorite auditory processing app - K loves it too. Help an alien get home to his planet by following directions. Correct answers help him build his spaceship. There are four difficulty levels:
•Level 1 -contains instructions of 1 main word and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 18 months onwards, e.g. “find the apple”
•Level 2 - contains instructions of 2 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 2-3 years, e.g. “find the red apple”
•Level 3 - contains instructions of 3 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 3- 4 years and upwards, e.g. “find the big red apple”
•Level 4 - contains instructions of 4 main words and is suitable for children at a developmental level of about 4 years and upwards, e.g. “give the big red apple to the boy”
In my opinion, Splingo's Language Universe is well worth the price at $2.99.
Letter School is our favorite printing app - Each letter on this app starts out with a little song. That says the letter followed by an object that starts with that letter. There are three levels of difficulty when writing each letter. The first level guides you right through whereas the 3rd level requires the child to write quite independently although it does start to give hints if the child is having trouble. Numbers are also included & the quantity for each number is sthown before the printing begins. The special effects include fireworks, songs, trains with the whistle blowing, flowers growing, neon lights & lots more- very exciting stuff to motivate kids. Well worth the $2.99.
Another handwriting favorite of ours is Write My Name by Injini. This app allows kids to practice writing letters, sight words & most importantly lets you program in words such as your child's name. This app costs $3.99
Daily Art - We use this app for encyclopedic knowledge. It is great for people like me teach my kids about art when I don't have a lot of knowledge in that area.
K really enjoyed Monkey Preschool Lunchbox when she was younger. It has games that teach concepts such as shapes, letters, colours, & matching. This app costs 99 cents.
Bugsy Kindergarten Math is an entertaining math game in which the child guides the hamster as it tries to fill it's fridge with food. K enjoys this & plays it often. This $2.99 app teaches math concepts such as:
- Numbers — 0-30
- Counting — count by 1, 2, 3 & 5
- Comparisons — quantities & numbers
- Writing Numbers — 0 - 9
- Pattern Recognition — simple & complex
- Number Bonds — number relationships
- Basic Arithmetic — addition & subtraction up to 20
Park Math was K's favorite math app for a long time. While it's not an absolute favorite now she still enjoys it a lot. There are quite a few activities for th e $3.99 price tag. The child wanders through all the playground activities with various animals such as hippos, ducks & dogs while doing various math activities.
There are 3 Levels for Preschool, Kindergarten and First Grade
- Level 1: Count up to 20; addition/subtraction with numbers up to 5
- Level 2: Count up to 50; addition/subtraction with numbers up to 10
- Level 3: Count up to 100; addition/subtraction with numbers up to 20
We used the I Like Books app quite a bit when Kas was about 4 years old. This app has 37 stories to choose from with nice photographs on each page. She still uses this app from time to time. Free!
Lakeshore Learning has an app called Beginning Sounds Sorting Game in which the player sorts each object depending on the initial sound. 99 cents.
Find them all is a game that requires the child to search for various animals on the farm. An in app purchase opens up a number of other habitats but we have only used the free farm habitat.
K has several Stella & Sam apps. While she's never watched this program on TV, she loves all of the apps.
K enjoys the Miss Spider apps such as Miss Spider's Tea Party. $2.99.
Toca Doctor was one of K's favorite games last year. The list price is $2.99 but I've seen it come up for free. The crunchy mama in me sometimes cringes at some of the "medical" types games but for a kid who occasionally has to go for blood work & see specialists etc. I think it's good to have some playing doctor fun.
What are some of your kids favorite apps?
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