If you have an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, likely the kids want to play on it all the time. If you’re anything like me, you want at least some of that time spent doing things that are educational. Developers have created some amazing apps that are both educational and totally fun. Here are 10 of our favorite educational apps:
MathBoard
this is an awesome app for math practice for all ages. It is really easy to set up practice quizzes and track progress, for the kid who might just need a little extra math practice. From the app store: “MathBoard is appropriate for all ages from kindergarten (with simple addition and subtraction problems) to elementary school where learning multiplication and division can be a challenge. You can control the range of numbers you want to work with, the amount of questions you want to answer and even assign a time limit per quiz. MathBoard will make learning math fun.”
Price: $4.99 Device: iPad
SpellBoard
this is an equally wonderful app for spelling. You can import lists they’ve created, such as Dolch sight word lists, or you can use your own list of words. The app will create a quiz and will also create activities like a word search and word scramble puzzles for them to practice with. The student can listen the word read aloud and used in a sentence, and there is a “scratch pad” of sorts, where they can try out different spellings before submitting their answer on the quiz. This app is excellent for spelling practice.
Price: $4.99 Device: iPad
TeachMe
this is a group of graded apps that teaches math, spelling and sight words for older kids, and colors, shapes, letters and phonics to the littler ones. There have been 4 levels released so far: Toddler, Kindergarten, First Grade and Second Grade. One of the best features of the app is the rewards system. Students earn coins, which which they can buy a variety of items from the store, including things like fish, and items to furnish their fish tank and feed their fish!
Price: $0.99 Device: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
BrainPop
The BrainPop online site is one of the best educational sites online and this app is just as high quality. It is fun and chock full of information on many subjects. Every day there is a new video and a quiz test how well they listened. My son loves this app and has several times said something like “oh yeah, I know all about that. I learned about it on BrainPop.”
Price: FREE for the daily video, $6.99/month for access to all content. Device: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
Barefoot World Atlas
This app is pure geography fun! It lets you travel around the world on “an interactive 3D globe for iPad that invites children to explore the regions and countries of the world, discovering hundreds of fascinating features and immersing themselves in the rich wonders of our planet.” This is one of the pricier apps we’ve purchased, but it been good for hours and hours of learning that doesn’t feel like learning.
Price: $7.99 Device: iPad
Presidents vs. Aliens
This app makes learning about the US Presidents lots of fun. From the app store description: “Presidents vs. Aliens makes learning about the presidents fun! As you learn presidential facts, quotes, nicknames and historical events, you can use your knowledge to help the presidents defeat the aliens. Fling the presidents at the aliens to knock them all down. Use the many special objects and “Executive Powers” to increase the fun!”
Price: $0.99 Device: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
GeoMaster
This is another great geography app where you can learn states, countries, world capitals, world monuments, mountains and more.
Price: $0.99 – $3.99 Device: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
Letter School
We’ve tried several apps that help kids learn to write letters and this one is by far the best. It makes learning to write letters and numbers so much fun! First the child learns the letter’s shape, name and sound, then they learn where to start, change direction and finish by tapping the dots. They learn the letter trajectory by tracing it and finally they test their knowledge by writing it from memory. My preschooler has so much fun with this app. I like that there are several different handwriting styles to choose from as well.
Price: $2.99 (there’s a free “lite” version too) Device: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
Stack the States
With this app, kids learn about the states, capitals and other geographic facts while stacking the states to the top for each level. They earn a random state for every successfully completed level. All of their states appear on their own personalized map of the United States. Try to collect all 50! As you earn more states, they begin to unlock the three free bonus games: Pile Up, Puzzler and Capital Drop. My son loves this one and the similar Stack the Countries game as well.
Price: $0.99 (there’s a free “lite” version too) Device: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
Science360
With hundreds of science related images and videos, this app will keep the kiddos busy learning about the world and how it works. Content ranges from videos about DNA, the science of skiing and music, to pictures of elephant seals and indigenous peoples of the Amazon. Tons of interesting stuff!
Price: FREE Device: iPad
