Educational Apps for Your Children

One of the best perks, I have found, to having smart phones and devices is that they can actually make you smarter. What’s even better? There are apps that make your kids smarter, too. While telling your child that they need to study may get you sighs and eye rolls, giving them your or their iphone to study with may work a lot better for a few reasons. The obvious reason is that studying on a device fells a lot more like playing than learning. Another reason is because when you give a child the open ended task of studying, you can be overwhelming them…”Study what, study how, study how long”…where an app for learning controls the pace and order of information that the child is learning. Finally, many apps offer quizzes that you can look at and you can vies your child’s score and see first hand what troubles they are having, if any.

We are all iphone users around here, so we will talk about apps that we have used and liked, but if your devices are on a different platform we encourage you to look into what apps they have available on amazon or where their apps are being sold. Speaking of iphones, we found that many of their apps are available for free or for free with a paid full feature option available so we could test them out with out losing anything.

My Spelling Test: Free – Funflip Studios

-This one we use everyday and I have seen it improve spelling test scores in under one week. If your speller is having trouble like mine was, try the free version and see for yourself. The way this spelling app works is you type the word then you record yourself saying the word. Once you’ve put in the list of words from school, you’ve got a spelling quiz on hand at any time. Because it saves your spelling lists, you can go back and give your kids a refresher test 3 months down the road to make sure they still remember their old words. If your speller isn’t having trouble with their spelling words or preparing for a spelling bee you can always create your own list of spelling words to challenge them or prepare them. Super easy to use – This app is an absolute must have!

FREE Spanish Tutor – 24/7 Language Learning – 24/7 TUTOR INC.

- There are actually a fer variations of this app by the same maker including a French language app, German language app, Russian language app and Italian language app. You have the option of reading the phrase then selecting it from a list or having the app say the phrase out loud (and the voices are all of native speakers of what ever language you are learning) then select your answer. We use the audio and play this as a group sometimes-the kids love being able to blurt out answers before us-lol!

FREE Flashcards Study Helper – David Skelly

- This is a great free app for creating any kind of flash card you need! I like that this app let’s you create flash cards for any and all subjects and you can even make flash cards with photos. Think of the possibilities: animal species, molecules, shapes, cloud types, music notes, even facts about your in-laws that you never see until Christmas-you can make flash cards about anything!

Grammar Jammers Primary Edition – Pearson Education, Inc.

Grammar Jammers Elementary Edition – Pearson Education, Inc.

Grammar Jammers Middle Edition – Pearson Education, Inc.

- All three of the Grammar Jammers are fabulous tools of edu-tainment that your kids may already be familiar with. Many of the schools use Grammar Jammers in their weekly lessons and now you can have it on your iphone or ipad for your kids to use. I like to use the Grammar Jammers to keep the kids busy in waiting rooms, or “I’m bored” times. Pick the Grammar Jammer for your kid’s age range and pull it out next time your little one is looking for something to get into.

These are just a few of the many educational apps available today, and like I said, these are the free versions which actually work fine. I chose to upgrade my spelling app because I have more than one child and I want to be able to make unlimited tests at different levels and keep them forever, but I think I only paid $0.99 and it was worth a lot more.

What’s your must have app? We’d love to hear about it! Click here to let us know what app you have and use most often.

As with anything you share with your child, preview the app yourself before allowing them to use them. While we have tested all of these apps and do recommend and use them, we do not have any control over any of the apps listed, nor their content and suggest all parents try any and all apps out themselves before giving them to their children to use.