Top 5 Back-To-School Apps!
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If there was one tool that has completely revolutionized education, it’s got to be the iPad. I mean, seriously. There are hundreds of thousands of amazing apps right at your fingertips and new ones being created daily. Whether your student is learning their ABC’s or fractions, studying the fundamentals of French or prepping for the SAT, there’s a high-quality and effective app out there. This is not just for homeschoolers, but for anyone with a school-aged child. Here are the top 5 educational apps we love:
Stack the States
Learning US geography has never been easier. This colorful, dynamic learning game offers a great challenge: answer the questions correctly to earn a state and built a pile of states high enough to reach the checkered line. Alex, my first-grader, loves this challenging game and barely even realizes she’s learning state capitals and shapes, state abbreviations, locations on the map, landmarks, bordering states, and more. In a very short period she’s memorized the location of all the states and tons of other useful facts. She enjoys increasing the difficulty level and collecting states for her personalized map. Geography has never been more fun. For more advanced students, Stack the Countries is a great tool too! That one is even challenging for me.
Dinopedia
If you’ve got a dinosaur lover on your hands, then the National Geographic Society Ultimate Dinopedia: The Most Complete Dinosaur Reference Ever is one of the best investments ever. There are more than 700 dinosaurs in this interactive app featuring brilliant pictures, videos, fun facts, interesting dinosaur profiles, and all kinds of dinosaur related information. Alex has spent hours upon hours studying the dinosaurs and surprises me with all she learns and retains. This is the best dinosaur app we’ve found, and we’ve tried lots of them. If it’s from National Geographic, you know it’s quality and accurate. We love this app!
This one is a recent discovery for us and one that’s been used over and over again. The best part is that it’s free and works well on the iPad, iPhone, and the iPod touch. BrainPop features a different educational movie each day. The videos are simple and feature the same two characters each time, but delve into lots of interesting topics. We’ve learned about hurricanes, Mars, Jane Goodall, The Civil War, Wind Energy, Nutrition, Cameras, and so much more. Alex can hardly wait to see what her next movie will be and we’ve had so many interesting conversations as a result. She loves it so much that she was really concerned when we went camping. “But mom,” she complained, “I’m not going to be able to upload my BrainPop movie without the Internet!”
Piano Complete
This is the most expensive app in this list, but it’s also downright amazing. Better Day Wireless Piano Complete with 500+ Songs offers over 1000 piano lessons! It doesn’t matter if you’re a complete beginner either. You can learn with just one hand or both on either sheet music or by following falling notes. There are over 500 songs in many categories, including classical music and children’s songs. Alex has taken piano lessons for a year now and this is an excellent supplement. She enjoys practicing now more than ever and learning new songs on the iPad, then performing them on the full-size piano. It makes practicing away from home much easier and keeps her occupied too.
Rocket Math (Free)
If you’re looking for an easy way to get your child to practice their math skills, this just may be it. Build your own rocket, blast off into outer space, and play a math mission. It’s fun and challenging to build a rocket that will actually stay in orbit without crashing back to earth and steering while answering math questions makes it a challenging video game. There are many math missions with several difficulty levels. Topics include addition, subtraction, telling time, counting money, shapes, multiplication, division, fractions, more. We’ve been using this app for several months and it’s not only provided lots of math practice but also hours of fun.
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