Monday, July 8, 2013

Apps to keep your kids busy and learning this summer.


As the school year ended I had more than one parent ask me for some apps to add to their iPads to keep students learning this summer.  I thought I would share some of the apps I  came up with here. This is a mix of apps for students from grades 1 to 6. 

One great reading app for iPad is J'aime Lire. 


It is free to get and gives you access to 3 free books but you need to pay for individual books after that. The app has books for ages 3-12.




Rover
Rover is an app for ipad that lets students access educational websites with flash content. The app is free. Unfortunately most of the websites are in English but there is some great content here. 

Puffin
To access French web content you might want to consider getting Puffin.
Puffin isn't free but it also doesn't limit which sites your can visit so that means you can access any website online.


Then you can have kids visit my Listen to reading Scoop.it for places to read online in French.





If your child likes comic books there are a lot of them on the itunes store. Some are in French others aren't. Just look on the side of the page and look at languages. This will help you find out what language apps are listed in. 



Educreation


Another app to check out Educreation. It is free. Kids can watch lessons other teachers and students have created. They can also createthere own lessons on something they is interested in. They can add pictures record there voice, write and type and just goof around with it. Many of the lessons are in English but there are French lessons too.







You might want to check out this list of book creators too. They are fun to use and encourage kids to write and create all summer long.

http://mmehawtree.blogspot.ca/2013/02/digital-storytelling-creating-books-on.html





Got a math kid on your hands? Here are some math games:

Sudoku is great for building concentration. There are lots of different sudoku apps on the iPad and if you search you will find some others but here is one in French that uses images.


Another app that is free but more challenging is:

Another great one for concentration is Guess Who. Kids gets to play, and listen to vocabulary and need to pay attention to details too.

Atlas du monde


In the not free but cool section there is the joue avec series that lets students explore and learn about various artists. They can to search for items, find details and listen and read to author biographies. 


Atlas du monde is also a very cool way to explore the world. It is available in English and French. 



When you are looking for iPad apps in French you will find out that many of them will initially show up in English. Here is an article I wrote on how to change iPad to French so that apps will be in French:



This Scoop.it page is a list of iPad resources for French immersion - this keeps growing as I add to it:


Sylvia Duckworth also has a great blog with reviews of French Apps for kids. Check it out here:



So what did I learn at school today? There are lots of ways to keep kids entertained and learning on the iPad this summer. Hopefully we can avoid a little bit of the summer slide and a lot of the "Mom I am bored!" with the resources above.  What are your favorite apps for students? Do you have a list of apps you recommend for parents?