Here is a list of useful apps to use at home to support learning
Click on the links where available otherwise search in the app store
iPad apps for Literacy
BookCreator – one of the most versatile apps available for your class to make fiction/non-fiction books using text/sound/video. Links well with iMovie. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/book-creator-for-ipad/id442378070
ArtofGlow – highly visual app for early/emergent writing. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/art-of-glow/id387680399
First Letters – Match the letters and listen to the song. Teaches the youngest children phonics
ABC Alphabet Phonics – A simple game where children locate the correct letter
Story Ideas – Can you guess what this one does? A slick new app.
Comic Touch – Make your photos go all cartoony warping images and adding speech bubbles
Toontastic – A great little app that allows children to create characters, settings and their own cartoons
Chicktionary – As the blurb says ‘Unscramble a roost of letters and create as many words as possible’.
Puppetpals HD – Create your own puppet shows with animation and audio in real time
Hangman – An oldie, but a goodie!
Word Search Kids – Again, no prizes for originality here, but still lots of fun
StoryKit – Create your own electronic storybook
Adventure Books – Trying to encourage your boys to read? Who could resist an exciting adventure?
Storyrobe – Create and share digital stories
Verses – Poetry, Poems and Poets – Fridge magnets with a 21st century twist!
Sparklefish – Another iPad version of an old favourite, complete a story in turns then see what you get.
Sock Puppets – Create and share your own lip synced videos
Alphabet Tracing – A fun series of animations to help children learn to form letters
Pocketphonics – A highly rated phonics app that covers letter sounds, letter writing and first words. Great to use in EYFS and beyond.
Bluster – A vocabulary building game from McGraw-Hill
Learn to Spell – Reception – A nice looking app that does exactly what it says on the tin
Sentence Builder – Designed to help young children build gramatically correct sentences
FUNIMAL PHONICS iPhone/iPad – £0.69. Children and parents are well-used to phonics alphabet-learning now, and this stylish flash-cards app gives the discipline a friendly animal face. It’s also notable for its inclusion of both US and UK English accents when speaking sounds.
MY A-Z iPhone/iPad – £1.49. There are lots of alphabetical flash-card apps for iPhone, but this one stands out for its personalisation. Children can add their own photos and sounds for letters – a picture of their dog and its bark for “D”, and so on.
THE SINGING ALPHABET iPhone/iPad – £0.69. A stylish app that does what it says on the tin: letters that sing. Specifically, they sing their own phonetic sounds, and can be combined to make harmonies and tunes. Given five minutes, your child will be singing along too.
Garage band: Music and literacy resource. Children can record/sample and sequence. Creative tool that can be podcast or linked directly to your website.
iPad apps for Maths
*Sushi Monster (iOS – Free) Scholastic’s app offers children multiplication and addition problems. They’ll have to reach a target number by picking the correct factors and addends listed on different pieces of sushi.
*Math Flash Cards * (iOS – Free) A traditional skill-and-drill app (yes, the asterisk is part of the title), Math Flash Cards * helps children practice their times tables by customizing the number and difficulty level of each question. This app has a simple interface that makes it easy for kids to play.
*Math Monsters – Bingo (iOS – Free) Students can practice all operations using this bingo app. They’ll solve each problem and then find the answer on the bingo board. Players need to be strategic if they want to win the game.
*Math Vs Zombies (iOS – $4.99, Android – Free) This silly app asks children to add, subtract, multiply or divide single- and two-digit numbers. Students need to answer each question correctly in order to zap the zombies back into humans.
*Motion math games: search on appstore
*Wuzzit trouble: search on appstore
*Math Up X: The goals of Math Up X is practice basic and Lattice multiplication. Each level is randomly generated and gets progressively harder. You will be able to monitor your children’s skills and progress by view report and statistic.
*Maths, age 5-11: Math Educational App is helps your kids mastering addition, subtraction, multiplication and division at an elementary level. Kids love it and have fun learning maths.
*Meerkat maths
Recommended for parents at home as well as in the classroom
FARM 123 – STORYTOYS JR iPhone/iPad – £1.49. Farm 123 aims to be a digital version of pop-up books, based on a character called Farmer Jo and his animals. It’s aimed at pre-school-age children, teaching them to count from one to 10 with cows, pigs and eggs.
LITTLE DIGITS iPad – £1.49. This marvellous numbers app gets your child to count by placing fingers on the iPad’s touchscreen, with cute cartoon numbers appearing, depending on how many fingers are pressed. Simple maths tasks give it an educational angle too.
NUMBERLYS iPhone/iPad – £3.99. Despite the name, this beautiful app is more about letters than numbers. It’s a mixture of games and storytelling to explain the origins of the alphabet, with a visual style influenced by films likeMetropolis and the original King Kong.
TIMES TABLES: SQUEEBLES MULTIPLICATIONiPhone/iPad/Android – £0.69. This UK-developed app is aimed at 5- to 11-year-olds, providing a series of multiplication questions to earn stars and rescue cutesy characters from a nefarious Maths Monster. Up to four children can save their progress on one device.
COUNTING WITH THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLARiPhone/iPad – £1.99. Eric Carle’s famous book about a fruit-munching caterpillar has been turned into a fun educational game with a mathematical skew. Your child identifies, counts and adds the foods over five levels, ensuring it appeals to a range of ages.