Saving on kids' books & toys with iPhone apps?

bleech_2

Wonder if anyone else finds all that activity books and dvds for kids expensive? they outgrow them so fast and some of them ain't even good to start with.

i started to allow my 2 yr old (actually 30 mths) more time with my iPhone a month ago and the results have been incredible! we limit his screen time pretty well, i say, but he's beginning to learn counting and recognize more words when we test him over dinner.

here are some apps i download (search the keywords in iTunes), do share some you like too!

ABC Pocket Phonics

Curious George Dictionary (word learning tool, see/ read/ hear):

Peekaboo Barn (memory game):

Stickery: mermaid waters (play math or language games to win stickers) -

Feed Me Pencilbot Preschool (game, feed monster the right food/ object association)

Scoops (really simple game, just to teach colors i guess):

iWriteWordsLite (learn to write letters)

bestpud

Lifecycles - cycle of insects, plants, moon rocks etc

Math Order - placing sums in order of the size of the answer (if that makes sense)

SmartVocab - gives so many words and says what they mean before testing

10 Frame Fill - for anyone who uses ten frames for maths

Brain POP - new movie every day and then a test on it - todays is 'Apollo Project'

IQ Timestables - fun times tables game

Super 7 - a game but you have to quickly group numbers that add to seven so good for basic adding up

WMD 2011 - the World maths day site - they can practice sums against the iphone or they can compete against real people around the world if you register online first.

World Capitals - just a quick way of looking up capital cities but handy at times for reference

MathCity - another fun maths game

Look & Spell - pictures of three and four letter words and they select the correct letters to spell them e.g. 'owl'

Tell The Time - good for learning how to tell the time or for learning digital time

Pizza 1 - fractions game - bit tedious, I find but dd likes it

Find Sums - another adding up games that uses tens frames

BookofDead - app to support the ancient Egypt exhibition http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/book_of_the_dead.aspx

Whirly Word - making up words from random letters

Bookworm - word making game

WHO AM I? - guess the animal

WIF? Free - looking at aeroplanes taking off with various challenges such as head or tail winds and guessing if it will fly

Chess Free - speaks for itself

Checkers - or draughts to us

Dots Free - games where you draw the lines and try and make more boxes than your opponent

Creationary - lego app where the computer gradually builds a model and they have to guess what it is

That's it for now! I'm an iphone fan in case you hadn't noticed! :rotfl:

Fellpony_2

Thank you for this fab thread, I am just starting to let my 5 year old use my ipod touch for learning apps and I struggle to find them on iTunes!!

Fellpony_2

ELC ManicMartians
dtdnumwizlite (dot to dot games)
dot to dot
wackaMonsta
Kids Math
Dino Rush
Park Math
Math Kids Math
Spot the Diff 2
Alphabet
Colouring
Colour Me !!!
Spelling Bus
Cats Spot (spot the difference)
Dominoes
Angry Birds (for the more grown up kids!! Oh and a few adults too!!)
Talking Gina
Coin Dozer
Cookie Dozer
TicTacFree
FourFree
Bird Crazy (Garfield based)
Sheep Launcher

Ones to avoid - Early Maths and Early Reader (unless you are a fan of flash cards, coz thats basically what they are.)

Owain_Moneysaver

Before letting a child near an Iphone, read this thread.

Fellpony_2

Mine is only allowed on the ipod touch, with the wifi turned off but totally agree with the warning above!!

bestpud

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

Before letting a child near an Iphone, read this thread.

There was a watchdog report on that and the way to avoid it is to make sure you have to sign in to download anything and remember the phone will remember the password for 15 minutes.

The guy on the programme thought he was covered but had signed in just before he handed the phone to his child and the child managed to buy loads of stuff for his game.

bleech_2

trick is to switch to airplane mode once u pass to your child.

Curious_George_2

you can also change your settings on your ipod touch so that your children cant accidentally delete/move/buy/download apps

my toddler was forever deleting my games or moving stuff about and it was really annoying! so i found a thing in settings to stop them doing it.

minimoneysaver

How do you do that curious george? My daughter has moved a load of my apps...grrrr

minimoneysaver

I've found the 'deleting apps' in
settings>general>restrictions

Can't find the bit to stop her from moving apps though