iPad Apps for the Kids

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Since we’re cranking up for leaving in October, hitting the road again, I’m re-visiting books and the ipad…

Both kids use the iPad quite a bit and I give it full credit for teaching Moxie the alphabet, making her super interested in phonics.

It’s making yogis, readers, artists, singers and problem-solvers out of the kids and I couldn’t be more delighted, even if recent articles would have me believing that they turn the kids brains to mush and stuff like that.

Anyway. Here’s a list of apps that we use for each child:

Moxie:

Speech Apps:

• Vast Autism 1
• Vast Pre Speech
• urTalker Pro

Sound Touch

Starfall ABC’s

Words with Tots

My First Words

Little Reader

Sentence Builder

Learn to Talk

First Words

Montessori Words

Little Writer

SignShine

Duck, Duck Moose

Elmo Calls

Elmo Potty

Elmo Stories

Elmo’s ABC’s

Sesame Street:

• Farm
• Books
• Playground
• Nest
• Look Find Elmo
• 123
• Birthday
• Fix It Shop

There’s a Monster at the End of My Book (1 and 2)

Dr Seuss’s ABC

The Cookie Thief

Miss Spider’s Tea Party

Cat in the Hat

Alphabet

Dora’s ABCs

Lots of kindle books on the kindle app: 

• Moxie’s favorites, hands down, are the Boynton books. She has them all and reads them daily. She also LOVES ‘chicka chicka boom boom’, ‘Draw Me a Star’ and ‘Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?’. But her very favorite book in the entire world without question is ‘Snuggle Puppy’ (- Boynton book).

Dora Vacation

Dora’s Great Big World

Super Stretch (yoga app)

SpiroDoodle (art app)

Fingerpaint (art app)

SketchbookX (art app)

Bugs & Bubbles (fun)

My Play Home (part fun and part for learning about home orientation, etc)

Talking Tom (practices words)

I haven’t updated this in a long time because our wifi is so sketchy/non existent. If you are in the same boat as I am or if you are just into my top 5 recommendations for apps (Kelley, I’m looking at you here!), they are:

1.  Vast Autism 1: absolutely first rate app for speech development. It costs around $10, totally worth it
2. Vast Pre-Speech: this might be less than the first one? I don’t know, but if you have a child that is learning to talk or will have potential speech issues, this app is gold! I’d even say that it’s great for people who want to learn (American) English
3. Little Writer: great app for learning to write. I like it because it’s pretty clear on the stroke order
4. SignShine: pain in the ass because you have to keep downloading it, BUT if you have fairly steady wifi, this one is awesome for your little signer. Moxie LOVES it, all those songs in sign… sigh.
5. SuperStretch: yeah, it’s a yoga app but Moxie really loves it and we all get a kick out of her taking her yoga breaks. I think it’s free. How great is that?

The urTalker Pro thing was on sale for $10 but they said it’s normally $100. I haven’t figured out how to use it yet, to be honest.

The others are all great in their respective ways. They stay on the ipad mostly because Moxie likes them and uses them all.

There’s a Monster at the End of this Book would be torn and dog eared if it were really made of paper – she has read and re-read that about a billion times. Same goes for ANYTHING DORA. Moxie is a total Dora crackhead-junkie-fiend. I’m starting to use this to our advantage (“what would Dora do?”; “does Dora wear clothes?”; etc)

* ALSO – working through all the app suggestions from NDSC – the link: http://tinyurl.com/dscongress *

Moving on!

Micah’s apps

Little Writer

Handwriting Without Tears

GeoWalk

Rocket Speller

Painting with Time

Montessori (- writing, math, words, games, calendar and more)

Playsquare

Montessori Crosswords

Kindle: he has dozens of books on his kindle app: the link to the post on his books is here: Books & Boys

Audible: he listens to books on audible and follows along with the book on kindle

Magic School Bus: Oceans and Dinosaurs

Solar Walk

Misty Island Rescue

Cat in the Hat

Treaure Kai

Big Business

 

Spanish:

Mind Snacks

 

Japanese:

Kanji Pic

Skritter

Hiragana Book

Flashcards

Math (suji)

Sushi monster (- math)

First grade words

 

Silly stuff/games

Talking Tom

Talking Newsletter

Go, Diego Go

My Play Home

Construct Bots

Transformer Ruckus Reader

 

Art:

Comic Book

Fingerpaint

Sketchbook

 

Music:

Piano DX

 

The big debate now is around MINECRAFT. Do you know about this? This app basically consumes your kid and I can’t decide if it’s a good thing or not. Is it?

I’m on the fence about TRANSFORMERS too. Ugh. I wish he could be obsessed about something really easy to approve of, like…. oh, intellectually stimulating things from Sesame Street?!

I think my top 5 for Micah – based on what I see him going for and what his personality is like are:

1.  GeoWalk – very cool app with lots of information
2. Solar Walk: I think he may have memorized this entire app already. He can recite most of it verbatim
3. Magic School Bus – I don’t care for the sass in it, but holy cow! It’s so full of good learning!
4. Spanish Mind Snacks – this is a game and it gets him to build his Spanish vocab. He likes it and is learning a lot
5. Audible – he listens to this almost every day. He usually reads along to what he hears, by opening his kindle app. The book he is listening to is downloaded automatically

That’s the full list. I’d love to hear your own recommendations – what apps do your kids (with and without an intellectual disability) love? What apps do you as a parent love for your kids? Any good books you are reading these days? Please tell!

 

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