Smart Apps For Kids

SpongeBob Marbles & Slides

 

 

I've already covered my three year old's current favorite game, so I decided to do an post on my nine-year old's current fav. SpongeBob Marbles & Slides is a "drawing-meets-physics puzzler" where the player has to draw lines that SpongeBob and Patrick marbles use as ramps and borders to reach a destination point.

Math Tour

 

 

In theory Math Tour is a great game for kids, but in practice (with my two boys, six and nine) it doesn't play well at all.

Players move from city to city around several continents solving math problems. Each set of problems reveals a picture of the location and opens up the next stop.

Lola's Alphabet Train

 

 

Bottom Line: This is my three-year old daughter's absolute favorite app (at least right at this moment.)

Mars Globe

 

 

Mars Globe is a 3D, interactive representation of earth's mysterous neighbor planet. It presents A LOT of data on Mars, including terrain details and info regarding the spacecraft that have interacted with it. (I found reading the spacecraft data to be the most interesting.) 

MeeGenius

 

 

MeeGenius is like an iBooks or Kindle for children's books. The app is free and starts the child's bookshelf with a fantastic six free books: The Three Little Pigs, Jemima Puddleduck, The Lion and the Mouse, The Magpie's Nest, The Boy Who Cried Wolf and The Little Red Hen. 

Grover's Number Special

 

 

In Grover's Number Special, the player helps Sesame Street's Grover to gather the ingredients needed for the daily special by catching the appropriate number on a platter (for example, three pieces of cheese.) This is accomplished by tilting the device left and right to move the plate back and forth under the proper ingredients. It shouldn't prove frustrating even to the youngest players because if the wrong ingredients hit the place, they simply bounce off. As each correct item hits the plate, Grover says the number and it is displayed.

Starfall Snowman

 

 

First and foremost, if you have a child learning to read, go to starfall.com and bookmark it. It's the best phonics and reading development site I have found and it's free. My oldest son used to climb on my lap all the time when I was sitting at my computer and ask "Can I play Starfall with Zac the Rat?"