SB Finds : Educational Apps

My son has been making great strides in reading lately, so I’ve been looking for apps that encourage him to use his basic understanding of letters and their sounds. It takes a lot of work to mirror what he is learning in English and teach him phonics in Spanish, but it’s a little easier when you have the support of fun electronic resources like the My A-Z app from Night & Day Studios, Inc. This is no ordinary flashcard app.Read More ...

The new interactive storybook app from StoryToys is much more than a new twist on an old favorite. Grimm’s Puss in Boots 3D Interactive Pop-Up Book introduces a concept that ups the cool factor in the world of kids’ apps. Instead of simple 2D animation with responsive characters, this classic story turns into a game or puzzle every few pages. There are 9 pop-up scenes in total, in which you can help Puss in Boots chase away mice, leap overRead More ...

The good old-fashioned crossword is usually an adult interest: something we might do while reading the morning paper or waiting in the airport. El crucigrama has gotten an update, though, and kids will love filling in the challenging puzzles on the new Spanish Crossword Puzzles for Kids app by Lyubov Zhivova. Instead of giving clues as phrases, this app has pictures of the objects or animals and a bank of letters to choose from. The letters can be color-coded toRead More ...

One of the biggest challenges I have with living so far from all our immediate family is making sure that we keep those ties that bind constantly nurtured. Aside from planning to visit at least once per year either the family in El Salvador or the one in Mexico, we have to make sure all the moments in between those are somehow captured and shared so we all feel connected and part of each other’s lives. Fortunately, we’re pretty muchRead More ...

From the creators of ¡A la granja! and some of our other favorite apps, When I Grow Up/De mayor seré is a great resource in addition to being a fun app. It introduces children to all the career choices they will have as adults, and makes all of them seem equally fun with its cute graphics. Sanoen, a Barcelona-based digital publisher, gives us six languages and five modes to choose from. Your youngest children can watch the automated version ofRead More ...

Need a fresh way to practice bilingual basics with your toddler or preschooler? Kiko can help! In the new Kiko and Kids, Body & Clothes app created by a mom and speech language pathologist, a cute little rana teaches and quizzes players on body parts and clothing items.   Your kids can choose between English and Spanish audio and male and female characters. They will learn the face and body parts and clothing items, then move to the puzzles andRead More ...

Just about everything we do in our daily routine has been turned into an electronic game – childcare, cleaning, cooking, fitness, sports and even stealing cars!  Not that we steal cars routinely, but I think you get what I mean.  This sort of attention to gaming has been strongly redirected toward the arena of education, and rightly so. Watch any gamer in action and you’ll see a firsthand demonstration of how the learning curve actually works.  Because video games canRead More ...

 Little Pim, the cute panda who teaches foreign languages, is one of our favorite characters for Spanish-language education. We have reviewed several Little Pim resources in the past, including the Word Bag app. This PBS Kids iPad app, Little Pim Spanish, follows with the award-winning quality of other PBS Kids products. It is a simple, effective way for preschoolers to learn new vocabulary – 60 words and phrases, in fact. Aimed at English-dominant children who are learning Spanish, Little PimRead More ...