Articles Tagged with App

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AnalogiesAnalogies for Kids is an educational iPad app that has a premise I love. It is a quiz that lets kids practice both verbal and geometrical analogies. It is extremely low tech but the questions are just great and I think they really help cultivate young minds. My dream is that one day there are hundreds of iPad analogy apps out there and I’m buying the very best ones available.That is not, however, where we are now. This app has a very limited number of questions, so few that they often repeat frequently even in a 20 question test. Ultimately, your kids remember the answers and stop doing the analogies.

So you can only really only whip this game out for a few days. Would I recommend this incredibly flawed game? Absolutely. Because there is nothing else like this out there. So it is a weapon worth having for 99 cents. I don’t think it is even a close call. If you get just 30 minutes out of it, I still think it is a worthwhile investment. I just wish they would put out a more advanced version of the game and put on more questions (or just update the that is already out).This app is made by Nth Fusion LLC which has developed other educational iPad apps that we own that I will be writing about in the future.

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underseamath
Undersea Math

Undersea Math is another math low budget, under the radar educational iPad math app that my kids – particularly my daughter – consistently use.

The premise is very simple. You fill in the answer to the math problem on a little pretend wood puzzle and continue to solve math problems until the whole puzzle is revealed. It is hard to describe but you can look at the picture and get a feel for it. In this image, the last puzzle piece is being selected.

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ClassicalMusicAppI really wish I had a better classical education. I wish I knew the top 1000 or so classical music pieces and I wish I knew the great works of art. I will probably never make it but I’ll keep on trying. The news for my kids is better. They have more than a shot. It is almost a guarantee. The primary reason for that – and I know it sounds crazy – is the iPad.

I talked last week about the classical art puzzle app that we love. This classical music app is not as good but it is still an incredible buy for $1. It has 50 classical songs, not in their entirety but the first minute or so. After you play around with this for a bit, you can move on to a 50 question classical music quiz. My 5 year-old can get all 50 correct with ease and I just started with my younger son, who is 4, last night.

Like many of the best iPad educational apps, this AdsSoftware app is not visually impressive. It is downright unattractive actually. But, ultimately, the question is does your child learn. The answer here is absolutely yes.

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eyeMatheyeMath is another educational math iPad application that I really like a lot. Unlike many of the other math iPad apps I have reviewed, eyeMath has a high tech feel to it – great resolution, strong music… just good eye candy for kids.

The idea is simple as the image here suggests. It is multiple choice and players have three minutes to solve the problems. eyeMath gets progressively harder as you move through the game.

eyeMath also has a feature that I absolutely love, a simple thing yet few other math games have it: problems answered incorrectly reappear later until the student gets the answer correct. It is a little thing but if your child has a nagging equation they just can’t get, it might be a while before they see it again in most games. eyeMath allows you to attack this weakness head on.

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pop-math-litePop Math is another low tech math iPad application. It will not be the brightest star in your iPad math firmament but it is a bright and cheap star. Pop Math is 99 cents. And that probably overstates the case. You can get much of the app for free.

This is one of those iPad apps where you “buy” the free version and then buy the full version out of guilt because you got so much use out of the free game and… it is only a dollar. I could explain the game but really all you need to do is look at the image and you already know how to play. You just match up the bubbles and pop them. I stole this image from LunchBoxReviews.com which provides reviews of a lot of iPad education apps.

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First Grade Skills and Second Grade Skills are two iPad apps put out by Visual Learning Aids. I love the idea of this app. But these are not a good apps. The premise is fantastic. Reading comprehension, vocabulary, science question, all in multiple choice format that is very “standardized testish”. But that application is terrible. First, there are spelling errors everywhere. Really? It is a $3 app, get the spelling correct. Moreover, it has a very limited number of questions so, after a week, you can only pull it out every few months. Moreover, the layout is sophomoric, it looks like something we could do if we had only the most basic skills in putting together an app. Attention app developers: someone build on this great premise and make an app just like this one… only good.

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lisaI’m a big fan of ArtPuzzle HD on the iPad, a puzzle game that works for kids of all ages with varying degrees of difficulty. The game has 80 paintings from artists your kids should know, such as Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, Da Vinci, Monet, Renoir, and Gauguin. I’m not sure how to describe the puzzle, but it is not puzzle pieces in the classic puzzle sense of the word: you swap square pieces.

Honestly, I confess that 95% of what I know about art I have learned on the iPad. I don’t want my kids to be in the same boat. ArtPuzzle HD is a beautiful game that throws in the bonus of playing beautiful music. (Actually, I wish somewhere they would identify the names of the songs. Any music buff would know them; I don’t.)

There is one thing about ArtPuzzle HD that concerns me a little bit. Let’s just say back in the day there were a lot of depictions of nudity and extreme violence. I struggled with this with my kids for some time and decided to go with the whole “just ignore it” strategy. It has worked so far.

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