Have I mentioned how much we love our gadgets? We’ve managed over the past couple of years to purchase an iPod Touch, Kindle Fire, and more recently, and iPad.
I really enjoy all of these tech advances and so does Ben. While Ben would probably prefer to spend all day playing Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja, one of my favorite things to do is seek out useful apps for homeschooling.
I like FREE apps. So here are my favorite iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad and Kindle Fire apps, for keeping me somewhat organized and for homeschooling on the go for FREE.
For a more complete list of educational apps by subject, that are not necessarily FREE, but worth the money, click over to AppSchooling Central!
Apps for iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone
Kindle — Downloading books is easy with the Kindle app.
The Old Schoolhouse Magazine — Now a digital monthly publication, the premier homeschooling magazine, delivered straight to your mobile device.
Spelling City — VocabularySpellingCity is a fun way to learn spelling and vocabulary words by playing engaging learning games using any word list.
Pocket (formerly Read It Later) — you can save things you find online to Pocket and then view these things offline. Websites, videos, articles.
myHomework — myHomework is a student organizer that can help students at any level manage their coursework, track your classes, homework, tests, assignments, time & block based class schedules, beautiful calendar display. This app can be synced with the web and ios for $2/yr — www.myhomeworkapp.com
Dropbox — Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. Any file you save to your Dropbox is accessible from all your computers, iPhone, iPad and even the Dropbox website!
Evernote — If you’re like me, one of those people who never has pen and paper to jot down notes, phone numbers, little things you need to remember, then this app is for you. You can create text, audio, or photo notes and then sync them to your computer. I use it for homeschool planning and work stuff, in bed, late at night, when I can’t sleep. Last week, I used it to take notes during the sermon. My pastor will be happy to read this. He probably thought I was playing game 🙂
Google Earth — Just like the desktop version, you can travel all over the world with this app!
NASA — Come explore with NASA.
NASA Now NASA — Now aggregates the latest feeds from NASA and presents them in an ordered fashion, and in chronological order. The app includes breaking news from NASA, the image of the day, topical news and hurricane updates, and the latest from their missions, including those from the International Space Station, Chandra X-ray observatory, and the Kepler mission.
National Visualization Explorer — A direct connection to NASA’s extraordinary fleet of research spacecraft, this app presents cutting edge research stories in an engaging and exciting format. See the Earth as you’ve never seen it before; travel to places otherwise unavailable to even the most intrepid explorers!
Brain Pop — We love the educational videos on Brain Pop online. With this app, your kids can watch a new video every day.
Vocabulary Power Plus — SAT words. Four lessons for free, with more available for purchase.
Mad Libs Free We have always loved the book version of Mad Libs at our house. It’s pretty much all I used for grammar instruction in K-3 grade. This app is free for the sample version. If you like it, there are paid versions as well.
Learn Spanish Free for the first level — MindSnacks features six exciting games designed to build essential Spanish vocabulary, reading, writing, listening and conversation skills. Make your way through 50 levels of language content, playing games and completing fun challenges as you go.
Spanish in a Month — the free version is a nice intro to the $4 paid app, which is amazing! Begin hearing and understanding native speakers.You will no longer have to think long and hard before understanding what your conversation partner has just said. You will understand him naturally, as it happens to you in your own native language. There are free intro apps for several other languages and full version apps for most of them. If you’re doing a study around the world, this would be a fun way to hear native speakers and learn some vocabulary from several countries. Click on the name of the app for the free version:
Italian in a Month — $3 full app
German in a Month — $2 full app
French in a Month — $4 full app
Korean in a Month — $2 full app
Hebrew in a Month — $4 full app
Russian in a Month — $4 full app
Turkish in a Month — this full app is free.
Swedish in a Month — this full app is free
Dutch in a Month — this full app is free.
Counting Coins & Bills — Counting Bills & Coins lets you practice identifying and solving math problems with money. Count, match, and make change with coins up to quarters and bills up to $20. Practice money skills in five unique activities.
Math Expert (addition and subtraction are Free, all others are $0.99 each and in-app purchases) –From the publisher of Math Essentials — It doesn’t matter whether you are in fourth grade or in college, you need to be able to recall math facts quickly. Math Expert will help you to become a math facts whiz.
Numerosity Play with Numbers— iPad (free) Addition — Subtraction — Multiplication — Division — Skruff, the streetwise dog, is always at hand as a cheeky companion. The player is engaged in a race against the clock to help Skruff learn math by rearranging as well as dragging and dropping numbers into their correct positions. This places students directly in the driving seat and allows them to figure things out on their own, rather than spoon-feeding them information.
Geoboard — The Geoboard is a tool for exploring a variety of mathematical topics introduced in the elementary and middle grades. Learners stretch bands around pegs to form line segments and polygons and make discoveries about perimeter, area, angles, congruence, fractions, and more.
History Maps of the World — A fun and educational collection of high-resolution historical maps.
Stack the States Free in Lite — This fun U.S. geography game will keep kids (and adults) of all ages entertained while learning bits and pieces of the 50 states.
Early Jamestown — An interactive textbook exploration of the early days of the Jamestown settlement and the state of Virginia. Enjoy the rich interactive graphics and the engrossing story of a key moment in the history of the United States. Embedded videos chronicle the beginnings of the Jamestown Settlement, the first permanent English colony in North America.
The Daily Dispatch — Colonial Williamsburg’s Daily Dispatch offers four daily features in one free app. Keep history at your fingertips with Word of the Day, Photo of the Day, Fact of the Day, and Today in the 1770s.
United States Geography Flash Cards — This simple add shows the state name, flag and population on one side and then, on the flip side, where it is on the map, capital city, largest city, and date of statehood.
Dinosaurs: The American Museum of Natural History Collections — This app is so cool. It presents the museum’s collection in mosaic form. Just tap the mosaic to bring up the image, then read all about it. Ben loves this one.
3D Brain — Use your touch screen to rotate and zoom around 29 interactive structures. Discover how each brain region functions, what happens when it is injured, and how it is involved in mental illness. Each detailed structure comes with information on functions, disorders, brain damage, case studies, and links to modern research
Project Noah — Project Noah is the best way to share your wildlife encounters and help document our planet’s biodiversity.
Pocket Penguins — Warning: Cute alert! Pocket Penguins, streaming in real-time from the California Academy of Sciences, provides an intimate view into our live African penguin exhibit. Watch the birds swim, dive, flirt, nest and relax from any one of three live webcams. Listen in as Academy biologists answer questions from visitors during meal time, daily at 10:30am and 3:00pm PST.
PBS Kids Video — Watch videos from your favorite PBS KIDS television series anytime, anywhere (in the USA). “PBS KIDS Video” features more than 1,000 videos from over a dozen top PBS KIDS and PBS KIDS GO! television series, including Curious George, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That, Dinosaur Train, SUPER WHY!, Sesame Street and Wild Kratts.
SparkNotes — Get today’s most popular study guides for literature, Shakespeare, poetry, philosophy, drama and short stories. Access online or download to your device for use offline.
Apps for Kindle Fire
Pocket (formerly Read It Later) — This is one of my very favorite apps for Kindle Fire. It’s like a web DVR. You can save websites and articles you find online to this app, for reading offline. This is particularly handy if you’re going to be somewhere without wifi. Perfect for carschooling!
The Old Schoolhouse Magazine — Now a digital monthly publication, the premier homeschooling magazine, delivered straight to your mobile device.
How to Draw — How to draw is the app exactly for those who like to draw and have fun with it! It’s best for family entertainment as well. It will teach you how to draw 70! different objects, for example, a fox, a lion, a car and a spider-man! From an adult to a child, everybody will find out in the app something interesting for him.
Picasso-Kids Paint Magic! — Introduces you to the world of Magic Paint. If you love glow and shine, you will love our new Magic Paint. Choose from Rainbow paint, Glow paint, and Mystery Magic paint. Your kids will simply love the Magic Paint effects as they create masterpieces. Watch them doodle anything and everything just to see the Magic Paint at work. Then, simply shake the screen to clear.
Let’s Do the Math — Covers basic math — addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Word problems, too!
Mulitplication Genius — (Free or $0.99 for no ads) Help your kids to master 12 Times Table! Practice mode help your kids practice multiplication step by step, they can choose which Time Tables they want to practice.
Power Vocab — Play PowerVocab and build a cutting edge vocabulary. Master challenging words using an adaptive software. Get a lifelong critical skill without spending a lot of money. PowerVocab includes word search, spelling game, several kinds of quizzes and pronunciation help.
Pocket Penguins — Warning: Cute alert! Pocket Penguins, streaming in real-time from the California Academy of Sciences, provides an intimate view into our live African penguin exhibit. Watch the birds swim, dive, flirt, nest and relax from any one of three live webcams. Listen in as Academy biologists answer questions from visitors during meal time, daily at 10:30am and 3:00pm PST.
Periodic Table — With the Periodic Table app, you can learn all about the elements. Access tons of chemical and physical properties for each element. Get help on pronunciation with audio clips. Find elements by browsing the table, searching, or the index. Even test yourself with quizzes.
50 States — 50 States is a great way to learn about each state. Each state chapter features a map, total population, capital, state bird and flower, and the state’s largest city and its population. 50 States has a full map that you can click, making it easy to locate and identify a state. Test yourself with a quiz, search for a specific state, and browse through an alphabetical list.
Geo I Know — Geo I Know – US Edition Free is a multiple-choice geography quiz of the United States for all levels of expertise, from child to brainiac. The game utilizes natural earth maps with seven zoom levels: both beautiful and realistic, but difficult, since you have no other state border context to help determine the correct answer. You can learn accurately the locations of cities and states as they look from space.
Spanish Translator/Dictionary — This handy tool translates between Spanish and English. You just speak an English sentence and hear a Spanish translation or speak a Spanish sentence and hear an English translation. It also includes a dictionary and a word-of-the-day feature.
Korean in a Month full version not available for Kindle Fire, but is available for Android.
American Civil War Gazette — With the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War upon us, this simple app and widget will unfold the news headlines and events of the war in real time, on the anniversary of their occurrence. This app re-creates the experience of what it would have been like to read headlines and news stories unfolding day-by-day, much as the BBC or New York Times widgets do for news today.
U.S. Citizenship Test — Use this free app to help study for the civics test that is part of the process you must go through in order to become a naturalized US Citizen. The app features all of the latest questions updated to reflect the most recent changes in US Government.
This Day in History — This Day in History is a handy app for learning birthdays, deaths, and events for any particular calendar day. Choose from nine different categories.
Presidents of America — Do you know Dwight, Chester, Thomas, or Ulysses? With Presidents of America on your Android device, you soon will. Presidents of America is a complete educational database about each and every president of the United States of America.
Cozi Family Organizer — Manage a centralized family calendar, set reminders so no one misses an appointment, create a shared grocery list and take it with you shop, jot down a special moment, add a photo from your gallery. Everything you need to keep your family organized is in this app!
myHomework — myHomework is a student organizer that can help students at any level manage their coursework, track your classes, homework, tests, assignments, time & block based class schedules, beautiful calendar display. This app can be synced with the web and ios for $2/yr -www.myhomeworkapp.com
Lastly, be sure to check out my HUGE list of FREE classic children’s books for the Kindle.
Seriously, I can homeschool in my car now.