Sunday, April 10, 2011

Cool Apps

The fact that I own a MacBook Pro, an iPhone AND an iPad might lead you to believe I'm in the know for technology.

That would be a big fat lie and I'm here to admit I'm a poser when it comes to this technology stuff.
I can  look busy on my laptop/iPad/iPhone if I want to.  I can  walk and text.  I rock.

Let's get real, friends.  Who am I kidding?  Probably no one but myself.  The majority of time if I'm not texting my friends with the obligatory OMG, LOL and IMO, my kids have my phone.

So let's talk iPhone apps.

I found two pretty good ones the other day (they are even educational!) and I wanted to share them with you.

The first is called Stack the States.



My second grader plays this with help from her older sister or me.  My sixth grader can play it by herself and they really enjoy it.  The idea is to answer multiple choice questions about the states.


Each question answered correctly is "stacked" on the ledge.  After a certain number of states are stacked, you earn a state on the map.  The goal is to earn all 50 states.  And the questions aren't just border state questions.  Some are about capital cities, landmarks, or just large cities in the state.  In addition, your child is learning the shape of each state.  My girls played this together for about 20 minutes this afternoon and earned 17 states on the map.  The cool thing is that a question came up that my second grader had missed  before and this time she got it right.  She was proud of herself for remembering the answer and I was proud of myself for finding a game that was teaching her something! Score one for mom!

The other App is called Word Wagon.  


This app is for preschoolers/beginning readers.  My preschooler plays this game with a little help from mom.


The idea is that the little mouse guy with the glasses walks along a road and objects show up in front of him.  Your child can either make the mouse jump over the object OR you can tap the object and try to spell its name.  Notice in the example that the letters are already in the spaces correctly.  The point of this level is matching, hand-eye coordination and understanding the sounds the letters make to form the word.  This is level 1.  If you go to level 3 or 4 the words are a bit longer and the letters no longer appear in the spaces above the object.  My little guy likes the characters in this app and will play this with me for  at least 15 minutes.  Again, score one for mom!

My next task is to search out some interesting apps formatted for the iPad.  


(cell phone buzzing...)
 OMG, I have to go chat with my BFF about some crazy thing I saw on Real Housewives of Miami, LOL!!  TTFN!

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