Smart Apps For Kids

Mochu Builds Treehouses and exposes young learners to important foreign language sounds.

Mochu Builds Treehouses, by Kadho exposes children to important sounds of languages from around the world including English, French, Spanish and Italian. The sounds are integrated into gameplay background so that children are constantly exposed while playing without frustration. Mini-games that include cutting, drilling and piecing the treehouses together with help from adorably animated animals make this a great free app for exploring the sounds of our global village.

Informational text for kids: Explore 25 inventions with The Great Inventors

 

 

Bottom Line: A good start to an app that has a lot of potential, but needs some more updates to earn a higher star rating. The content is good, if a bit light, but the app lacks interaction. However, for little history lovers and inventors, it might be worth a look.

Good Free Apps of the Day: Five FREE apps from BrainPop offer educational videos for kids

I was working on a list of free BrainPOP apps for our sister site, Smart Apps for Android when I realized we didn't have a similar list on this site. The big boss, Ron, has been a HUGE fan of BrainPOP apps since before I joined the staff. These apps offer top-notch educational videos on a variaty of topics including an app for Spanish and one for French. There are now five different FREE apps available and to make it easier for you, I have included them all in this handy post!

Featured App: Jo in Paris - take a digital walk through the city

As the snow socked us in here in Alabama this week, do you know what we did?  We took a trip to Paris, of course.  And we didn’t even have to leave our warm house.  Off we went with Jo in Paris to explore by taking a digital walk around the city. Our virtual walking tour took us to many of the major monuments and attractions as we learned fun and educational facts.

Then came a digital walk through the museums for an education in the arts. Paintings and sculptures and fashion (oh, my)!  We saw the Mona Lisa and the Andy Warhol exhibit. My daughter decided that a trip to the Louvre is in order. We were even quizzed about our adventure when we were done (to make sure we had been paying attention, of course).

Review — Learn opposites in a fun, interactive way with Cricket Kids: Opposites

 

 

Bottom Line: An interactive app to learn twelve opposite pairs in six different languages. Uses creative interactions, including shaking the device and “waking up” the characters with the microphone. More opposite pairs and more variety in the current pairs would make it a Top Pick, but it’s still a solid app for toddlers and preschoolers to learn opposites.