40 Educational iPad Apps for Kids
I have to say that being a digital dad has really become part of the natural relationship between my daughter and I. We can debate the socialization concerns around TV, computers, iPhones and other screens that suck the juice out of our brain another time — for now, I’d like to focus on the glass being half full.
I have come to enjoy the time my daughter and I spend playing together on my iPad. We have curated a terrific library of apps that bring smiles, songs, new words, letters, shapes and colors into her world. I am constantly amazed by how quickly she learns the nuances of a particular app and is able to fly solo within minutes of launching a new one. She’s only two and half years old but can navigate an iPad more effectively than my mother in law!
The long and short of it is — I am convinced that our iPad (and sometimes iPhone) sessions not only provide us with quality time together, but also dramatically contribute to her learning and education.
Below is a list of kid-friendly apps I came across while surfing around which motivated this particular blog post.
Happy Apping!
Read MoreLanguage and Vocabulary
Here you’ll find apps for learning the alphabet, using the dictionary, reviewing grammar rules, and more.
- ABC Animals: Help young children learn the alphabet and phonics with this cute, illustrated app.
- Word Magic: Kids fill in the missing letter to form words, accompanied by bright pictures.
- Clifford’s BE BIG with Words: In this game, kids spell out words so that Clifford and his friends can think of things to paint.
- Dictionary.com – Dictionary and Thesaurus: This easy-to-use app features a search bar, thesaurus, search history and word of the day.
- Free Spanish Tutor: Introduce or help your kids review Spanish with this app that features native speaker audio, puzzles, written tests, flash cards, and a multiple choice quiz.
- Textropolis: Kids have to find and piece together words in order to build up their “textropolis” in this game.
- iWrite Words: Small children learn to write by tracing words with this game.
- Spell and Listen Cards: Kids rearrange letters to form basic words, improving their vocabulary and sight reading.
- TypeFast: If your kids don’t have time to take a typing class, they can use this app to learn how to type faster and more accurately.
- Grammar Up: Help kids learn adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs, infinitives, gerunds, conjunctions, and other grammar basics.
History
These American and world history apps involve your kids in making decisions that determine the success or decline of whole civilizations.
- Manual for the United States of America: Kids can learn about and read the Articles of Confederation, Declaration of Independence, Federalist Papers, biographies of Supreme Court justices, and a lot more.
- Oregon Trail: This classic game is now available on the iPad and helps children of various ages practice problem-solving and decision-making skills as they learn about history and try to survive the great trek West.
- Civilization Revolution: Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution teaches kids about world civilizations, including Japan, Germany, China, Spain, America, and others, as they lead their people to victory.
- On This Day: Help your students learn more about history with this trivia-like game that lists important events each day.
Math and Science
These apps use flash cards, games and interactive displays to teach your kids about math, astronomy and more.
- Math Cards: This grade-as-you-go game teaches subtraction, division, multiplication and addition in a touch-screen game.
- Kids Math Fun – Third Grade: This app is devoted to third grade math skills, including basic arithmetic. Games like Double Dare and Minute Math keep it fun, too.
- The Math Master: Practice math drills and learn math facts on this app, which features a numeric touchpad.
- KidsCalc 7-in-1 Math Fun: This app teaches young children number recognition, and older kids arithmetic. It features a birthday party theme, and includes flash cards, puzzle game, running timer, and more.
- PopMath Basic Math: This level-based math game is supposed to be non-stressful but still effective.
- Pocket Universe: Virtual Sky Astronomy: This app displays the night sky just as you’re seeing it, but with more detail and descriptions of constellations and stars.
- Mathematical Formulas: This app serves as a great reference and review tool that catalogs and explains math formulas for geometry and more.
- The Chemical Touch: View the periodic table and learn about chemical properties with this app.
- Brain Tuner Lite: This free app is a great tool for getting your kids to practice math skills each day.
- Mathemagics – Mental Math Tricks: More advanced students can practice multiplication, square numbers, and more.
Reading
Help your children learn to read and get excited about reading the classics with these apps.
- Learn Sight Words: Help your children learn the expected high-frequency words they need to know by the end of 1st grade with this cute app.
- Newspapers: Encourage your children to read about the rest of the world by linking them to newspapers from different cities.
- Free Books: This app costs $1.99, but you’ll get to read over 23,000 classic books like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and plays by Shakespeare.
- iLibrary+audio: Download whole chapters and then listen to them read aloud with this app. Books include The Call of the Wild, Emma and Treasure Island.
Art and Music
Encourage your children to explore art and music with the help of these apps.
- Preschool Music: Kids can create their own songs and play a virtual piano as they play along with sheep and birds on this app.
- Ultimate Guitar Tabs: Kids can read guitar chords and tabs to learn about music.
- Art: Your kids — ages 12 and up — will learn about important artists like da Vinci, Georgia O’Keefe, Jackson Pollock and more with this searchable app that features quizzes, a slideshow, newsletter, and more.
- Instruments in Reach Basic: Learn the fingerings for instruments like the flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, bassoon, oboe and trombone.
General Education and Life Skills
These general education apps help to improve critical thinking skills through games, matching, puzzles, and more.
- Monster Mix & Match: Kids practice critical thinking and problem solving skills with this game that lets them create monster cartoon characters.
- Preschool Arcade: Preschoolers can learn numbers, the alphabet, and capital and lower case letters while developing critical thinking and matching skills.
- Highlights Hidden Pictures: Highlights Magazine designed this game that includes eight puzzles filled with hidden pictures your kids search for while using clues and hints.
- I SPY Spooky Mansion: This is a great app for helping kids think critically as they solve riddles and puzzles while collecting keys in a spooky old mansion.
- TeachMe: Kindergarten: Review or help younger children get a head start on kindergarten lessons in reading, math and spelling.
- 10,500+ Cool Facts: This app provides an easy way to add random tidbits of knowledge to your kids’ brains. Shake your iPad to get a new cool fact.
- 2010 World Factbook: With this app, your children can learn about different countries, their flags, languages, government, economy, and more.
- Flashcards Deluxe: Customize your own flashcards with this app, which integrates with Quizlet.com, features audio and text, and can hold over 5,000 flash cards.via onlineclasses.org
Converse Domaination
I can’t think of a recent campaign that impressed me more than this one. It’s simply brilliant and a wonderful example of powerful engagement planning. The video says it all.
Read MoreFive Social Media Tenets Every Agency Should Embrace
This season, social is the new black. Fashion victim, fashionista: these are words not easily applied to me. However, I have learned one valuable lesson over the years by observing an industry that’s always on the lookout for the next big thing: if you wait long enough, past trends and patterns will make a comeback.
This is exactly to the case with social media right now. As all things social start to mature, the same evolution that took place in the digital marketing industry only a few years ago is emerging: social is fast becoming less about experimentation, and more about regular production. In fact, production is the key word in many ways, which I’ll come back to a bit later.
In recent months, a noticeable shift has taken place among the clients and prospects we’ve talked with at Big Fuel. They fall roughly into three categories: those still experimenting with social media, those using social media consistently as a tactical add-on to their marketing activities, and those trying to make social a more central, strategic component of their marketing efforts.
As we approach 2011 budget deadlines, more and more marketers are trying to switch gears and move from using social as a tactical add-on to making it a core component in their overall efforts. Small, medium and large companies want to know how they can streamline, automate, budget, and measure social media and social marketing. How can it move from a series of handcrafted singular projects to a more consistent, more repeatable, more predictable undertaking?
We have clear answers to that. The key challenge remains implementation.
Marketing integration may have been the Holy Grail for advertisers over the last 15 years, yet the agency world became increasingly fragmented during that period of time. Many agencies that initially dismissed digital as a peripheral activity are now bent on not making the same mistake again with social.
Agencies rightfully see social as central to the future of marketing and work to develop in this space as fast as they can. Yet each agency, each discipline, looks at social through a very narrow lens that only puts the emphasis on their original core competencies. And, this is what really spells trouble for marketers.
Back to the issue of production, as mentioned earlier: It is tempting to draw parallels between social content production/earned media on one hand, and advertising production/paid media on the other hand. However, the comparison can be misleading in many ways. There are at least five key differences about social that every marketer should bear in mind:
1) Forget one-size-fits-all messages targeting “lowest common denominator” audience. Recognize that fragmentation is here to stay, and embrace it at every step.
2) Frequency and freshness of content matters more than production values. Increase your execution capability and move to rapid-fire, low-cost production cycles.
3) Campaigns have a limited shelf life, but quality content is a valuable and reusable asset. Build your library for the long term and ensure that you will be able to do “re-runs.”
4) Stop thinking (and budgeting around) campaign flights and push marketing. Start thinking about ongoing engagement. Audiences can no longer be turned on and off on demand.
5) In a genuine two-way, real-time conversation, it is hard to separate the production arm from the distribution arm. Your brain is connected to your mouth for a reason.
Larger creative and media agencies have legacy economic models built around scale and size that make it difficult to adapt and operate profitably in a world of exponentially fragmented audiences and touch points. When it comes to social, the question is not whether “they get it,” but whether they can evolve to become as fast and nimble as marketers need them to be. Even web agencies, in spite of their digital DNA, can sometimes struggle with things like video production or labor intensive, low tech conversational engagement.
The long-predicted new marketing paradigm is finally here. Marketers need to start thinking, behaving and organizing themselves as content producers who treat engage consumers as audiences, instead of fully outsourcing this function to external publishers. Content is still king, after all.
It’s official: Social is now well beyond a passing marketing fad. Amid this environment, marketers find it increasingly challenging to differentiate brands, products and messages. The push for a constant flow of newness is becoming a key operational requirement – just like in the fashion industry. One thing is certain: more change is yet to come in social media marketing.
Read MoreChurch and State
My recent adweek article covered the topic of how social media and traditional digital media work hand-in-hand. You can read the article here, or at Adweek.com, enjoy!
Social media has grown into an irreplaceable marketing strategy, but it must work in concert with your corporate Web site
If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world behind China and India. Weighing in at a whopping 500 million users, the social media giant has just surpassed Google in U.S. market share, according to data from Hitwise. To me, the rapid ascent of Facebook begs the question: Do businesses even need to set up brand Web sites anymore?
You’d likely be wrong if you answered “no.” Social media has grown into an irreplaceable marketing strategy, but it must complement and work in concert with with your corporate Web site.
Brands should be taking a “church and state” approach to marketing on the Web. You want your Web site to be simple and to articulate what the brand is all about, so including corporate positioning and traditional Web site strategies is recommended. But manipulating social media is a completely different ballgame. The game’s motto? Stop selling and start engaging.
Many marketers are starting to think of their brand’s Facebook and Twitter pages as “social CRMs,” which is a step in the right direction to shifting from a one-way channel of communication — marketing directly to consumers — to a back-and-forth, conversational relationship with customers, fans, friends and followers.
The crucial, often ignored part is that social networks are not socially enabled customer-relationship management platforms; they are audience-relationship management platforms. This distinction is a crucial part of navigating social media in an effective way.
When it comes to your brand’s Facebook page or Twitter account, the key is engagement. You want your social media pages to be content-centric first and foremost. The content that powers your social media should be engaging on a level that appeals to your core audience. The split between “product stories,” i.e., “show me/sell me” via a corporate Web site, and “people stories,” or “help me/entertain me” via social media and branded content, represents the divide between church and state.
These two coexisting worlds reveal that the corporate Web site can’t die in the face of the social media revolution. Social media is a great catalyst for bridging the divide. In order to do this, you have to define your brand’s social identity.
Building a social identity means representing your brand in an engaging way, regardless of what you sell. To leverage social media as an effective bridge to your product, you must think outside the typical consumer profile and find a unique way to engage your core audience. You must think like a publisher.
Let’s look at an example. Your company sells fertilizer. Your brand’s corporate Web site is pretty straightforward: it includes details about the product, the unique benefits of buying your product, how to use the product and other company-centric details. These details fit perfectly on your Web site, but they do nothing to engage your core audience. Let’s be honest: no one wants to friend or follow a bag of fertilizer.
Your brand should use social media to demonstrate what you offer to the world in terms of value and value exchange. Staying in theme with your product, use your Facebook page to offer tips on general lawn care in order to help the consumer. Or, maybe, you upload the best user-submitted pictures of their gardens in order to entertain the consumer.
In the end, creating and sharing compelling content for social media channels forces us to think of brands as publishers. You have to grab the attention of your consumers before you can try to sell to them. Creating a
social identity and associating it with your brand bridges the separation of church and state. Now that you have the audience’s attention, feel free to sell.
Six Ways Brands Should Think of Social Media as a Party
I’ve been using this analogy for some time now and it seems to resonate with everyone who hears it. If you are a brand looking to connect with consumers through Social Media, think of Social Media as one giant party. Here’s why:
1) Social Media is one giant party.
Let’s set the stage.
Imagine the social web as one huge cocktail party. In one corner of the room, a group of moms are talking about education and parenting issues. In another corner of the room, a group of recent college grads laugh over Will Ferrell’s latest movie. Everywhere you turn, different groups of people are enjoying themselves, sharing stories, discussing current events, pop culture, trends, etc. All the groups are mingling, making new “friends,” and the most influential people in the room have the most “followers” hanging on their every word.
Sound familiar?
Social Media is a true reflection of society today–and what better representation of social behavior, fragmentation, hierarchy and influence than a giant party?
2) Lead with “people stories,” not “product stories.”
Marketing has taught us to always lead with our “product story”: distilling our message down to a “unique selling proposition” and driving it home with features and benefits. As a brand marketer, your first priority has always been to show or sell your product. And it works well–if you only have 30 seconds to sell your product through a message that’s blasted out into the world. However, if you walk into that party and the first thing you do is try to sell your product, nobody will talk to you and you certainly won’t get invited back.
You walk into the party and head for the group of moms in the corner. If you interrupt their conversation to talk about your “new and improved hydrating face cream” or your “ultra-absorbent paper towels,” chances are you will alienate the group or simply be laughed out of the room.
To become the life of the party you can’t lead with product stories; you need to lead with people stories. If you want that group of moms or those recent grads to listen to you, you need to enter the conversation on their terms. You have to start a dialogue with something that is important to them, not what’s important to you. Only then will you have earned the right to talk about yourself. People need to like you first, then they’ll ask what you do for a living.
This means it’s critical to have the right “opening line”–a way to enter the conversation that starts with the consumer’s agenda but can seamlessly migrate to your agenda.
3) Use content to make connections.
The right story, joke or anecdote at a party goes a long way, and social media is no different. If those moms are talking about parenting issues, turn them onto a parenting expert who can help with their problems. If those grads are laughing over Will Ferrell’s latest movie, give them something similar to laugh about or recommend another movie for them to see.
The right content will allow you to make instant connections. And that means you need to think of your fellow party goers as audiences rather than consumers. Like a publisher, you need to help or entertain first; showing or selling comes later.
4) Embrace fragmentation.
Just like a party, social media is made up of many groups. People with different interests, different likes and different dislikes. This means that you can’t use the same opening line with moms that you used with those college grads.
Every audience is unique and you should speak directly to each group. This means you may need a few different “opening lines” if you are going after different audiences. In the same way you would “work the room” at a party, the way to get scale in social media is to break your audience into segments. As you walk around having conversations with different groups of people, you naturally adjust your talking points based on who you are speaking with. At the end of the night you will have met everyone at the party; if you are interesting, relevant and sociable, people will remember you and be willing to learn more about you (and your products).
5) Leverage the influencer.
Have you ever walked into a party where you didn’t know anyone? It’s not impossible to meet people, but you certainly have to work hard at it.
Now, what if you walked into the party with the most popular kid in school? You get instant credibility, everyone in the room knows who you are and talking to them becomes that much easier.
Simply put, leveraging the right influencers makes you “cool by association.” You don’t have to work as hard meeting people, you get to talk about yourself more and instead of trying to figure how to start a conversation with people, they will come talk to you.
sBrands are obsessed with impressions. For them, it’s always been about reach and frequency. Well, when it comes to social media, the name of game is engagement, not impressions.
If you walked into a party and just stood against the back wall, people might “see” you standing there. You may even make eye-contact with a few of those moms you so desperately want to talk to–but what good will that do?
You could go to 1,000 parties and stand against the wall at each one of them. Eventually people may recognize you–but they won’t know anything about you and there’s still no basis for them to have a relationship with you.
The Social Media Party is not about making eye-contact (impressions); it’s about shaking hands (engagements). It’s about meeting people, talking to them, sharing with them–it’s about engaging with them and participating in the conversation.
Final Thought
The party analogy is a whimsical way of saying that brands can’t treat Social Media the same way they treat other mediums. For the first time in history, brands are trying to navigate a two-way channel of communication. This means they can’t talk at consumers. Instead, they need to engage with audiences. Social media requires a value exchange between the consumer and the brand.
So when it comes to developing successful social media campaigns and programs:
1) Pretend like you’re getting dressed up for a giant party.
2) Lead with people stories, not your product stories.
3) Use content to make connections.
4) Try to align yourself with the “in crowd” so people will want to talk to you.
5) Don’t just make eye-content, shake hands with the people you want to meet.
82,000,000 Moms in the US… Does your brand have Mom-Entum?
I’m thrilled to announce the release of a major research study conducted by Big Fuel called Mom-entum. This 50-page report sets the new ground rules for establishing brand relationships with America’s 82 million moms.
“Mom-entum” is Comprehensive Look at How America’s 82 Million Moms Are Reinventing Marketing in the Digital Age; New Rules that Advertisers Must Live By.
Big Fuel’s Study Reveals Secrets To Influencing Moms Through Social Media
“Mom-entum” is Comprehensive Look at How America’s 82 Million Moms Are Reinventing Marketing in the Digital Age; Rules that Advertisers Must Live By
She spends two hours a day connecting with friends, family and acquaintances online. She’s almost never caught outside the house without her cell phone. She watches over 90 minutes of YouTube videos every month. And she never, ever wants to be preached to by advertisers.
“Mom-entum”, a pioneering report by social media and branded content agency Big Fuel, sets the new ground rules for establishing brand relationships with America’s 82 million moms. As a group, this immense and potent demographic is redefining marketing in the 21st century. To impact this new generation of moms, companies must understand how to use social media effectively.
The Connected Mom is a force no one in American commerce has experienced before. The established rules of engagement no longer apply. As we state in ‘Mom-entum’, the hard part is balancing content with brand messaging and finding the right tone and authenticity. Make no mistake about it—the old model of ‘push marketing’ is over forever. Brands must engage moms through honest, respectful conversation.
Does Your Brand Have Mom-entum?
Consider these facts about The Connected Mom from the “Mom-entum” report:
* 35 million U.S. moms are actively engaged online;
* 86% of all U.S. women have a social media profile;
* 52% of moms read blogs regularly—and 15% own and maintain their own blog;
* 75% go online to research products and services before purchasing;
* The top three sources moms use for product research and purchase advice are mom-focused websites, user reviews on shopping websites, and magazine articles;
* Over 80% of moms look to online videos to see a product in action;
* 85% of moms enjoy casual online games and/or applications regularly.
In the digital age, moms are not only connected but also self-directed and in charge of their opinions. She’s blogging, texting, tweeting and networking. She doesn’t want to be “sold”—instead she wants to reach her own conclusions and to share those conclusions with others. For marketers this is an incredible opportunity, as long as they respect moms’ emotional and pragmatic concerns.
“Mom-entum” is a fact-filled, insightful and powerful guide to this new dynamic. It includes twenty topline things to remember when marketing to moms, along with real-world examples of how companies are engaging moms correctly through social media. It also features The Mom Content Spectrum, an overview for building and telling the kind of stories moms like to hear and share with her social community.
“Mom-entrum” is available as a free download at www.HaveMomentum.com, Big Fuel’s microsite about social media and The Connected Mom.
Read MoreAbout Me
Proud father, devoted husband, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Big Fuel, a full-service marketing and communications company based in New York that takes brands from Content To Commerce.
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