10 Fantastic Free Android Apps for Kids

Last January I did a post on iOS Educational Apps, but now that I've crossed over the dark side - er, gone Android, I thought I would do another list. Besides that, a lot changes in a year in regards to apps.

These are our favourites and they are all free!

	Kids Video Player For Youtube
	This is a video player, with child lock,  made for kids and toddlers to watch vidoes on YouTube on your android devices. This app allows you to search video from YouTube using safety mode so inappropriate videos are not returned in search results. You can create a playlist of Kids YouTube videos in the app so that kids can only watch your approved videos on YouTube. UPDATE: Ya, not so good. The child lock you have to insinstall fornit to work is so jot worth the grief and pain it causes me! Scratch this app off the list.
	BrainPop Jr Movie of the Week
	The free BrainPOP Jr. Movie of the Week app delivers a different animated movie every week - plus related quizzes and educational activities. If you’ve already got a BrainPOP Jr. username and password, you can log in and access all BrainPOP Jr. content directly from the app at no additional cost.  Ideal for kids in Kindergarten through grade 3, the BrainPOP Jr. Movie of the Week app spans topics across Science, Social Studies, Reading, Writing, Math, Health, Arts, and Technology.
	AIO Audio Player
	This sweet app lets you listen to free episodes and podcasts from Focus on the Family's "Adventures in Odyssey" Radio Drama. It's very professionally done. You can find out more about Adventures in Odyssey  at http://www.whitsend.org.
	Superbook Bible, Video and Games
	Bring the Bible to life with this videos from the Emmy Nominated animated series, Superbook. There's also games and trivia. There are videos and interactive content embedded in the Bible, and profiles on people, places and artifacts found in the Bible.
	Bible for Kids
	New from You Version is this dandy Bible app for little ones. Interactive adventures and beautiful animations allow kids to explore the big stories of the Bible. It's easy to navigate and the fun facts and interactive animations keep kids engaged and help them remember what they learn.
	Duolingo
	The most fun way to learn Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, or English. Do quizzes, play games and earn shiny rewards for answering correctly.
	Madagascar Math Ops Free
	The Zoosters, Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria, are in trouble, and it’s up to the Penguins to save the day! Skipper, Kowalski, Private, and Rico need your help as they embark on a wild mathematical covert operation to free their friends from the enemy agents!  The Penguins will use soda pop powered jetpacks in an aerial assault, in order to bust the Madagascar Zoosters out of their cages!
	10monkeys Multiplication
	This is a great app for practicing multiplication. You need to free the trapped monkeys using your multiplication skills, while mastering the multiplication tables from 2 - 10.
	LEGO® App4+
	For kids age 4-7 or just a playful spirit. Build your own truck (helicopter blades or legs for wheels optional), bring your cargo to its right destination, and collect coins to earn more parts.
	Stickman Soccer
	Fast paced action, smooth animations and simple controls make this soccer game a winner. Choose your favorite national soccer team from more than 32 different skilled teams and lead them to victory.

Experimenting with Invisible Ink

The kids and I tested 3 kinds of invisible ink today. Two of them were abysmal failures and one worked pretty well. In any case it was fun. Which of the above three ingredients do you think was the winner?

1. LEMON JUICE

Squeeze the juice from a couple lemons into a small bowl. Apply with a toothpick or small paintbrush. Let dry. Use heat to reveal message.

Note to self: use real lemons next time! That might work, but the lemon juice didn't really. It stained the paper right away, and didn't really change colour with heat applied. I'm not too sure how detailed a picture was on these two pages anyways. The lemon juice is very watery so I think it was hard for them to control where it went on the page, even with a small paintbrush.

2.  CORNSTARCH

Cook 2 TBSP cornstarch and 4 TBSP water in a small pot until it makes a gravy. Do not overcook. Let dry. Apply with a toothpick or small paintbrush. Let dry. Use a mixture of 1 part iodine to 10 parts water to reveal message.

It took more water than that before it could be mixed for me and it still wasn't 'gravy', and the results weren't stellar. Our iodine mixture may have been to blame but since it didn't work at all, I can't say what the problem was. The colour on the pages is just them painting on the iodine after.

Are you ready for the one that DID work now?

TA DA! This one you should try!

3. BAKING SODA

Mix equal parts baking soda and water. Stir vigorously, and apply with a toothpick or small paintbrush. Let dry. Use heat to reveal message.

The baking soda ink was also the most invisible once applied.

Here's an article on how invisible ink works.

A Checklist For BrainPop Jr Topics

Do you know about BrainPop Jr.? It's an awesome resource, especially for homeschoolers, but also for supplementing any child's learning.

We have access through our distance school and love it. There's short video lessons with an activity like a puzzle or game, and a quiz for many topics under science, health, reading & writing, social studies, math and arts & technology. It's for kids in K-3, or there abouts. We've used it quite a bit to supplement our learning, but I was better at remembering when Petunia was younger. I want Ironman to go through the science, health, and maybe a few other topics this year and I wanted to make a list of them to keep track of which ones he's done and his quiz scores. So then I decided to make a list for the whole thing. Might as well!

Click here to download the pdf.

Happy learning!

Our Favourite Educational Apps

   $2.99

Pocket Phonics lets your little one trace the letters of the alphabet with their finger to learn the shape and teaches them to sound out words right off the bat. This really helped Ironman. He played with it the summer before kindergarten and was at a real advantage for learning to read because he learned the letters by their sounds first. Names of letters came afterwards. He could figure out small words because he could sound them out.

It's good for your kids just learning cursive writing too. They can also trace the letters with their fingers but in cursive. Petunia was really frustrated right off with cursive because it looked so difficult and she couldn't form the right shapes right away so I took away the paper for a while and had her trace her letters in this app. We still go back to it if she's getting frustrated with a particular letter. 

Love this app! It stinks that it's not available for Android as well.

   FREE

Meteor Math is more like an arcade game than just straight math. That makes it fun but it doesn't make it any less effective. This app covers addition and subtraction, multiplication and division. And look, it's free! We've had it a few months now and my kids still like it. That's saying something.

I found a very good review of it on GiggleApps.

   FREE

From the BrainPop site: "The BrainPOP Featured Movie (rotating daily) and BrainPOP Jr. Movie of the Week (rotating weekly) apps regularly deliver fresh movies, quizzes, and bonus features right to your handheld device. They cover a breadth of relevant topics including current events, historical figures and milestones, holidays, curricular subjects, and more." A broad range of topics covering Social Studies, Science, Math, Health, Technology and more. 

For more information check out BrainPop Mobile.

And if you're a homeschooler who hasn't yet discovered http://www.brainpop.com and http://www.brainpopjr.com, I wholeheartedly suggest you check them out. Great resources.

     FREE

Smash Your Food will let your kids have fun smashing a burger, a can of coke, a jelly donut and many other food items and learning about how much sugar, oil and salt these have. They will learn about reading a nutrition label and be motivated to make healthier food choices, all while making a big mess that you don't have to clean up! 

To learn more about FoodN'Me and our goal of educating children about healthy eating habits, visit our website at www.foodnme.com or visit us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/smashyourfood.

http://www.foodnme.com

$2.99

Bugs N Buttons has18 beautiful different games and activities. So far I usually stay away from the collections of games. I often don't find them to be as well done as a single game but that's not the case here. Some of the included games are:

• Fling bees at a target flower. 
• Fly a butterfly through butterfly valley (tilt to steer). 
• Play tic-tac-toe with a dragonfly. 
• Sort and pack buttons fresh off the factory conveyer belt. 
• Race roaches across the finish grate/line. 
• Remove and sort bugs infesting the button production. 
• Catch bugs frantically scurrying about. 
• Pick apples while dodging bees. 
• Catch buttons falling off Uncle Bob's button truck. 
• Help bugs find their way through mazes. 
• Finish sequences on the letter train.
• Interactively count bugs. 
• Catch colorful fireflies in a jar.
• and more… 

What they teach:

 
• Counting 
• Fine motor skills (i.e. pinching) 
• Path finding 
• Patterns 
• Sorting 
• Tracking 
• and more... 

Check out the GiggleApps review if you want to know more ...

  $2.99

Artkive is "The clutter-free way to save and enjoy your children's artwork." 

Do you feel guilty throwing away artwork you kids make and want to keep forever . . . just like the other 400 pieces they've made this month? You can get rid of the clutter and save it as pictures for you kids to look through. You can also upload their precious creations to make gifts for grandparents, or send them to grandparents as attachments to an email.

"As featured on THE TODAY SHOW, Artkive is the #1 app to chronologically store, share and print your child's artwork or schoolwork."

I don't put everything in here, but it's easier to throw the bulk of it away if it's recorded and saved in this app, because then, you see, it can be FOUND again. It's not lost forever in the sometimes dark hole of iPhoto.

http://www.artkiveapp.com

And an app that we love just because it's fun ...

     .99

Where's My Water is a physics based puzzle game with bright, colourful graphics and a funny storyline.

SWAMPY’S STORY 
Swampy the Alligator lives in the sewers under the city. He is a little different from the other alligators — he’s curious, friendly, and loves taking a nice long shower after a hard day at work. The other alligators have damaged his plumbing and disrupted the water flow. Help Swampy by guiding water to his shower! In Swampy’s Story, play ten themed chapters over 200 levels. Collect Swampy’s ducks and shower items to unlock new puzzles and bonus levels. 

One more app we use daily is Chore Cards, and I'll have a post on that coming soon!

GETTING APPS FOR FREE

I know not all of these apps are free but I only paid for one. The rest have come up free at some point or other. I use the AppShopper app to watch for apps I want to go down in price. I add them to my wishlist and am notified if they change price. Unfortunately it appears to have been removed from the App Store so it's only available through the website.

If you want to find free kid friendly, usually educational apps you should like 1+1+1=1 on Facebook. She often finds and shares free apps. She also shares all kinds of other homeschool related freebies, links and posts.

What are your favourite kids apps?