App Friday: Let’s Fly to Outer Space!

by Moms With Apps on January 26, 2012

I have a single goal this App Friday… I’d like to see “Alien Buddies” top the iTunes charts. Alien Buddies are early learning experts who landed at Moms With Apps from a planet far far away. They are fun and enthusiastic little martians, who want us to learn about matching, puzzles, stickers and dot-to-dots – for FREE this App Friday!  What do you say, can we do it? I’ll have a fun time trying, that’s for sure. 

Featured Apps (Click the image to read the app descriptions in iTunes. App Friday promotional pricing lasts until 8pm US PST Friday, unless extended by the developer.)

Alien Buddies, by Artgig Apps

Alien Buddies, by Artgig Apps, FREE this App Friday. Join the buddies as they take you on an outer space journey of early learning. App includes matching, puzzles, dot-to-dot, and free play with stickers. And don’t forget to check out the buddies on our MWA Banner up top!

Alpo Finds Alma, by Tapisodes

Alpo Finds Alma, by Tapisodes, $.99 this App Friday. This storybook is about a little dog who hurt his leg, and looks all around to find someone who can make it better. Read to me or “by myself” options, along with some interactions on each page.

Bo's Bedtime, by Heppi

Bo’s Bedtime (iPhone version), by Heppi, FREE this App Friday. Help Bo the Giraffe get ready for bed by picking up toys, taking a bath, and getting on pajamas. Each page of the story has an activity for the child to reinforce bedtime routines.

Roxie's a-MAZE-ing Vacation Adventure, by OCG Studios

Roxie’s a-MAZE-ing Vacation Adventure (iPhone version), by OCG Studios, FREE this App Friday. Pick a car, drive it around town, explore the maze, and search for cool surprises. Game Center enabled.

Princesses Learn French, by Early Languages

Princesses Learn French, by Early Languages, Always FREE + IAP for more titles. The storybook that comes with the free download is read in English, but includes keywords in French. There are also games and coloring activities to reinforce language learning in French. Additional storybooks can be purchased in the app for $1.99.

Color Frenzy by Skudio

Color Frenzy, by Skudio, FREE for awhile. Interesting concept. You start the game, colors pop up on the screen, and you hunt around your environment for colors to match the screen, seeking matches, using the iPhone camera. I wasn’t having much luck because it must have been a gray day, but think the concept of hunting around would be a fun one if we could make this more kid-oriented. Game Center enabled, and apparently some ads but I didn’t see them.

MORE NEWS this App Friday

We hope you enjoy this selection of apps. Please take the time to leave a review on the iTunes App Store if any of these make a positive difference in your home or classroom. 

Walking the Dog on Facebook

We’ll be gathering at Alpo the Dog’s Facebook Page at 10:00am Pacific Time / 1:00pm Eastern Time – to share app news and deals. Please stop by to join the fun. If you miss the 10:00am slot, head over Moms With Apps for anytime news.

The Link Exchange

Add links to your favorite apps, blog posts, Facebook pages – or any link that covers family-friendly apps. Please include the app name (or page name) in the Link Title, your email, and a URL. Thanks for participating!

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The Jellybean Tunes App Report: Volume 14

by Moms With Apps on January 24, 2012

Welcome to the 14th installment of the App Report featuring family friendly apps made by the developers belonging to the Moms With Apps network. This week we have apps that focus on a number of classic learning objectives.

Early Learning: TinyGenius helps teach the names of foods, animals and more.  Magic Sorter and Merry Cubes provide puzzles for little fingers.

Literacy: ABC Phonics is back to teach about long vowels.  Fat Cat App and Where Has My Dog Gone support early reading or those that need a little extra help.  This week Oceanhouse Media and Mobad Games provide worthy reading material.

Math: MathLands teaches through puzzle solving.

Special Needs: Learn about cleaning a room with Put it Away.

On a different note, aaSsessMyVS offers a test to see if coloured overlays will improve your reading experience. Stack the Countries is now available to those with Windows Phones.  Alien Buddies, Bo’s Beditime and Feed the Monster have all received updates or new versions.  Finally, Punflay had not one, but two of its amazing apps showcased during Apple’s education event!

Click on the links to find out more about each app and to determine if it is suitable for you.  If you find an app you like, remember to write a review on iTunes.

Garry Froehlich | Jellybean Tunes

Books

Ellison The Elephant Ellison The Elephant by Oceanhouse Media: Little Ellison just wants to sound like everyone else. He tries to make a big trumpet sound like his friends and his sister, but all he gets is a little toot! With encouragement from Mom and provocation from his imaginary friend, Weasel, Ellison discovers his very own voice – a jazzy sound that charms and entertains all within earshot. Ellison’s proud mom reminds us all that it’s ok to be unusual. In fact, “All the greatest elephants in history were unusual – that’s what made them great!” iPhone and iPad Android
The Year of the Dragon in 3D - A Peek 'n Play Story App The Year of the Dragon in 3D – A Peek ‘n Play Story App by Mobad Games: 2012 is the Year of the Dragon! Dominic’s proud parents rule the sea and sky, advise the Emperor, and have high expectations for their son. Meanwhile Dom befriends the boy Bo and the other zodiac animals, who wish to paddle a boat in the village’s annual river race. But when other people and Dom’s parents disapprove, what will Dom do? iPhone and iPad Mac
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street - Dr. Seuss And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street – Dr. Seuss by Oceanhouse Media: Marco walks to school along Mulberry Street keeping his eyes peeled for interesting sites to share with his dad. But today all he sees is a boring old horse and wagon. “That’s nothing to tell of, that won’t do, of course”. . . so Marco envisions much more exciting events, each more elaborate than the last. The horse and wagon turn into a zebra and charioteer, then to an elephant with a sleigh as Marco’s imagination goes on a wild ride down Mulberry Street. iPhone and iPad

Education

ABC Phonics Long Vowel Words Free ABC Phonics Long Vowel Words Free by Abitalk: A fun game for young children to learn and practice phonics by piloting a spaceship and shooting at planets to identify each word. PhonicsTwo is for children ready to learn the long vowel sounds. The words all have long vowel sounds. iPhone and iPad
TinyGenius Premium TinyGenius by Gilberto Fernandez: TinyGenius consists of interactive card sets with topics such as foods, animals and others. The contents of these cards include photos, illustrations, names and sounds in several languages, designed by professionals to maximize children’s learning. iPhone iPhone Lite
Fat Cat App Fat Cat App by Children’s Publishing: Fat Cat App is the first in a series of apps for early reading or remediation of reading in an engaging format. With the purchase of Fat Cat App, parents, teachers, and therapists can download a free teaching manual (supporting research and suggested activities and worksheets). Fat Cat App addresses early reading through phonemic awareness and phonics as well as providing auditory bombardment of sounds for speech students. iPad
Where Has My Dog Gone Where Has My Dog Gone by Children’s Publishing: Where Has My Dog Gone was written by a retired speech-language pathologist. This app can be used by teachers, parents and speech-language pathologists as a supplement to teach the early prepositions and the early developing sound /d/ through interactive play. The children will enjoy learning prepositions by touching a sign to activate the characters to perform actions like telling the dog on the bike to ride “up” or “down” the slide. Through repeated activation of the signs the child will learn the prepositions the same way they learn that a stop sign means the driver should stop. iPad
aaSsessMyVS aaSsessMyVS by aardwearing software limited: The purpose of aaSsessMyVS is to allow you to perform a brief test to see if coloured overlays will help improve your reading experience. If so, the sister app aaLuminate(also available in App Store) will help you. In this case, you should also consider arranging a formal test to determine whether tinted glasses/physical coloured overlays would be beneficial. iPhone
My Book Tree My Book Tree by My Book Tree, LLC: My Book Tree is an interactive app for iPad, iPhone, and iTouch devices that features original stories. Each story is presented in two modes: a “Read” mode in which the story can be read like a traditional book by turning pages (via a swipe action on the screen); and a “Listen” mode with narration. In the “Listen” mode, the words are highlighted as they are read thereby aiding in language development and reading skills. Each story comes with a fun educational game. iPad
Put It Away Put It Away by leehsueh: Cleaning a room is an essential living skill for everyone, but can be particularly difficult for children with special needs. Performing this task on the app exercises category sorting and memory, and can help build confidence in kids with autism or other developmental disabilities to complete the task in real life, which is often a challenge. iPad

Games

Little Frog And Ball Little Frog And Ball by Birds of Paradise: This app introduces our beautiful hand-drawn characters of the Little Ace. It is very simple game for younger children. Complimentary app for Little Ace And Ten Commandments. iPhone and iPad
Magic Sorter Magic Sorter by Igromatic: MAGIC SORTER – Sea Tales – 5 in 1 helps develop important cognitive and fine motor skills by dragging & dropping objects to match the silhouettes. With parental assistance it can also develop language skills, for example, by naming the objects, sea animals, shapes and colors. iPad
Merry Cubes Merry Cubes by Igromatic: Toddlers and kids from 2 to 7 will have fun with this cube matching game. Just swipe the cube and tap to rotate it and reconstruct the whole picture. Watch every matched fruit dancing as a reward and a real fruit disco as a grand prix! iPhone iPad
MathLands MathLands by Mamanijo: Kids are too often faced with math exercises that are mechanical and dull. They learn to solve small tasks without any real understanding of the underlying mathematics. MathLands was designed by game lovers and teachers to remedy this problem. In this app kids will be asked to think deeply but in the context of gameplay and puzzle-solving. iPad

App News

Stack the Countries by Freecloud Design, Inc.: now available for Windows Phone 7
Alien Buddies by Artgig Studio: updated to include a new puzzle game. iPhone and iPad
Bo’s Bedtime by Heppi: now available for iPhone
Punflay is proud to announce that Frog Dissection and Cell Structure were both showcased briefly in the Apple Keynote Presentation on Education.
Feed The Monster by Huminah Huminah Animation: now available for iPad

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The Benefits of Live Networking

January 23, 2012

About once a month, a group of app developers who live nearby meet for coffee. We’ve met at the Appbackr offices, the YogiPlay offices, and various shops around town. We call this entourage “Coffee With Apps”. Through these meetings, we learn about much more than apps. It’s also led to marketing and press opportunities that would [...]

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App Friday: iTunes School

January 19, 2012

After watching the Apple Keynote about how textbooks arrived on the iPad, I was eager to download “Life on Earth” so I could talk to you about learning biology. But I can’t – because it’s still downloading. Then, I wanted to unleash my inner writer, and create a story using iBooks Author. But I couldn’t, because [...]

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The Jellybean Tunes App Report: Volume 13

January 18, 2012

Welcome to the 13th installment of the App Report featuring family friendly apps from the developers that are a part of the Moms With Apps network. This week, we have a focus on literacy and learning. ABC Phonics Rhyming Sorting provides practice with recognizing words that rhyme. Compound Words Montessori helps students combine root words [...]

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Learning to LOVE Reading, by JANES Works Company

January 16, 2012

Our guest post this week is written by Ann Potter of JANES Works Company, who is focused on creating products to instill a love of reading. This post resonates well with the spirit of Moms With Apps. As parents, developers, technologists and educators explore educational materials for kids, I hope we can all agree that [...]

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App Friday: Keep The Bar in Perspective

January 12, 2012

The Numberlys (the latest from ex-Pixar Lessmore fame) are on my mind. Without even downloading it, I can already feel the cinematography oozing. It will receive superb reviews, and universal acclaim. It will be perfect. It will make me notice the audio static on my sound files, the user-interface snafus in my navigation, and the less-than-laser clarity [...]

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The Jellybean Tunes App Report: Volume 12

January 10, 2012

Welcome to the 12th installment of the App Report featuring family friendly apps from Moms With Apps. Help Pointy the hedgehog blend in, run a zoo with Dr. Suess or find the sleeping baby with this week’s books. In Education, play memory matching games, learn the Russian alphabet or keep a mood journal. Learn to [...]

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Legal Considerations for Mobile App Developers

January 8, 2012

Our guest post this week is written by Arina Shulga, who co-founded the apps development company Ingengo LLC together with her husband in 2011 in New York City.  The company started with an idea of creating apps preparing kids for admission to local elementary schools, developing their critical thinking skills and teaching different languages.  Kids [...]

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App Friday: Know Your Settings

January 5, 2012

Did you hear about the toddler who spent $200 on her mom’s iPhone? A toggle on the settings menu could have overruled the spending spree. iPhones and iPads are networked mobile computers, not LeapPads. Making it “kid-friendly” takes some customization. This App Friday, along with introducing some featured apps, we’ll include a refresher on Settings [...]

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