App Friday: Summer Send-Off!!!

Welcome to App Friday, our weekly link exchange of family-friendly apps. We’ve been hosting App Friday since March 18th, 2010, when I tested the promotion with my own (almost RETRO!) app. Since then we’ve featured free and special pricing for over 64 consecutive weeks from our Moms With Apps developers. Today is our “Summer Send-Off” before I head out for the month of July. We plan to be back in August with a “Back to School Blowout” – so don’t fret, and make sure to enjoy these dog days of summer.

Little Miss Liberty– The iPad book “Little Miss Liberty” tells the story of a personified Statue of Liberty who was born in Paris, grew quickly and eventually found her permanent home in New York, USA. Author-illustrator Chris Robertson has used his talents to create a humorous yet uplifting story about one of the world’s most symbolic monuments.

Timo and the Magical Picture Book is a highly interactive children’s book app with lots of fun, beautiful animations and interactive features, while being very educational at the same time. It is about little Timo who receives a magical book for his birthday from his uncle Nick, and if you shake it, it mixes everything up. The app starts with beautiful animations you can swipe through. As soon as Timo is inside the magical picture book, you can manipulate the pages by shaking your iPad, blowing into its microphone, and touching page elements. When Timo and his family fall out of the magical picture book into the living room you can enjoy the animations again. (age 4+) Their feature post explains in more detail the process behind creating this innovative book.

Chisenbop– I admit, I love math!  When I was 10, my mom signed me up for a class called Chisenbop – I had no idea what it was going to be.  It turned out to be a great and fun way to count!  I’ve been using Chisenbop ever since – over 30 years – it’s very handy and still fun.  I created the Chisenbop iPad app to demonstrate how this counting method works for my daughter’s elementary school.  Spread the word – Chisenbop counting method is cool!  For App Friday, Chisenbop (and my other app, Count Your Peas) will both be set to FREE!

iLearnWith Poko : Seasons and Weather! HD is a Science preschool educational app that lets kids 3 to 7 years old learn a lot about seasons, weather in each season, how to dress, what activities to do depending on the weather, even months and days of the week while having fun!  It contains 3 levels of increasing difficulty. (This app also comes in an iPhone version, which is FREE for this App Friday). iLearnWith the Mighty Jungle: Animals! HD: The Mighty Jungle friends are hiding in the jungle. Your child has to help Babu the Meerkat seek his friends, by matching the clues to the animals they met on their way.  This Life sciences preschool educational app  lets kids 3 to 7 years old learn tons of animal facts while playing the game and having fun!

The Great Snail Race– The first iBook by popular Children’s Author Jane Hague. “The Great Snail Race” is a fun interactive story about Little Tilly Two at Number Town School  and focuses on counting and sequence. This lively children’s book incorporates fun interactive features including sound effects on each page, interactive town map and a counting practice pad featuring all the residents of Number Town. Stories from Number Town represents each number in a fun pictorial way that young children find easy to understand. “The Great Snail Race” focuses on the number two represented by number character Little Tilly Two, in this book the number 2 is cleverly hidden on each illustration for your child to find.

Little Red Riding Hood Puzzle Book is a famous fairy tale about a young girl and a Big Bad Wolf. He approaches Little Red Riding Hood and she naively tells him where she is going. He suggests the girl pick some flowers, which she does. In the meantime, he goes to the grandmother’s house and gains entry by pretending to be the girl. He swallows the grandmother whole, and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandmother.  Cinderella Puzzle Book is the timeless classic story book with 25 pages of manga art illustrations. Options of text highlighting, narration and auto page flipping make it easy and enjoyable for a wide range of children. Parents can also record their own voice for the narration!

PianoBall is an amazingly colorful musical instrument for children that teaches through play. The application allows children to explore the world of sounds, melodies and colors while developing creative, cognitive and motor faculties of your child. PianoBall has children of various ages discovering many aspects of the world of sounds and colors through the use of four feature balls: Color Ball, Tune Ball, Rainbow Ball, Instrument Ball. For example, youngest children will use PianoBall as a rattle, see a magical star shower and learn to identify sounds and names of 4 instruments (xylophone, piano, drum set, saxophone). The Color Ball allows them to paint the keyboard and learn color names.

Talking Anya– Anya is a cute little girl, who likes to sing, dance and play all the time. Talk to her and she will copy you, tickle her and you will make her happy, beware her laughter is contagious 🙂 . PLAY with her, POP the bubbles she blows and make her do the Hula Hoop, tap her nose and she makes a funny face. Please don’t touch her hair, she does not like it. SENSITIVE girl that she is ( which girl isn’t 😉 ), she wants you to play with her all the time, if you don’t play with her, it makes her sad 🙁  You can even change her dresses, she loves to dress up, tap her feet and watch her dance. Record video voice messages and upload to facebook or send via mail.

The Late Night Book is written and designed with babies in mind, but this app will appeal to children of all ages (and adults as well). Before six months of age, your baby may not fully perceive color.  Colorful pictures may appear only as various shades of grey.  However, infants do show a preference for images that are in patterns.  The Late Night Book uses simple, high-contrast, black and white patterned graphics that will catch a baby’s attention. Adults and older children will be able to use the iPad/iPhone-specific graphic animation features on each page.  Try touching, pinching, or flipping the screen to find out what can happen. Children who grow up to be strong readers have early and positive associations with reading, so enjoy the experience! It’s never too early to start reading to your child.

Spark! Spark Your Imagination Story Starters (www.SparkYourImagination.ca) is a collection of 52 scenarios to kick-start the imagination, encourage problem-solving and get kids talking.  They are perfect for car & plane travel, hiking & camping!  Featured in the summer issues of Today’s Parent and Parents Canada, the app and cards are getting accolades for their ability to ‘get families talking again’. For free resources, contests and more join us at http://facebook.com/SparkYourImagination.

Zinglewaga is an iPhone app that allows parents to capture their young kids’ lives with photos, video and our favourite feature, voice recordings. Each month Zinglewaga sends you an electronic multimedia photo album (ebook), one for each kid.  Albums can be viewed in iBooks on the iPad and iPhone and are yours (and your kids) to keep and cherish forever. Catch your kids singing, giggling, or saying “lellow”, “aminal”’, and all the other cute things you’ll wish you’d captured once they’re older and are asking for the car keys.

Life360 gives parents on the go a way to keep their children safe by turning their cell phone into the ultimate safety device, which enables parents to see where their child is located, when they need help and what threats may be around them. It creates a private family “channel” that allows real-time “Check Ins” with the tap of a button from any family member. Facebook and Google have recognized Life360 for its location-based safety system which allows families to stay connected through their phones, even when voice calls can’t get through. App download for iPhone: http://bit.ly/lI1I1m & Android: http://bit.ly/lr65ma.

What’s in it for me this App Friday, June 24th?

Note: These prices are applicable on Friday June 24th until 8pm US Pacific Time. After the promotion is over, apps revert back to regular pricing on the iTunes App Store, unless the developers choose to extend the promotion beyond Friday.

App Friday Link Exchange Our goal at Moms With Apps is to spread the word about family-friendly apps. We also like to know about great deals. Do YOU have some app news to share? If so, please participate in our link exchange and post it down below. Include the app name (& details) in the Link Title, your email, and a URL to the app. Thanks for your participation.

3 Replies to “App Friday: Summer Send-Off!!!”

  1. I love that your top 2 books this week are also available in our library at http://magicblox.com

    Way to go Chris and Rian!

    You can read both of these books along with more than 170 others for only $19.99 per year. New titles added each week.

  2. App Friday is a like a special trip to the ice cream store for my kids – they know they get to download something wonderful and it’s always going to be more than one scoop! Great job with the apps here – loving it …

  3. Hahaha, I remember Chisenbop from the 70’s. I don’t have iPad though. – I get that you need to be able to fit your hand on the screen to play, so I can see why you wouldn’t have it available for iphone/touch.

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