Teaching Technology: The iPad's Best Educational Apps

When I was growing up, my mom bought me an entire set of Encyclopedia Britannica. I thought I'd hit the jackpot.  I could read about anything I wanted to, in any of the 26-volumes, without having to go to the library. What a luxury!

Times have changed. Now, my 5-year-old twins have an Apple iPad. (Dictionary? Do they even know what a dictionary is?)

Though some parents might scoff at using a device at such a young age, I've found that, for my twins, the educational opportunities are endless. They can write and illustrate a story, compose music on a synthesizer, play a quick game of chess, learn any language they want and if they get bored, why not fly somewhere on Google Earth?

It's so fun they don’t even realize they are learning!

I often think of a quote from Chicago-based educator Marva Collins:

"Once children learn how to learn, nothing is going to to narrow their mind. The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea to spark another."

It's the perfect description of how to take the fun interactive experience of the iPad and use it to ignite our kids' love of learning. 

Of course, with about eleventy-trillion apps getting to the good ones can be a bit tricky. I was intimated when I started choosing apps for my kindergartners: I didn’t want it to be a gaming device. My goal was to help them learn to read, do math, and better prepare them for first grade.

We've had our iPad for just under two months, but we've tried and tested a nice collection of amazing educational apps that I'd like to share with you.

(Of course, these are geared to kindergartners but many would work well for all ages.)

Build a Story: Create, design and write your very own storybook.  With dozens of themes and pages to help you get started, children can choose from hundreds of characters to bring any scene to life. You can add as many pages as you like, and then read, print and share the stories, anytime. My daughter especially loves decorating the pages.

Abc Go: This is a great way to help your children identify and use the alphabet in their world. Each letter has a series of pictures that correspond to a thematic video to help the alphabet come alive! We use this in conjunction with letter of the week program at . We always go through each letter and watch the videos. Then we will usually try lots of other letters. So much fun!

Math Girl Number Garden: This amazing app helps kids practice counting, addition and multiplication (geared towards kindergarten - fourth grade).  My son loves it too, and it has helped him to work with multiplication, though he mostly likes buying things for his garden. The awesomeness shows: the app has been nominated for an iEAR award and won a 2010 Creative Child Magazine Award of Excellence.

Mixeroo: A fun way to explore and experience music, each colored fader represents a different sound or instrument. You can adjust each instrument to create a balance, and plug it into an outlet to broadcast a unique song. Very fun!

Math Bingo: I found this for my kids after I noticed them playing a Bingo computer game at school. (Yes, I was their substitute that day, so I did a little peeking...)  It makes them add an equation to place a BINGO tile. I've marked the equations for addition, but it can accommodate subtraction, multiplication and division, so the game grows this your child. And, when you have five-tiles in a row, the app shouts 'Bingo' and my kids smile. Well worth a dollar!

Moozart: This is hysterical and has my kids were squealing with delight! Your children learn to compose their own songs. Both of my kids love this app and often play with it together or on their own.

Read Me Stories: We check this program every day to reap the rewards.  Each day you listen to a story on the app, by the next day there's a new tale.  The stories are all cute, short and very colorful. And the price is right: free! They really should charge for this app, it's great.

Still overwhelmed? The easiest navigational tool is  Momswithapps.com. Every Friday the group tests family-centric and educational apps and sends out a list of the best free ones to snatch up. My kids wait for Friday, because they know I'll be downloading a new app for them.

Still worried about too much computer time? Stay tuned next week, we'll be talking about setting age-appropriate limits on kids' electronics time.