We're big fans of Rush Hour (both the board game and the apps). It's being used in our 1st grade math classes, and the kids love it! (Parents do too!)

Here are some great Math apps - mostly for middle/high school grade levels...

• Graphing Calculator HD - Simple, yet effective graphing calculator for iOS devices
• PocketCAS - Powerful mathematics application including graphing for iOS devices
• iFormulas - Comprehensive mathematical formula reference for iOS devices
• Math Ref Free - Formula reference with examples/tutoriasl for iOS and Android devices
• Math Pro - Formula reference with solver and tutorials for iOS devices

Always interested in hearing about more!

Marc Johnson

Verizon Thinkfinity Community Host

This one isn't an app, but an awesome website that can be used on tablets, desktops, and mobile devices is Piclits. This site is awesome for elementary students to apply and practice sentence construction, word choice, poetry, and for older students to create descriptive sentences and poetry that supports a picture background of their choice from the 1000's in their gallary. The best part of this site is that you can create a FREE account and then share the students authored pictures on website by sharing a link or embedding. There is also comment sections for feedback so there can be collaboration. It is awesome!

Gwynn Moore

Has anyone used Videolicious--a free iOS app for creating videos?  The concept behind Videolicious is similar to that used by services like Animoto.  You can mix together images, video clips, music, and your voice to create a short video using Videolicious on your iPhone or iPad.

For schools using iPads, Videolicious might be a good app for creating and narrating short videos on different subjects.

What do you think of this free app?

Lynne

I know I'm very late to this discussion, but I've got to add Puppet Pals HD (with the director's pass) and Book Creator to this list.  Neither is specifc to a subject area, but both can be used for any subject matter.  They are excellent creation tools and presentation devices. 

Puppet Pals allows users to bring backgrounds (either those that come with the app or photos on the iPad's camera roll) and "puppets" (again, either those that come with the app or those from the camera roll) together to create a "puppet show" that can be recorded, sent to others, saved to the camera roll and transferred to a computer, etc.  I have seen students get very excited about using their "puppets" to present information they've learned to a wider audience.

Book Creator lets your students become eBook (using iBook) authors!  They can add text and images to pages in their book, formatting them to their liking. When a book is finished, it can be sent to iBooks on the iPad, or if it's part of an iPad cart in a school, synced to iTunes and transferred to all the iPads on the cart.  I just had third graders complete books about the continents, and they are all now on all iPads on the cart.  What a great resource for other students to now use those books if they are needing information on the continents.  I've actually used my hand-held scanner to get jpeg images of some pages to put into Book Creator.  It was so much easier than having a student retype the information!  I'm working with a first grade teacher that wants to create iBooks with her students' actual handwritten pages--again, I'll just scan the pages as jpegs and we'll pop them right in to Book Creator!  The developer said voice narration should be added soon, too, so students can then create audiobooks!

This looks like an interesting search engine for apps- saw it in a blog today:  Quixey

Has anyone used Apps for Kids - By Appsfire - Android Market--a free app that helps locate new apps for you or your children to use on Android phones or Android tablets?  You can browse Apps 4 Kids according to age of the child or the purpose of the app.  Apps 4 Kids is a free app, but not all of the apps recommended on this site are free.

What do you think of this site for searching for apps for children?

Lynne

The apps listed below are all free and available in the Apple App Store for downloading.  They are part of Virginia's Learning Without Boundaries--an initiative from the Virginia Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology that incorporates wireless mobile handheld technology into teaching and learning.  Anyone is welcome to use these apps for learning.

Learning Without Boundaries--free educational apps

Aesop's Quest	Apples in Hour Hands	Beyond Textbooks 2010: American History Games
Beyond Textbooks 2010: American History Test Prep	Beyond Textbooks 2010: World History Games	Beyond Textbooks 2010: World History Test Prep
Brain Flash	C2C! (Coast to Coast)	Cell Defender
Computer Carl	Disaster Chasers	Early Jamestown
Egberta's Equations	Energy Footprint	Equation Creator
European Exploration: The Age of Discovery	Factor Race	Fraction Factory
Freddy Fraction	Governomics	Grammar Dragon
History Line	iCatch Squares	Master the Math
Math Stacker	Nation Creation	Number Line
Opposite Ocean	Opposite Ocean Part II	Pass the Past
Portion Platter	Professor Garfield: Cyberbullying	Professor Garfield: Fact or Opinion
Professor Garfield: Forms of Media	Professor Garfield: Online Safety	Same Meaning Magic
Same Meaning Magic Part II	Same Sound Spell Bound	Spelling Cat
Sticker Shop	Student's Friend: Mobile Edition	Westward Expansion
Zeppelin Adventure

What do you think of these apps?  Which ones are you using in your classroom?

Lynne

Thanks for these biology app ideas!  I will have to look further into these, and also how to use the phet simulations on the iPad - I got a little lost trying that one.  I have found a lot of flash cards/definitions and a few good anatomy apps (Skeletal Head & Neck Pro III and 3D Brain), but nothing for cell energetics or ecology and nothing that I would consider to be a "game".  Here are some website "games" that I currently use that I was hoping to find "app" versions of:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/tryit/dna/#

http://www.gould.edu.au/foodwebs/kids_web.htm

http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/2001/index.html

Thanks again for your ideas!

Teachers, have you seen Nearpod, an app designed for creating and delivering lessons on iPads?  It is a free app that teachers can use to create quizzes, polls, and multimedia presentations. If students have Nearpod installed on their iPads, they can respond to the teacher-created materials.  Then teachers can view students' responses individually or as a whole class.  This is a good method for customizing lessons for specific students.

The video below provides an overview of Nearpod.

What do you think about its potential as a classroom tool?

Lynne