Freebie Friday – winter break edition! Since I am all comfy on my couch, I thought I’d spend some time doing some app reviews this week and will kick things off with some free recommendations because who doesn’t love a free app. There are so many apps out there that I seriously need to ration my iTunes spending because before you know it – you will have a big ole’ bill. Even some of my students know better than too ask for an app that costs money. One even knows how to say “too expensive…” True.that.
These apps are a little all over the place concept wise but all my new fav freebie apps. Enjoy!
Meerkat Math: This is a super cute app where you can ‘race’ against someone and move ahead by correctly answering math facts. Works on addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division.
Marble Math: Works on multiplication and division with combination of a little fine motor skills! You can move the marble to complete math facts or move the iPad to move the marble. This one is super fun!
Motion Math Hungry Fish: Practice adding up numbers in the interactive fish app.
Tailor Fairy Tales: This is a fun one that can be used for receptive language, color identification, and body part identification. My princess obsessed little girl loves this game and why not use something motivating to work on some educational concepts too! We work on following multi step directions with this app. I will tell her to pick out yellow shorts and a red shirt with one long sleeve and one ruffled sleeve and she needs to follow the directions and dress the princess (that may not be the most fashionable outfit…).
Grammaropolis: This game is jam packed with videos, books, quizzes, and games on a variety of grammar concepts! The free version provides access to the noun unit and I purchased the verb packet! I love to use the quizzes as another assessment method.
Feel Electric: This app is interactive to work on emotions. It is age appropriate for older students which I feel like is very rare to find. It include more complex emotions such as bothered and hopeful as opposed to only happy, mad, sad. I really enjoy this one and so do my students!
Booksy: This is a leveled reading library with interactive books that can be read to you or you can have the students read. My guys love books on the iPad. This is the free book included – very simple and straightforward.
Gnight Safari: Another adapted book – the illustrations are really beautiful and you can have it read to your student or they can read it to you. I really like this book. Great to use for comprehension questions.
Tap a Tune: This app is great for your younger students or students working on basic skills. Tap the animals to hear the tune – it’s great to work on cause and effect and get students engaged into working on the iPad. Awesome for building attention.
Nighty! Night!: This is another great basic skills app. I use this for students with lower level fine motor skills on the iPad to practice touching the designated parts of the house and ‘flipping’ the switch to put the animals to bed. This one is adorable!
Crayola Ruckus Reader: Interactive story book – students need to look for specified items on the pages of the book so this perfectly targets visual attention skills! Great skill to work on for students who are nonverbal.
Storybots Staring You: After the unending, tear inducing hilarity of elfyourself.com (where you can put your face on an elf) – I knew we need more opportunities to put our little faces onto cartoon bodies. This app was made for my little goofballs I think and I cannot wait to show it to them when we get back to school. You can insert your face into the story and you are the main character. Too funny!
Kidomatic: Along the same lines. You take a picture and can add funny things to your face. Great for body part identification, receptive language, and following multiple step commands.
Winnie the Pooh Wonder and Wander: This is of course too babyish for my boys … unless they catch me in a weak you-can-have-whatever-you-want moment. But it’s SUPER cute. Little puzzles and story books. Great for some winnie the pooh obsessed little ones 🙂 
So those are my freebies! Check out my post about Great Free Apps for Kids to get more ideas for free apps!
- Using TAH Curriculum for Homeschooling from a Homeschooling Parent - September 10, 2022
- Using The Autism Helper Curriculum for Homeschool - August 8, 2022
- Literacy Subject Overview in The Autism Helper Curriculum - August 2, 2022
I think it is interesting you mentioned doing comprehension questions with one of your book apps. How do you do that? Do you ask oral questions while they are using the ipad?
How do you use the ipad in your classroom? During teacher time, or independently? I have one guy who kept deleting all of my apps – I had to password protect the ipad. He also always gets out of the app I want him to use and is surfing the net if I’m not watching him closely enough – always finding videos on Youtube. Just curious how you used this in your room.
Hi Michelle, I found a great product called Bubcaps. These go over the home button on your ipad and prevent the kids from leaving the apps you want them to use. I had the same problem and even my brightest little ipad genius could not work a way around it.
Yes – I ask oral questions based on the iPad books. Some of my students prefer this as opposed to ‘typical’ books because the iPad is like a game or a special treat – so sometimes it’s more motivating.
I have 2 iPads. I always keep one with me for teacher time (and data) and then other I sometimes use at teacher time but also have that one available for a reinforcer/independent work. I have one very challenging student who works for almost 90 minutes (AHHHHH! took a LONG time to get there) every morning in exchange for some hard earned iPad time. Also when I am working on new/challenging concepts I make sure to have iPad on hand as a more frequent reinforcer.
You tube is not allowed on my school’s network so I don’t have a problem with that. I do have kids that will try to get out of the app I want them on. Since this is ‘work time’ for them I will use behavior management tools – such as the star chart (in my TpT store) and give stars based on correct responding/time in correct app. When they click out of the app I take away a star. Then when they earn all of their stars they can have iPad choice time. A visual may be helpful for you for ipad work time vs. ipad choice time maybe.
Hope this helps! 🙂
Omigosh Kelly that sounds awesome! I will be sure to check that out – thanks for the great idea!
Thanks for including Meerkat Math in your list! Happy that you found it a helpful learning tool for kids. We’ve just updated the game, and the new version now has 8 different mini-games and we’ve tested extensively with teachers to make sure the level is just right for kids… from a target of answering 10 questions per minute, to infinity! Hope you check it out… it’s still at the link in your post.
I will check it out!