4th Grade APPS

This is purely informative and not interactive.  It does what it says – shows the life cycles of quite a few things (frogs, water, butterflies, photosynthesis, plants…).We would have thought this was definitely... Read more >

Similar to the addictive adult version, 7 Little Words for Kids challenges players to find the correct words for clues the game provides. Each screen presents 7 clues and 16 tiles composed of partial... Read more >

This is a super cool app.  It is merely exposure to a good variety of instruments, but wow, the videos are great.  You can choose an instrument (it is alphabetical so it helps with... Read more >

We had/have high hopes for this app – especially after patiently waiting for it to download (all 1.5GB of it) – because we LOVE Barefoot books (isn’t it lovely when a publisher takes illustration... Read more >

The original Boggle game makes a fantastic word play app! You can even shake the letter pieces just like in the original. Create as many words as you can with the given letters in... Read more >

Get a short new educational movie each day that comes with a quiz on what you just watched.  The BrainPOP app is pretty cool!  It is educational both for knowledge acquisition as well... Read more >

This Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt app is good for ages 4-adult.  It has lots of  information in an encyclopedic form, with lovely images, plus a few basic games (a matching game and a puzzle). ... Read more >

This dinosaur app has lots of  information in an encyclopedic form, with lovely images, plus a few basic games (a matching game and a puzzle).  Nothing reinforces learning, but your reader can certainly gain... Read more >

This Encyclopedia of Rainforests has lots of  information in a more traditional encyclopedic form, and is good for ages 4-adult.  It is made more interesting by the lovely images, plus a few basic... Read more >

This solar system app has lots of  information in an encyclopedic form, with lovely images, plus a few basic games (puzzle, matching game).  Nothing reinforces learning, but your reader can certainly gain new knowledge.... Read more >

This Encyclopedia of Volcanoes app has lots of  information in (wait for it…) encyclopedic form and is good for preschool to adult.  It is made more interesting by the images, plus a few basic... Read more >

Casey’s Contraptions is a great app.  Explore the elements of physics with each mini challenge. Your child will learn about the laws of physics while creating complicated contraptions. You can use a variety of available... Read more >

This is a nice chess app for kids and adults who already know the basics of chess and just want to play.  There is no teaching involved (to learn to play download Dinosaur... Read more >

Your kids won’t even know that you consider Cut the Rope educational!  Using elements of physics (gravity and vectors), you move a ball of candy around the screen to collect three stars and then... Read more >

Daisy the Dinosaur by Hopscotch Technologies introduces children to basic computer programming. A challenge mode tutorial shows how to make the dinosaur move, jump, shrink and grow using drag and drop instructions. Without explicitly... Read more >

Dinosaur Chess App is a great way for kids to learn to play chess.  It goes step by step, with lessons introducing the pieces and their roles (sound must be on).  In the Play... Read more >

We love the idea behind the Discovery Art History – Art Collector iPad app. It contains the images of a wealth of fantastic artworks that represent a variety of different periods of art history.... Read more >

Remember making flip books with stick figures? Well DoInk is the high tech version of that. DoInk allows you to create vector animated cartoons. As you would assume from an animation program it does... Read more >

Dragon Box is an excellent app.  The developers have taken advantage of iOS technology to teach algebra concepts in a new, fun and meaningful way that engages children long before they are generally... Read more >

This is a rhythm/percussion app that is good for kids who either know how to loop and sequence on a drum machine, or just want to play around with sounds, tempo and rhythm.  Adults... Read more >

This is a good tool for teachers and classrooms.  Easily create bar, line and pie charts that you can customize, save and e-mail or upload.  There is an “advanced options pack” for $.99 Skills:... Read more >

Era of Dinosaurs is a $.99 encyclopedia for your dinosaur enthusiast (best for ages 7-11). The content is divided into three areas: Periods, Pterosaurs and Dinosaurs. There are no activities but many pictures and... Read more >

Foldify by Pixie is a rare app that combines digital and hands-on experiences. Children can design three-dimensional models such as cars, houses, pyramids, people, geometric shapes, etc. from templates. Each is entirely customizable with art... Read more >

For those of us that felt squeamish doing dissections in school, this is going to take you back! Its safe to say that this $3.99 iPad only Frog Dissection app is about as close as... Read more >

In classrooms, a geoboard is a nifty math manipulative made from wood, evenly spaced nails and rubber bands. The Math Learning Center takes Geoboard virtual in its app for the iPad. Like its real... Read more >

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunt that can be played anywhere in the world. The idea is to find a hidden treasure, a geocache, by locating it with its GPS coordinates. Geocaching is a... Read more >

Guess the Code is like MasterMind that you used to play – except the code is determined randomly.  Use logic to determine the code of colors in the correct sequence, in as few tries... Read more >

A simple Egyptian-themed application for spelling practice. HearNSpell comes with pre-loaded words, and you can also enter your own words at any time (weekly spelling tests anyone?) to personalize it.  It has a... Read more >

This is app is great for traveling and learning about the local sites. Search for Historic Places App for landmarks and historical sites near your location and use the map and/or compass to find... Read more >

While we like the idea behind this iLive app, an abundance of subject-based word problems, we found that it lacks the academic creativity we like to see.  This is just a whole lot of... Read more >

We hope you have heard of Khan Academy, and if not you are in for a treat.  At the forefront of open source education, Khan Academy’s goal is to provide free world-class education to... Read more >

MindSnacks Spanish (like the other MindSnacks language learning apps – French, Italian, German, Chinese, Portuguese, English) is strangely addictive.  The learning activities are good and the combination of cleverness and repetition is super... Read more >

This is a great way for your child to get a taste of the economics of a small business.  You are given certain variables (weather, road construction, convention in town) and need to choose... Read more >

This is a math equivalency game – match the tiles with the same values (6+3) and (8+1)  or (.5) and (8/16) to clear the board.  You can choose from three difficulty levels, and content... Read more >

Parents would never encourage kids to play with matches, right? Well, they might do just that with Matchmatics by Mideast Apps. This clever app presents arithmetic problems written in matchsticks. The challenge is to... Read more >

A fun way to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  Get the answers correct to fill your bingo card.  Choose an avatar and keep track of your high scores.  Beware – your kids... Read more >

Math Evolve is a really nicely designed app that will definitely make your kids happy to practice math.  It does a great job of blending “gaming” with education.  So much so that this should... Read more >

Mindsnacks French is strangely addictive.  The learning activities are good and the repetition is super helpful for learning beginning French.  This strikes us as a pretty clever language learning app.  It is made up... Read more >

Monster Physics is a super fun, well-made app by the creator of Stack the States, Stack the Countries and Presidents vs. Aliens  (all of which we kind of love).  Basically, you... Read more >

A fun and creative app to practice the concepts of decimals, fractions and percentages.  You move your device around to move a bouncing ball left and right to position it accurately according to its... Read more >

The folks at Motion Math have done it again! Hungry fish is a beautifully designed app that encourages mastery of basic addition and subtraction math facts and true number sense through a simple yet... Read more >

Motion Math: Wings is another great app by Motion Math (see Motion Math, Zoom and Hungry Fish).  These guys are really into doing it right  – they focus on developing... Read more >

Imagine an online dollhouse where all the appliances “work.” In My PlayHome by Shimon Young, a finger’s swipe turns on the lights, microwave and stove. Cabinets and drapes open and close, and the toilet... Read more >

Got a sob story, tall story or fish story to tell? My Story is a good choice for the job.  Children can create multi-page books to export to multiple apps such... Read more >

Animal Tracks is another great app for the great outdoors. How many times has your family found a set of animal tracks in the wild and wondered about what animal might have made them? ... Read more >

Just what it says it is – nothing fancy, but a fun resource to have.  Your nature lovers will like all the knowledge that this Tree Guide App brings to their fingertips. Skills: trees,... Read more >

For a math-minded kid, this app could be fun. For others, a bit frustrating. You are given 5 numbers plus the operation symbols (+-x/) and need to use them to make an expression that... Read more >

This app is amazing. It is updated constantly with the latest NASA mission information, videos, images, sighting opportunities based on your time / location, launch information, NASA TV.  It provides a ton of information... Read more >

One of the many things to like about PicCollage by Cardinal Blue Software is its flexibility. It’s a blank slate for the creation of a digital poster. Users can take images with the iPad/iPhone... Read more >

This is made by the folks who made the popular Stack the States, Stack the Countries and Monster Physics apps.  You are asked random U.S. presidential facts (i.e. nicknames, who was... Read more >

An interactive field guide for "citizen scientists." Help and get help IDing plants and animals.

Give your child’s creativity a boost. This amazingly simple app allows children (and adults) to produce their own live-action puppet shows and enhance them with an audio soundtrack. Sound complicated? Not at all. It’s... Read more >

Rat Dissection is a great app ($3.99 iPad only) although it does not have as many research activities as its cousin Frog Dissection. The user is shown a rat that is... Read more >

Robo Math is a fun $.99 basic math practice app with a cute robot character and great sound effects. This app provides practice with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in the form of simple... Read more >

The Rocket Math app is lots of fun.  Your kids will likely be eager to do the math just to be able to earn money to buy rocket boosters and accessories.  You decide... Read more >

It’s Scrabble! Plus a built-in dictionary and options to see the best word to play. Don’t be intimidated and assume your younger kids won’t like it.  It has been popular as a board game... Read more >

This is a great $.99 universal app for your budding engineer (4th grade-Middle School)! Got a kid who loves to build? Let him or her try their hand at building complicated structures that have... Read more >

Slice It! is a fantastic geometry and spatial reasoning app that helps children understand fractions. You are given a shape and a limited  number of lines with which you must create a specific number... Read more >

Stack the Countries app is a fun way to practice country capitals and learn facts about countries, including location, borders, flags, size, language and capitals. In the first level (which can take a while... Read more >

We love this app!  Stack the States is a great way to practice state capitals and learn state facts, including abbreviations and adjacent states. Besides answering correctly, you need to use spatial sense... Read more >

The beautiful Star Walk app is what every app maker should aspire to.  Of course space inherently provides gorgeous images, wonder and endless quests for knowledge, but it is the rare app that... Read more >

This is a great app for parents who are looking for an app with redeeming value that your kids will really want to play.  This is a game, but the game is to... Read more >

Symmetry Shuffle is a good iPad only app that helps children explore spatial reasoning and geometry in a creative way. This app is intricate enough to keep kids learning and entertained for a long time. It... Read more >

Tangrams on a screen!  Arrange the geometric shapes to match the given perimeter.  The TanZen app can be quite hard.   It is great for geometry and spatial relationships. Skills:  geometry, visual/spacial, shapesRead more >

Although Richard Dawkin’s The Magic of Reality app is really more of a book, it has enough super interesting and interactive components that we had to review it.  Dawkins is dogmatic about science and... Read more >

A good multiplication app to help kids gain mastery of their times tables up to 12×12.  There is the grid, flash cards, counting and skip-counting, and list flash cards and worksheets to facilitate... Read more >

Toontastic is a powerful literary tool that supports young learners’ creative thinking. Children create mini cartoon movies by choosing characters, determining a setting, developing a plot and then recording dialogue. A story arc supports... Read more >

Touch Physics is stimulating and challenging. The premise is simple – all you have to do is get a small wheel to touch a specified target – but the learning is good. Using your... Read more >

This is a great simple app for learning the natural notes in the treble clef, and their corresponding keys on the piano.  There are three levels, the first identifies the name of the note... Read more >

This Bass Clef app is the companion to Treble Clef Kids – a great simple app for learning the natural notes in the bass clef, and their corresponding keys on the piano.  There... Read more >

Wooords, a $1.99 universal app for 3rd grade – adults is super fun, addictive and great for practicing spelling and word play. Create as many words as you can with a set of refrigerator... Read more >

Using the WordPress app, children can create their own personal blogs and share them with friends, family, teachers and classmates. Kids can express themselves while mastering important technology skills. In the classroom, blogs can... Read more >

Good bye bulky old atlas that weighs a ton, cost a fortune and sits and collects dust when not in use, hello Atlas for iOS! All the information of a traditional atlas on your... Read more >

Just like Boggle of yesteryear – a fun word game.  Find and trace as many words as you can before the time runs out. For kids and adults. Skills:  language, visual/spacial
Cost:... Read more >