Top 5 wonderful educational iPad apps for kids

Whether you support the use of iPad in schools or not, you can’t ignore the fact they are amazing educational tools after school. With so many educational apps on the App Store, there’s no limit to the learning possibilities at your fingertips. Equipped with the right apps, the iPad can become a treasure trove of learning experiences, disguised as fun games kids are dying to play. So which apps do that best? Read on to take a look at the top 5 educational iPad apps for kids.

1.  TinyHands Sorting
The app comes with four different boards, and you can unlock the remaining 9 boards for a $2.99 in-app purchase. This may seem a bit steep for only 12 boards, but your kids will enjoy each board over and over again. Note that younger kids may need to be told what to do on each board at first, especially on the more complicated ones, but they’ll catch on quickly and start playing by themselves.

Aimed at toddlers ages 2.5 and up, you can safely assume that your 2, 3, and even 4 year olds will enjoy its magic. TinyHands Sorting requires no English skills whatsoever – it’s all about pictures – and is therefore perfect for children who don’t speak English. The goal of the game is to sort all the objects into their correct places. Each screen has a different theme, and requires slightly different skills. The sorting is based of shape, color, size, and other subjects such as seasons, on land/under water, etc.

2.  LetterSchool
An amazing, intuitive game to learn all about letters and numbers: writing, counting, phonics and more.

After choosing a letter or number and seeing how it’s used, kids first get to watch how the letter should be written. In the second step they trace the letter over the existing example, and in the third step they get to write it all by themselves. When all three steps are completed, the child gets a star for that letter. The process includes different amusing effects for each letter, which makes the whole process fun and interesting.

The app comes with three different profiles, so up to three kids can play and keep track of their own achievements. You can also choose between several different fonts.

This free app contains all the features of the full version for a subset of letters and numbers. You’ll find the complete alphabet, the numbers 1-10 and a few more games in the full version.

3.  Native Numbers
Math is an important skill, but it can easily become a hated subject due to misunderstanding of basic concepts. Native Numbers takes children through the simple elements of math, starting with rods and moving on to pictures and numerals. Slowly but surely, kids can understand what these numbers are all about, and that there’s more to numbers than just symbols – they actually stand for something.

Native Numbers takes kids through the basic concepts, followed by how numbers relate to each other, how numbers are ordered, and counting. As with LetterSchool, multiple children can play the game on the same iPad with the ability to track progress and achievements for each child separately.

The free version of Native Numbers comes with the first 5 activities. To get access to all of them, $4.99 will get you the full version. Yes, it’s a bit much, but you’ll end up paying much more for a private tutor if your child has a hard time with math, so it could be worth it.

4.  The Opposites
For $0.99, The Opposites can provide hours of educational fun for children who know how to read bigger words. The goal of the game is to find pairs of opposites and match them, reaching the level’s goal number of pairs. If the screen fills with word balloons, then game over.

The game comes with 10 levels of increasing difficulty, and can be used by children and adults of any age to expand their English vocabulary. It includes a dictionary for every word that appears in the game, so if you don’t know a word, you’re not left with a mystery – you can define it so you know what to do with it next time.

The only downside is that the game sort of revolves around sibling rivalry. The girl and boy each say a word in turn, and it’s clear they’re always angry at each other. This was sort of a downer for me, bu other than that it’s a fun little game, and a great way to learn new words and their opposites.

5.  Doodle Buddy
Doodle Buddy Gold is the most fun you can have with your finger! Finger paint with your favorite colors and drop in playful stamps. Connect with a friend to draw together over the Internet.

Features:

• Funny sounds paired with stamps are a blast!
• Doodle and stamp all over your own pictures
• Scribble inside fun stencils to draw perfect shapes. Get more stencils with Doodle Bucks!
• Text Tool with resizable text and four fonts
• Post your doodles on your Facebook page
• Draw with other users on the same WiFi network
• Text chat back and forth with your drawing buddy
• Send your drawings to friends via email
• Option to buy out ads

Do you have any other best kid’s educational app for iPad recommended? Your share is greatly appreciated below!

Best Easter iPhone and iPad Apps for Kids in 2013

Easter is less than a month away, so it's time to start getting into the holiday spirit. That means you can dye those eggs and have some chocolate bunnies to have fun. And, of course, check out the latest batch of funny Easter-themed apps to keep kids entertained in Easter 2013. If you are an iOS user, you mustn’t miss these dozens of best Easter iOS apps for iPhone and iPad.

1. Color Me Easter Free
Color Me Easter gives you a way to dye Easter eggs (and create all kinds of Easter-themed art) virtually. Let the kids color Easter eggs--without the mess. Designed for younger kids, Color Me Easter comes with an assortment of pictures to color and a one-touch coloring system: tap to choose a color, and then tap to fill in an area with that color.

2. Cuddly as a Bunny - Picture Me
This Easter app allows you take new pictures or add photos from your library and will place your children in adorable baby animal costumes. Dress up as a cuddly bunny, woolly lamb, frisky kitty, dalmation puppy and more! Children will enjoy the playful sounds and interactive objects on every page as they flip through the story and see themselves (and other costumed characters) in each illustration. Also, the app allows you to store your photos in the app and even use multiple photos within a single story. You can share your favorite pages via email or save them to your photo library. Plus, easily print any page using a wireless printer!

3. Egg vs. Chicken
A clever and amusing twist on Plants vs. Zombies, Egg vs. Chicken challenges you to arrange your eggs in like colors and then fling them at relentless hordes of foul, well, fowl. The newly updated Easter Egg Hunt Edition features eggs you can hunt for to unlock extra levels.

4. Easter Fun For Kids

Easter Fun brings education, Easter, and fun games together. Kids will find 6 unique Easter-themed educational games and activities designed for entertaining and learning. Easter Fun includes educational materials that cover topics such as logic, words, counting, art and much more. Best of all, kids will be learning those skills while enjoying lots of fun and music.

5. doodle jump: HOP The Movie
E.B., the Easter Bunny's son, is about to take over the family business. However, before E.B. can become the Easter Bunny himself, he needs to become super-proficient in jumping, and who better to help him sharpen his jumping skills than the best jumper in the entire universe and beyond, Doodle the Doodler! Tilt your iDevice to control E.B. (the Easter Bunny's son) as he hops ever higher, gathering power-ups and, of course, Easter eggs. It's relentlessly fun, just like the original on which it's based.

6. Pat the Bunny


The app is designed especially for toddlers and preschoolers, the app features 14 fully interactive scenes your kids can tap, swipe, and explore. Your kids will giggle with delight as they play hide and seek with Bunny, pop bubbles in the bathtub, make music in the kitchen, catch butterflies in the garden, and much more.

Plus, on devices with front-facing cameras, kids will be amazed to find they can “look in the mirror” and see their smiling reflection. Highly recommend it to all of you.

7. Kung Fu Rabbit
If you think those games above are too easy to play, then you can try this game. With This game, kids will play as a rabbit teacher, and Use agility and combat abilities to save all of your students! Jump from roof to roof, slide gracefully along walls, sneak up on your enemies and rip them to shreds! 70 levels in normal and hard mode (dozen hours of play!) are included. The app also allows you play the game on Apple TV in a 720p resolution, really amazing.

By the way, Wanna enjoy the Easter DVD or Blu-ray movies on your iPad or iPhone? Just Get a 35% off Total Media Converter and easily convert Easter movies to any video format! You may also be interested in this Easter Discount Party of multimedia software.

If you have any other funny Easter apps to recommend, please share them by writing your comments below.

Facebook's iPhone and iPad App Got Faster

If you're an iPhone or iPad owner and a heavy Facebook user, you know the Facebook app on iPhone and iPad has been slow. It can take time to get to a friend's profile, see updates on your newsfeed, see comments and photos. You get used to tapping your fingers.

But today Facebook is changing that. It has released Facebook 5.0 for iOS, which promises to be twice as fast as the previous version. Facebook says it will be faster to launch, faster when scrolling through the newsfeed and opening photos.

"We've rebuilt the app from the ground up, so now the app opens much faster and your news feed and notifications load right when you open Facebook," Facebook Product Manager, Mick Johnson, wrote in a blog on Facebook today. Johnson told ABC News that it took the team nine months to rewrite the entire code to make it feel like a native iOS app.

Facebook has also addressed the photo loading issue directly. Photos, it promises, will pop right up, and you can close them by swiping downward now.

In March, 488 million Facebook users (out of a total of 955 million) accessed the service via mobile apps. But Facebook has taken a lot of criticism surrounding its mobile performance. On the company's first earnings call last month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised improvements to Facebook's mobile apps.

Zuckerberg denied reports of a "Facebook phone." "There are a lot of things you can build in other operating systems as well that aren't really taking, that aren't really like building out a whole phone, which wouldn't make much sense for us to do," he said. Facebook will be integrated into Apple's iOS 6 operating system, which will launch this fall.

The next app to tackle will be the Android app. Johnson wouldn't comment on unreleased products, but did say "you can reasonably expect we could do similar things on Android."

Facebook 5.0 will be available in the Apple App Store starting today.

From: abcnews