Wonders of Water: Opening Ceremony

Summer Camp is for parents and kids to work together, exploring the world around you with activities that will take you outside, inside, and as far as your imagination will go!

This week’s theme is Wonders of Water; download the weekly planner.

Download the weekly planner for Wonders of Water.

Remember there is not one right way to conduct camp. Complete as much or as little as you can. We hope your family engages in many of the learning experiences we have laid out for the week, but the key is to do things together!

Be sure to post your accomplishments online by using the hashtags #KinderTownSummerCamp and #WondersofWater. We’d love to know what you are up to! Check back on the blog each weekday to see what others have done, app connections and additional activities.

Thanks for participating in KinderTown Summer Camp!

Summer Learning Apps for Your Preschooler

Check out these great apps to keep your preschooler’s skills alive this summer.

Summer Learning Apps

Writing Wizard

Use this app with children who have been introduced to their letters this school year. It will solidify their knowledge of letter names and formations. Writing Wizard offers 5 different fonts to choose from. Choose the one your child is most familiar with. Next, the app has 5 different areas for learning and engaging with writing. The first area involves tracing familiar shapes such as circles, crescents, and crosses. This area is a great place to start for children who are just beginning to write and use a pencil or crayon, usually around the age of 3. The areas include upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and a “My Words” section. All of the different learning areas have many different options for parents to customize the experience for their children, including changing the size, difficulty, and whether to show or hide the model. There is even a setting for left-handed writers.

Children love the different types of markers used to trace the letters such as rainbow, tiger, and bugs! After the letter is correctly formed, children love playing with the pictures that fly off the letters before the next letter appears. This feature keeps children engaged and offers a change to “play” while learning. KinderTown especially likes the “My Words” section for children as they advance their writing skills. Parents, customize the words in this section to include your child’s name, their favorite food, their siblings’ names, and other important beginning words your child is motivated to practice over and over. Another wonderful feature within the app is the ability to print off practice sheets for your child. A great way to make the connection between the app and paper and pencil. The app is $4.99 and appropriate for children ages 3-6. An app that will grow with your early learner!

TeachMe Toddler

TeachMe Toddler is a mixed-practice review app that presents questions in a multiple choice format. The app reviews concepts such as shapes, letters, letter sounds, colors, and vowel sounds. The app has a nice progress reporting area where you can check how your child is progressing through the skills. For every 4 questions answered correctly, the child earns a sticker. This feature excites children and motivates them to continue answering the questions. KinderTown likes how if children choose the wrong answer, the little mouse tells them why the answer is incorrect. Children must continue until they select the correct answer and do not earn a checkmark towards a sticker when they incorrectly answer the question. In addition the app allows for multiple children to have an account so it can be used in preschools or for multiple children in one home. TeachMe Toddler is $0.99 and appropriate for children ages 3-4.

Kindergarten Bingo

Kindergarten Bingo practices three different skills: shapes, letters, and numbers, through an interactive Bingo board. The app allows for up to 5 players to play the game together. Children must listen closely to the narration, as it tells what to identify in the app, like a “green crescent,” or the letter “M.” This is a great way to help your child prepare for following directions, and improve their listening skills. Parents, visit the settings to change the default letters from capital to lowercase, and choose how high you would like your child to practice their numbers (up to 100). Also, parents, you can choose to practice the letter names or the letter sounds. Both are valuable skills for children. The app also has a nice practice area with flashcards that need to be used with an adult because the app does not provide feedback for the child. The app does say the correct answer aloud when tapped, but a parent will need to help their child correctly identify what is pictured on the flashcard.

Learning Wand

Craft stick or Paper Towel tube

Markers/Crayons

Construction Paper

Construct a special wand. Decorate the paper towel tube or craft stick. Make a special star for the top. Let your child lead in how they would like to decorate their special learning wand.

Tell your child that they are going to use their special wand to find letters around your home. Ask your child “Can you find a letter in the kitchen?” Children should use their special wand to search for a letter. If they can’t identify all the letters, don’t worry. Tell your child the correct letter name once they have found a letter. If they need assistance, give them clues. After finding a few letters in the kitchen, switch to another area of your home. By doing this you are raising your child’s print awareness. They are discovering where letters exist within their environment. For older students, you could ask the question “Can you find a word in the kitchen?” You can also repeat with numbers. “Can you find a number in your bedroom?” Use your special learning wand throughout the summer to continue to identify letters, words and numbers in their environment.

Turn your Plastic Easter Eggs into Hands-on Learning

Easter baskets, Easter candy, and a few new spring trinkets entertain my children this week. Easter grass and plastic Easter eggs are scattered over my house as the kids enjoy the aftermath of a busy weekend with family and friends, and several Easter egg hunts over the past few weeks. But, before you throw the plastic Easter eggs away, turn them into a learning activity. If your kids are like my kids, then they seem to never grow tired of the hiding and finding of the eggs.

Upper Case and Lower Case Matching

My daughter attends a local preschool and has begun to identify many letters. At her recent parent conference, her teacher shared her progress and suggested we work on matching all of the upper case and lowercase letters. To create the game, I write with sharpie upper and lowercase letters on either side of the Easter egg. Then hide them around the house. I’ll be sure to include a few I know she knows for review and building confidence as well as a few she isn’t sure of yet. The easiest upper case and lower case letters to match are those that look visually similar such as Uu, Ww and Cc. Letters that are not as visually similar are more difficult to learn and recognize as the upper and lower case version, such as Ff, Gg or Nn.

This game will be perfect for her, and I’ll follow it up with a writing activity, and time on her favorite phonics app, abcPocketPhonics. I’ll space the activities out and repeat them over the next week or two. This is a great learning combination for anyone still learning the upper- and lowercase letters. I’m tapping into multiple senses and experiences to solidify her learning.

PocketPhonics (Basic Edition)

PocketPhonics brings three important language skills together into one app. In PocketPhonics (Basic Edition), children learn to recognize letters, hear letter sounds, form letters by tracing, and use the letter sounds to build words. Encourage your child to repeat the sounds made by each letter. Parents are able to create multiple users, have control over the font, letter types, what letters their child can work on, and how flawless the writing needs to be. PocketPhonics tracks each user’s answer and will not advance a user unless they first demonstrate mastery of the basics. KinderTown recommends the use of a stylus to help in the transfer of letter formation from the iPad screen to handwriting on paper. There is a Lite version to try to see if this app is a good fit for your child.

Thinking About Purchasing an iPad?

Thinking of purchasing an iPad for Christmas? iPads are becoming increasingly popular with children and parents. What does the iPad have to offer children ages 3-8?

App Selection

Many say that the iPad has the best collection of apps to offer, and here at KinderTown we agree. Want to develop creativity? Work on Math facts? Gain assistance with reading? Learn the letter sounds? The iPad has a vast selection of educational apps available. Download KinderTown onto your device so you’ll always have a handy guide sorted by age group, device, and subject area.

Creativity

The iPad allows creativity to the youngest learners. Apps that include pictures, drawing, creating stories and movie making are available for students as young as 3. Check out Draw and Tell for the youngest iPad user, and Toontastic for older children. Have your child create their own book with easy to use apps. You will be amazed at what they will create. Many iPad apps encourage exploration such as Bobo Explores Light and Monster Physics, which explores the use of gears and pulleys.

Portability

The iPad offers a great portable tool for kids. As our lives become increasingly mobile, so are our kids’ lives. In my house, we use the iPad everywhere. Try a great recipe in the kitchen, take pictures or your favorite toys and family members in the living room, and curl up with a digital book before bed. Time yourself in the bathroom while you brush your teeth. Take pictures of the changing leaves outside. The possibilities are endless. And, of course, take it along in the minivan while you wait to pick a sibling up from soccer practice, or turn any waiting room into a classroom.

Access

Access to wi-fi seems to be everywhere now, potentially putting the world at your child’s fingertips. With the iPad, children can reach across cultures and discover new types of people and places without ever leaving their house. Our lives are all now global in nature with most jobs and work opportunities expecting people to work with people all over the world. Read about a few global apps that your child may enjoy.

Easy to Use

Most appealing to many parents is that the iPad is easy to use. Guidance and troubleshooting are rarely necessary. Most 3 year-olds can pick up the iPad and are ready to use apps designed for their age level. They may even discover how to use the apps more quickly than adults.

While KinderTown recommends children use iPads as a learning device, it is a wise move to have a dinner time conversation about the use of the iPad, the responsibility associated with it, and your personal family values related to media. This is time well spent and may decrease conflict over the use of the device in the future. Ask questions like these: Who does the iPad belong to? Is it a family iPad? When and Where can children use the ipad? What do we do if a pop-up box appears? Where is the iPad stored? How long can kids use the iPad?

Share your experience with us. Does your child want an iPad for Christmas?

Artistic Apps by Avokiddo

I love the artistic quality of the Avokiddo apps so much that I would like to highlight both Avokiddo ABC Ride and Avokiddo Emotions. These apps are so beautifully created that you will wonder whether your child is playing and learning with art or an iPad. (Really it’s both!)

Avokiddo ABC Ride

Avokiddo ABC Ride blends the great artistic qualities of cut-paper art design with learning letters. The characters, Beck and Bo, appear in the park, and your child can begin to play with them as he chooses a bike to ride through the park. Along the way, activities included in the scenery prompt your child to play a learning game that is associated with a letter. Once the activity is completed, students must reconstruct a word that starts with that letter. Another way to navigate the app is to use the ABC icon in the corner to choose a specific letter. In the parent section, choose uppercase or lowercase letters, whether to have the app state the letter name or the phonics sound, and other options, such as music and narration check boxes. Avokiddo ABC Ride combines artistic characters and scenes with a healthy dose of play while your child learns letter names and sounds. Avokiddo ABC Ride costs $2.99, is appropriate for children ages 3-5, and is available on iPhone and iPad.

Avokiddo Emotions

Avokiddo Emotions opens with Avokiddo’s signature artistically created characters. Tap on the zebra, sheep, or giraffe to play with the character. Next, objects fall onto the screen, and your child gets to choose which ones to attach to the character. For example, a big straw hat turns the character into a beach-loving animal. With each object and scene, the characters display emotions associated with the scene and objects. Decide which foods to feed the characters to see how they will react. (Do they like pumpkin, watermelon, or a sandwich?) You can save your picture to your camera roll while playing or pull the lever to have all new objects come into the scene. Through this type of play, young children are learning about emotions, cause and effect, and body language. Avokiddo Emotions is available for $2.99,is appropriate for children ages 3-5, and is available for iPhone and iPad. Enjoy the artistic characters and explore their emotions as you add fun props.

Show What You Know: Cut Paper Art

The app, Beck and Bo is designed in a cut paper style. Grab all your paper scraps around the house and have fun creating a cut paper masterpiece and incorporate letter-sound associations, too.

Supplies:

-scraps of paper or full sized pieces of paper

-glue

-1 larger piece of paper to use as a construction base

-scissors

Have your child begin to cut paper to design a picture. For example, cut out a circular shape for a ship, circles and squares for windows, and long rectangles for the mast. Arrange the cut pieces on the larger piece to create a picture. While creating this with your child, attach the beginning letter or word to objects. For example, write the letters “Sh” on the ship, and “M” on the mast. Talk about the beginning sounds with your child. Provide the letters and sounds if your child is at the beginning stages of learning their letters. If your child knows most of their letter sounds, write the word and ask “What else begins like the word sun?” This activity can be tailored to many different levels. Also, allow your child to experiment and explore with different abstract shapes that may not have a direct letter or word correlation.

We would love to hear from you…. Does your child love one of our apps? Did you try the “Show What You Know” activity? Let us know what you thought at sayhello@kindertown.com.

The Essential Children’s Book about Technology

If you read one children’s book about technology, it should be Dot. The message of Dot. is essential for our children. I saw this children’s book at a book stand a few weeks ago and instantly fell in love with it!

Dot is a young girl with curly-hair who wears a bow, a polka-dot pink dress and carries an iPad. Dot. is a book that is crucial for today’s modern technology-infused family. The message and language speak to the need for balance with technology and all the other key areas of childhood. The author Randi Zuckerberg, whose last name you may recognize from her famous brother, Mark Zuckerberg, talks about the need for childhood essential play such as running outside, building forts and painting pictures. The book begins by showing Dot engaging with technology, such as tablets, mobile phones, and T.V. The author uses relevant language like tweet, text, tap, swipe, and share. The artwork in the book is captivating and shows Dot using technology as kids would engage with it, on the go, on the floor or while lounging around. Once Dot is all worn out from the technology she runs outside to recharge and reboot. The author plays on words and Dot remembers while outside to play tag, tap nature, touch flowers, pretend to surf, and share food. The artwork captures her lively personality and excitement for the world. Dot. has the perfect message for our kids, and it is never too early to start talking about responsibility with technology. The message is accessible enough to read to a three-year-old and still relevant enough for a seven-year-old. Thank you, Randi Zuckerberg, for providing a meaningful, age-appropriate conversation-starter for our kids in the book Dot.

Randi Zuckerburg is the author of Dot., as well as Dot Complicated Untangling our Wired Lives, an adult book about her professional and personal story as well as a guide about how to understand technology and how it influences and informs our lives online and off. You can purchase Dot, the doll, who is the character in the story here. The book is available on Amazon here.

3 Fantastic Language Arts Apps for 4 and 5 year-olds

Do you have a child who is 4 or 5 running around with an iPad or your iPhone? Try these language arts apps.

Language Arts Apps

These apps would be a great way to support their learning at home, or provide additional activities if you are teaching or supporting a Kindergarten program at home. Children at this age are sponges for learning.

Their minds are rapidly developing understanding around letters and sounds, words, visual patterns, and language. Here are some great KinderTown selected apps for 4 or 5 year olds you can download from the KinderTown app to support their learning. Download the KinderTown app and explore these language arts apps, located in the Language category.

Reading Raven

Reading Raven is a self-paced, phonics-based reading app for emergent readers. “Emergent readers” is just teacher-speak for children who are starting down the path of learning to read. Young children need to spend time in front of letters and words. Repeated exposure to letters and words will help children when they start to blend the sounds together to read on their own. Reading Raven has done a wonderful job of creating a variety of phonics activities that support and motivate children in practicing skills that will help them be strong readers. The app will take your child from just discovering letters through when they are blending letters together to make words. The app also seamlessly connects writing each letter to the phonics activities which helps reinforces letter identification and formation in context. Parents and teachers are given in-app tools for customizing their children’s learning experience. Make sure to read the parent and teacher guide in the app and visit the Reading Raven website for videos and more information. Reading Raven is appropriate for children ages 4-6, and is $2.99 at time of publication.

iWriteWords Handwriting Game

iWriteWords makes writing numbers and letters engaging. Kindergarten is sure to be full of lots of letter and number writing practice, so provide your child with a different way to practice. This is a beautiful and entertaining app that children can use long before they can handle a pencil, which makes this a great purchase. It includes lots of settings, three levels that grow with your child and small fun activities to break up the tracing. Your child will enjoy the unique playback feature to watch how they formed their letters and numbers. Gdiplus, the developer, has done a nice job of updating the app over time. Try using a stylus with your child to develop fine motor skills. iWriteWords is available for $2.99 at time of publication as is appropriate for children ages 3-5. This is a must-have app for learning to write numbers and letters!

Puppet Pals HD

Four and Five year olds love to invent stories, and Puppet Pals HD is an app that will bring out the creative story-teller in your child. One set of characters comes free with the app and additional characters can be purchased through in-app purchases. Check out the in-app purchase, Director’s Pass, for the most beloved feature of adding your own characters. We love the open-ended feature of this app for crafting and sharing stories. While making these stories, your child is developing critical vocabulary and language skills. In addition, children can learn to create a story that has a beginning, middle and end. Use a background from the app or again, add your own. Record yourself retelling and acting out (as you move the puppets around) your favorite parts of your fishing trip, family vacation or just a silly moment that you have on your camera roll. Export or play your new video right from the app. Check out the the website for the Parent and Teacher Guide. Puppet Pals HD is available for free with in-app purchases and is appropriate for children ages 4-8. Happy storytelling!

Show What You Know:

Playdough Letters

Children love playdough and there’s sure to be some around your house. In addition, learning letters and their sounds is a big part of Kindergarten. Take some time to practice this multi-sensory letter experience.

Tools:

Playdough

Stick, rod, pencil or building block for poking

Playdough roller or Kitchen Roller

Roll the playdough in long snakes. You child is sure to love this part! Roll lots and lots of snakes. Then have your child form letters using the pre-made snakes. Recall which ones were difficult or tricky from the apps you have been using with your child. Now, for each letter have your child say the letter name while poking holes in the playdough letter using a stick, rod, or building block. Make the holes follow along the same direction as they would write the letter (typically top to bottom). Alternatively, your child could say the letter sound if they know most of their letter names. See how many letters you can create, poke, and say the sound!

KinderTown Favorites

I’ve spent priceless time with my children and our iPad. My children like to climb in bed and enjoy an app together, or we explore an app on the go on the weekends. I have a few favorite apps from the KinderTown store I’d like to share with you.

Favorite Apps

Bugs and Bubbles

My whole family is in love with this app! The app is centered around a theme of realistic bugs and bubbles. Bugs and Bubbles offers educational puzzles and areas for free-play. Kids tap, swipe, pinch, laugh and learn while popping bubbles and playing with bugs. The learning concepts are presented in playful ways and include counting, patterning, mind play, sorting and much more. You will find familiar games repackaged in easy to play activities that increase in difficulty quickly to keep kids engaged. Stay close by your child as the games progress so that your child does not get frustrated. In addition, be on the watch for Morty, the playful bug in command that allows your child to earn extra stickers and rewards. This app is appropriate for children ages 4-6. Bugs and Bubbles offers 18 games for children for $2.99 which makes it a definite must have for parents.

Toca Kitchen

Toca Kitchen is a wonderful app that your child will enjoy using while you are making dinner, driving in the car or while playing “restaurant” at home. Within the app, jazz music and conversations fill the background while you chop, blend, boil, pan sear and heat up foods for four different characters. My son enjoys the reactions each character makes as you feed them food they like and dislike. Make sure to read the parents page to get tips for using Toca Kitchen and questions to ask while playing with your child. Toca Kitchen is appropriate for children ages four to six and is available for $2.99.

Show What You Know: Sticker Stories

My children enjoy stickers, and I have fond memories of my own sticker collection. Try this activity with your child with any kind of stickers you might have around your house.

Materials:

Stickers

Plain Paper

Markers

Tell your child that for this activity they are to choose a few stickers or select the stickers for your child. Have a conversation about the stickers. Provide lots of ideas about what the stickers could be doing or how the stickers could be part of a bigger picture. Have your child place the stickers on the page and create a scene around the sticker. Have your child tell you their sticker story. Add to the story, or invite another chapter of the story with another sticker. Older children may choose to write a sentence about their sticker story. Collect the stories and retell them with your family. Through this process your child is developing their vocabulary, imagination, and artistic skills.

Download the KinderTown App and these must haves for your family and enjoy them with your child. Share your sticker stories with us and let us know what your must haves are by:

Liking the KinderTown Facebook page.

Following @KinderTownApp on Twitter.

Emailing us at SayHello@KinderTown.com