Terrific New Apps by Toca Boca and Spelling City

Today is a good day for iDevices!  Two terrific apps were released today and I immediately downloaded them and have spent time playing around with them tonight.

One I've been eagerly awaiting is TocaBand ($1.99).  The wonderful thing I've loved about Toca Boca is that just prior to a release of a new product they make one or some of their other apps free or reduce the price.  I highly recommend 'liking' their Facebook page or following them on Twitter to be kept up to date on new releases, free and reduced apps.

I have downloaded Toca's free apps (Toca Doctor lite and Toca Hair Salon-Christmas) for my  and classroom iPads.

For my personal iDevices the Toca apps are an immediate purchase- my children love them so much!  If I make the 'mistake' of telling my daughter there's a new one coming out she harangues me daily to see if it's ready.  They are reasonably priced (usually $1.99) and provide hours of creative play.  There are few apps I pay for based on their 'brand name'.  Toca Boca apps are one of them!  My 4 year old plays Toca Birthday/Tea Party, Toca Store and Toca Salon the most.

The Toca Band app had my 10 year old son engaged instantly.  My 4 year old daughter beamed when I  opened the app and she saw the new logo change into a drum set.  The great thing about Toca Apps is that children learn real life concepts in a playful way.

My son playing around with the app for the first time...

Demonstrating the "solo" feature


The placement in the band determines and demonstrates tempo and pitch changes.  My daughter says likes switching who goes into the Star spot frequently "if you let her be the star you can play the piano" (or the instrument the character represents).  Her band members talk to each other and argue a bit- "that's my spot' when she plays! 

The second NEW FREE app is the IOS version of one of my all-time favorite webpages for education.
Yes, Spelling City has launched their iDevice app(FREE)!  Most of their website doesn't work on the iPad, (some features do though) so this app should make iTeachers thrilled.

The app allows you to pick from lists loaded by username, teacher name, parent name or school zip code or their sample lists.   It does not (yet? I hope they add it in!) allow you to add words within the app.

My only problem though is that the word list (my own or one that shows up in their window) isn't loading on my iPad.  It loaded fine on my iPhone though, my son typed in his words and scored an 87%.

Teacher tip- have students take a screenshot (press home button and power button briefly) to show you their results/progress on your next walk around or at the end of the learning time.

Alphabet Songs

The internet, with all of it's infinite resources was a lifesaver last year when I had a BUSY class of 24 students and no aide in the morning.  I used Tumblebooks, and learning videos to steal a moment to set up the next activity or clean up the last. As useful as they are to keep the attention of wiggly boys and girls while freeing me up for a moment, I only use videos and sites that 'teach' or reinforce skills in ways that are fun, engaging, and 'worthy' of my students' precious learning time.

I use the terrific learning videos created by Have Fun Teaching frequently in my classroom.  There are currently more than 70 videos uploaded on YouTube by them, with alphabet songs, sight word songs, and more.

There are 27 videos in the alphabet song series- one alphabet song and then a song video for every letter.  I credit the songs with helping my students understand the difference between consonants and vowels, not only from the practice of singing along, but I love the visual in the ABC song, with the consonants separated from the vowels.


With the individual letter songs, the letter is shown among the whole alphabet, the letter sound is sung, words beginning with the letter are displayed and spoken in a sentence, and the students 'write' the letter in the air.  Here's an example...



Besides the great alphabet and letter songs, Have Fun Teaching also has many Sight Word Song Videos on YouTube, as well as other sobjects.  I subscribed to their channel on Youtube so I get notified when they add new songs.

Counting with Dr. Jean and the iPad

My daughter was using our iPod to listen to some songs by Dr. Jean this weekend and while listening to Techno Count to 100 for the fourth time I thought of how in the past I used Dr. Jeans' music a lot in my kindergarten. Since discovering all the amazing song/videos on YouTube that help my students see and hear and say the ABCs or sight words or count I rarely use my kinder music collection anymore. It occurred to me though, that the songs, especially the number songs my daughter listened to over and over could work great on the iPad. They did! Not only do my students play them and sing along during playtime, but when paired with a good app, they enhance learning. So, I played Techno Count to 100 and had kids open up the Counting Board app (currently free on the iPad). They put all the numbers facedown and touched the boxes as the numbers were announced. I was able to monitor and LOVED the way the students counted along, touching the number as they heard the number. I will be curious to see if the kids who STILL don't know how to count to 100, or identify numbers will do after several days of practicing like this? Then I played The Country Countdown 1-20 song by Dr. Jean and did the same thing-Here's a video of one child in action. It was terrific!

We know that the more pathways to learning, the stronger the learning experience is- in this lesson, my students were hearing, saying/singing, seeing and touching numbers. Later in the day, I played Bingo Bango Bongo (I love the song!) and we used the Counting Board app again to practice skip counting. The color patterns in the app are especially helpful for skip counting!