Get Your iPad Up and Running With Family-Friendly Apps

Are you considering an iPad purchase for your family? If so, the developers at Moms With Apps are creating content to make the iPad shine.  In this post we highlight apps that have made a big impression with the kids and families of our community. We hope this starting point illustrates how the iPad can be an interactive tool for people of all ages!

• *Montessori Crosswords – Based on the Montessori proven method of learning, a fun game that helps your kids develop their reading/writing skills while enjoying themselves *Will be featured for Free App Friday, September 3rd.
• Draw with Stars – As you move your fingers over the night sky scenery, you create nice *animated* drawings with carefully designed stars that are glowing and spinning continuously.
• ABC by Paul McDougall – Learn the alphabet from A to Z with the help of some charming young creatures and their quirky friends. Profits from the sale of this app will be used to donate copies of the printed book to children’s hospitals and libraries in need.
• iTouchiLearn Words for Preschool Kids – Features a series of animations that teach preschool and toddler kids about the context of words while making them laugh. Also includes three word activity games: Find the Word, Match the Word and an Animal Matching Game. To add a twist to the app, kids can play random activities by touching a colorful pie-chart spinner.
• iCommunicate for iPad –  Create pictures, flashcards, storyboards, routines, and visual schedules. Record custom audio in any language. Testimonial: “You have made a huge difference in my child’s life. He has a way to communicate his needs, which he didn’t have before.” – MCharleton
• Melvin Says There’s Monsters! – Who is Melvin, and what is all the fuss about?  A digital storybook to make you giggle, and remember that one weird kid we all knew in school, but possibly didn’t know as well as you should have…  Melvin features wonderful illustrations, memorable characters, fun, often hilarious narration and your choice of auto-page, swipe or tap navigation.
• ABC Wildlife for iPad – ABC Wildlife is a great app for learning letters and animal names. The app has over 80 animals along with hundreds of pictures, paired with videos and fun facts. Besides carefully curated content, ABC Wildlife offers a creative navigation proposition where you explore the alphabet by jumping seamlessly from animal name to animal name.
• Rain Go Away ABCs –  With Rain Go Away ABCs, toddlers/preschoolers learn their ABCs and parents learn about fun, creative indoor activities – all while a rainstorm turns into a bright sunny day. This enchanting interactive app is filled with hand-painted art, jiggle and tilt animations, and indoor activities parents and children can do together – combining interactive learning with traditional offline playtime.
• NameThatNumber – Fun math game to practice math facts. You are given 4 numbers from 1 to 10 and four basic math operations. Your goal is to use as many of those four numbers as you can to get the random goal number.
• The iLiveMath Series – Each iLiveMath App covers 3 levels of difficulty for K through 7th grade and randomly generates different word problems for children to solve.  Themes are used to introduce counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, percents, distance, rate, time, mean, median, mode, range, volume, and geometry.  iLiveMath Series is from http://www.iHomeEducator.com
• MazeArt for iPad – The mazes kids solve on paper just got a 3D look. MazeArt features 12 different animated characters who need your help to reach their destinations. When you trace your path through the maze, the character will follow you. The reference maze at the top right corner and the tracks left by characters make the navigation easy. The best way to play this game is by holding the device in a horizontal position.
• Smarty Shortz for iPad – Learn, Play, Shine…Challenge your 4-5 year old, review with your 6-7 year old and quiz your 8+ with Smarty Shortz First!  A family, friendly app including 6 subjects (Geography, Science, Math, Reading, History and Spelling) 4 quick lessons followed by four fun reinforcing games!  Your child will love exploring with Smarty Shortz!
• Mobicip Safe Browser for iPad– Worried about the unfiltered Internet that your kids can access on the iPad? The best-selling Safe Browser for the iPad from Mobicip.com is based on a path-breaking dynamic cloud content filtering engine, designed to provide a safe, secure and educational Internet for families and school-age children, anytime anywhere. For customized parental controls configuration and reports, upgrade to the Mobicip Premium service. Your child can safely browse the web on his/her favorite device, and you can rest assured that there are boundaries in place.
• Interactive Alphabet for iPad – Interactive Alphabet for iPad makes learning the alphabet a hand-on experience. The original artwork and characters draw them in, fun animation and sound effects peak their interest, and memorable unique interactions, such as eating the Apple, playing with the Squid, zipping the Zipper, and making music on the Xylophone keep them coming back for more.
• Photo Captions HD – A picture is worth a thousand words. Photo Captions give you the ability to add much more. Don’t save or share standard plain family photos anymore. Decorate them with shapes and image annotations, rich text captions, and frames or make personalized and creative Photo Cards. Add thoughtful text captions. Then email them, publish them on Facebook or store them locally.
• Thumbelina for the iPad–  The classic Andersen fairytale like you’ve never seen it before! This interactive storybook app allows kids to actively participate in the story through various touch interactions. The unique, whimsicle illustrations, the rhyming text (translated into Spanish, French, Japanese and German), and the intuitive user interface make this app a must for every kindergartner, preschooler and children of all ages…
• Serving Sizer Pro for iPad– recipe converter cookbook –  Recipe cards for your iPad! Keep all your recipe cards, handwritten family recipes, and recipe clippings in one place.  Change the serving size at any time and the whole recipe is converted instantly–something your ordinary cookbook can’t do. Great for odd-sized families and holiday dinners.  Convert between Metric and US measures, too.
• Fish School HD – by Duck Duck Moose – Fish School by Duck Duck Moose includes 8 fun educational activities that will engage toddlers and preschoolers.  In this interactive app, colorful schools of fish transform themselves into different letters, numbers, shapes, colors, matching games, and more.  Music recorded especially for this app includes the popular ABC Song and Mozart variations performed by violin and cello.
• Itsy Bitsy Spider HD – by Duck Duck Moose – Winner of the Parents Choice Gold Award, Itsy Bitsy Spider HD by Duck Duck Moose is an interactive musical app, based on the popular children’s song.  The app is like an interactive movie, panning to a different scene each time you poke the spider.  A friendly tutor (a fly!) teaches your child about nature and the environment.
• Dragon Checkers by StoryBoy – Dragon Checkers is a twist on a favorite family game – inspired by the artwork of Storyboy’s All About Dragons book app. Choose your favorite dragon and challenge your opponent tin this fun strategic game that comes complete with dragon trivia and roars!
• Dusty D. Dawg Has Feelings Too – Free animated storybook by Lillian Vernon that introduces children to their feelings and emotions.  This universal app runs on all devices and allows you to customize the book with a child’s photo, name as well as your own voice.

TIP: If you already have apps purchased on your iPhone that are compatible with iPad, you don’t have to pay for them twice. Many iPhone apps will synch over to your iPad, and by using the “2x” function, you can enlarge the iPhone app’s screen for the iPad.

We hope you enjoy these app ideas for loading up your iPad! Our developers, mostly parents, are open to your correspondence and feedback. Please leave a message in comments if you have questions for them. Also, they usually have a few extra promo codes, so feel free to contact them directly to request a code, especially if you have the time to leave a review for them on iTunes. We’ll try and keep this list updated when new apps are released, so check back again soon. Happy Apping!