Technology and Toddlers???

I'll be honest, I didn't have my first phone until my senior year of high school and just got rid of my land line last year.  But if you were to see me tonight working on this blog post you would find my laptop, iPad and iPhone all out and ready to use!

People refer to technology as the new "way of the world" and in the world of early childhood education I see no exception to that rule.  Our Advanced Early Childhood Education teachers have been working with iPads this year in our 1:1 setting.  We are now blending technology more into our preschool program as we take what we learned and start to apply it more with children ages 3 - 5.  A recent assignment brought wonderful discussions and sharing in our classes as we searched and found our "Top Choices" for preschooler games on the iPad.

 Special Note:
Some of these might be available on your smart phones parents so even if you don't have an iPad, you might have a chance to allow your child to try some of these games when you are out and about standing in line at the grocery store, riding in the car on the way to visit family this winter or just having family fun on a Friday night.  Please note this is a post recommending materials we find might enhance skills for school or allow for creativity where supplies are limited.  These materials should be used in supervised, limited amounts as active children are the most healthy children.  Here you will find information from the American Academy of Pediatrics about how and when to use technology to help your child, not take over your child.  The apps you are will read about should be used in limited amounts each day as social skills and physical activity still need to be developed in these young children.  For more information about the Let's Move Program, please click here.

For any of the apps listed below, search for the title listed to find games in iTunes or your app search engine.

If you are looking for programs to help your child with recognizing and/or writing letters, these are some terrific apps we have found will work as you review and practice pre-reading and writing skills with your child:
Little Speller
Elmo Letters
123 Tracing (to practice wring numbers)

Learning vocabulary in Spanish is fun with Fun Spanish too! (They also have Fun English if your child is learning English)

Apps that will help read to your child or allow for your child to try reading on his/her own include: Disney Storybook and many others.

Apps that allow a more artistic side to shine through with either drawing or storytelling would be:
Toontastic Stories (kids love this one because THEY create the story)
Drawing Desk
Fantasy Land
Disney Creativity Studio 2

There are many apps that offer a variety of options to play and do from puzzles to sorting math games and science information.  
We enjoyed:
PBS Kids
Khan Academy
Ocean Games

Edukiddies (there are many Edu apps with these characters dealing with nutrition to hygiene and more)
Preschool and Kindergarten learning games
iLearn programs are also terrific for a variety of ages and grades

If there are apps you would like to share, please email me and let me know, and if you are interested in others, don't hesitate to ask.  I often Tweet  links I find to other recommendation sites and have done so this very evening.  

One last bit of advice, please be sure to test games out before you just hand over your learning tool to them, be sure it's something you feel they can handle and also something safe!

Happy Searching!