7 Recommended iPad apps for 7 year olds

With Summer holidays looming I thought it may be an idea to share a few of our favourite iPad apps.  Finding new apps can be a bit of a minefield.  I’ve lost count of the number of iPad apps we have downloaded and it turns out they were rubbish.

You can’t always trust online reviews but I can assure you that my 7 year old daughter has played with these extensively and goes back to them over and over again. I don’t suggest you dash out and buy them all but do have a look and arm yourself for the holidays.

Chatterpix Kids by Duck Duck Moose

iPad Apps for 7 year olds

I’ve always been a fan of their apps.  I came across this one under my guise as a Computing Consultant in Education.  It has a lot of educational potential but bottom line it’s hilariously good fun.  You can make just about any object, including a piece of toast, talk simply by drawing a straight line and recording your voice.

 

Crazy Gears by 7 Academy

Apps suitable for a 7 year old

Children explore how mechanisms work (gears, chains, rods and pulleys)  and engage in problem solving to unravel a series of puzzles.

 

Thinkrolls2 by Avokiddo

iPad Apps for kids - science

I love apps that are fun and educational at the same time.  Thinkrolls2 is a series of logic problems that get progressively harder, you have to get the characters through a maze, whilst learning about force, aerodynamics, buoyancy, electricity and even get a taste of quantum physics.

 

Simple Machines by Tinybop

Recommended ipad apps for Year 2

Children have the opportunity to explore levers, pulleys, wheels, screws and wedges and learn about physics without even realising it.  This app is a great way to foster a love of Science from a young age.

 

Barefoot Atlas

Geography apps for kids

This app was created for 9-11 year olds but I think it’s brilliant for slightly younger children as well.  You have a 3D Globe that you can spin around with a swipe of a finger, then zoom in to explore different landmarks and places.  Listen to BBC TV presenter Nick Crane and learn some fascinating facts about different countries.

 

Shadow Puppet Edu

I have no idea why they call it Shadow Puppet as it’s a bit misleading.   This is an incredibly powerful app and very easy to use, again I came across it in a school.  I downloaded it and within minutes, without any input from me, my daughter was creating animated books, by taking photos of her favourite book and then narrating them herself.  She then moved onto creating a visual presentation on Egypt using the images that come with the app and narrating them herself.  This could make homework projects much more exciting.

Toca Hair Salon2

Fun apps for 7 year olds

We’ve had this app for awhile and my daughter never tires of it, she can cut, curl and colour hair with hilarious results.

Do you have any must have apps that I should have a look at?  If so, leave me a comment below.

 

How to set time limits on an iPad

Worried about your kids spending too much time on iPads?

I haven’t found the perfect solution for setting time limits on an iPad yet.  I was hoping for an app, that as soon as my 7-year old picked it up and started playing a timer would start and lock her out after a set period of time.  In an ideal world, I should be monitoring her use more closely, but like all busy parents I get distracted and lose track of time.

However, I have found a work around that will suffice until I find something better.   You will have to manually set the timer and it’s App specific.   In my case I wanted to limit the amount of time that she spends on Minecraft.

How to Set Time Limits

1) Firstly, you will need iOS 8 as it has the Guided Access Feature.  Go to Settings>General>Accessibility and turn on the Guided Access  feature.

2) Now when your child is in the game/app/website, if you triple click the Home Button on the Device a menu for setting the time limit will appear in the bottom right hand corner.  Simply choose the amount of time you are happy for them to have.

How to open Guided Access

Setting Time Limit on iPad

 

3) They will be given a warning when they are about to run out of time.

 

4) Then a black screen will appear letting them know that they have run out of time.

Time Expired Guided Access

 

5) At this point, it’s up to your discretion whether you want to give them more time.

 

Do you have any other solutions to this?  Are there any good apps you have used that would be better?  Please do leave a comment below.

 

 

 

 

Manage your Children’s Pocket Money with an App

Roosterbank Allows you to Manage your Kid’s Pocket Money

Your example is everything when it comes to teaching your children about money – Rachael Cruze

I’m crap with money and always have been.  However, I would like to instil in my daughter the value of money and getting her saving from an early age.  I’m lucky my husband is a bit of a miser and set up saving accounts for her at an early age.  She now probably has more money than I do.

Money doesn’t grow on trees!

It really is a tricky one, especially with online shopping as no physical money changes hands.  She once wanted a yellow slide and said ‘Mummy, why don’t you just go online and get it’.  I had to explain to her that it still costs money and we can’t just have everything we want.

If you’re like me any time we go to the shop, into town, school fairs, events or dreaded gift shops they are always asking ‘can I have this, can I have that’ and it becomes a bit of a battle and I often say to her, ‘Did you bring any money?’ and she always replies ‘No!’ and expects me to shell out.

Rooster Bank - Managing Pocket Money

Roosterbank allows you to manage pocket money via your phone

So, I was thrilled when I came across The Roosterbank App which allows you to manage your children’s pocket money.  You can set an amount that they receive each week and specify the day.  I have set ours to £3 a week as she is only 6 years old and she gets it on a Friday.  Then when we are out and she asks for something she then has to decide whether it’s worth spending her own money on and on few occasions she decided she really didn’t need it.  Genius!

Teaches the connection between work and money!

Plus, she can also ponder whether it’s better to save it up for a few weeks and get something more substantial.  We haven’t had to yet but you can also remove money if they have been naughty or not done what you asked them to.

And the best thing of all is that the App is FREE!  Oh the irony.

 

 

5 iPad Apps for Halloween 2013

With half-term looming, Halloween around the corner and weather forecasters warning about storms coming next week, I spent a bit of time looking for a few Halloween iPad apps in case we have a few days stuck indoors.

We’ve had a really good play with some of the Halloween iPad Apps today and I can recommend the following.

iPad Apps for Halloween

Halloween iPad Apps

Carve A Pumpkin from Parents Magazine – virtually cut out pumpkins, either free hand or using their shapes, without all the mess and save the images to your camera roll.

Haunted Halloween Escape by TeraLumina – My daughter is only 6 and this was rated 9+.  I was impressed with my daughter and husband’s perseverance as I would have given up.  You have to work your way through the room, finding all the clues and collecting things that you need to solve the puzzle (e.g wooden stake to kill the vampire).  They spent an hour from start to finish trying to solve it and suceeded.  It’s inspired us to download more of these walk throughs from TeraLumina

Casper Scare School – Costume Closet by Mindshapes probably the least scariest ghost of all time.  Can you remember what Halloween Costume he was wearing? Have fun dressing him and his ghoulish friends up.

Sneak HD by Made in Me – How quietly can you sneak up on your iPad?  If you can get to the iPad, snap a photo of the monster without him hearing you, you win.  See how many monsters you can collect.  Great to play with friends as well.

Mask Jumble Halloween – using the iPad camera create hilarious photos of you and your friends.

 

Have A Hauntingly Happy Halloween!

 

 

 

 

How to Keep Younger Children Safer When Using Computers

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More than a third of all 3-4 year-olds are now accessing the internet in their homes. My daughter has been accessing computers since she was two, and swipe technology has made this possible. She whizzes around the iPhone and iPad better than her father does and can often be seen on my lap searching the internet for answers to questions I don’t know the answer to (e.g. why don’t electric eels shock themselves?). She is truly a digital native. She is now five.

As an ICT consultant, I train teachers for a living on the use of hardware and software in the classroom and I strongly believe that these technologies can positively impact her learning.  However, I don’t want her spending day in and day out in front of the screen.

I know a lot of parents are reluctant to allow their children to access these technologies and rightly so. The internet can be a dangerous place, but I do feel that children who are denied access may be put at a disadvantage academically.

I’ve been doing a bit of research about e-safety and younger children, aged 3-5, but everything I read tends to relate to slightly older children who are able to read and write.  My daughter is just learning to read and write so I found that a lot of the information was not relevant to this stage as it was talking about chat rooms, cyber bullying, etc so I thought I’d put together a short list of my top tips for keeping younger children safer when online.

In our house, she has supervised access to iPhones, iPads and a PC.  This is where my experience lies so this article is based on that.  However, I’m sure it can be translated to Androids, Macs and other tablets.  Do chip in the comments section.

My top 10 tips for keeping younger children safer

When using an iPad or iPhone

I’ve learned a few of these the hard way – just remember that the settings are your friend.

1.) Turn off In-App Purchase to avoid any nasty surprises! I’ve written about this in the past when my neighbour nearly got stung with a £70 bill from iTunes.

You can do this in Setting>General>Restrictions and turn off In-App Purchases

How to turn of in app purchases

2.) Turn of Location Services – this one really scared the crap out of me. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that someone could identify my daughter’s location using it. Eeeek!  I have now turned it off! It’s in Restrictions as well.

Turning off Location Services

3.) Disable Safari and YouTube – My daughter and I do go onto YouTube and Google as I mentioned earlier, but only when we are together, so to ensure she doesn’t find her way on there when I’m not looking I have disabled them. It’s a bit of a pain as I have to turn it back on again when I want to use it, but I’d rather be safer than sorry.

How to Turn off You Tube and Safari

4.) Set Media Parameters, again it’s in restrictions but you can decide what age range you are comfortable with when watching films or accessing apps. However, if you are using any other subscription-based film services like LoveFilm, you may also have to change the settings there as well. The instructions can be found here.

Setting Age Restrictions

5.) On the iPad the default is 15 minutes for needing to re-enter a password for purchases.  Change this to ‘Immediately’, otherwise they have plenty of time to run up a bill buying stuff.

Change time limit for entering password

When using the PC

My daughter rarely uses the PC unless I’m with her and to be honest, I’d rather she use the iPad so that I can get on with my work or faffing around on social networks. But when she does, these are a few things that I have done:

6.) I’ve made a folder for her with a list of favourite sites, which reduces the chances of her getting onto an inappropriate site, but it’s not fail safe.

7.) I have turned on Safe Search Mode on Google so when we are searching together it reduces the chances of us coming across anything unsavoury. Look for the ‘cog’ in the top right corner and select search settings, you should see it in there!

8.)  It’s not 100% accurate, but I have also switched on Safety Mode on YouTube.

9.)  Make sure your anti-virus software is up to date in case, god forbid, they manage to download something dodgy. I personally use AVG Free.

10.) And lastly, this is true for any type of technology whether it’s a tablet, phone, computer or gaming console. Always keep them in a busy place in the house, so you can keep an eye on what they get up to. We rarely allow the iPad to go up into her room, unless I’m having one of my lazy parenting moments. We can get away with this at the moment as she is only five, but we will cross the next hurdle when we get to it.

Hopefully, this has helped in some way. Do leave any other tips in the comment section below. Go safe out there!

A huge thank you to Geek Mummy and Violet Posy for their valuable contributions to this post.