If you are a parent or a K-5 educator, you probably have heard of these apps and perhaps even used them at some point as powerful aids to make learning fun for children. For educators and designers, these apps offer excellent insight into how technology can be meaningfully leveraged to simplify complex concepts and enrich learning experiences for even the youngest of learners.
ScratchJr
Scratch was created in the MIT Media Lab by Mitch Resnik and team with the intention of teaching programming to kids in a way that was understandable and engaging. It has been around for a decade and a half, …so why are we still writing about it? In 2022, Scratch became the largest coding community for kids worldwide!
What’s more, Scratch Foundation in collaboration with DevTech Research, has now developed ScratchJr. With a target audience of children aged 5-7, ScratchJr turns coding into a fun, family activity in which children can create fun projects with their parents and elder siblings. Even for adults, programming can be quite intimidating, but Scratch transforms it into a fun game with the aid of block coding which lets the learner focus on logic without being bogged down by syntax. Having an overarching understanding of computational thinking makes space for learners to grasp more complex coding concepts.
Using these blocks, children can code their characters to make them dance, jump, sing and later incorporate them into their own stories, games, and projects. There are many tutorials available to guide children as they tackle these fun projects, each empowering them with the belief that they can use coding to bring their imagination to life. The application also comes with great resources for educators to carry out coding sessions in their classroom. And that’s not all! Scratch allows learners to submit their projects to the larger Scratch community where their work can be recognized and become part of the Scratch public database.
Duolingo ABC
Duolingo has been around for a while and has helped millions across the globe learn languages. Now, Duo the mascot is back and it’s cheering on children aged 4-5 as they take their first steps in reading and writing. The green owl is one of the most acclaimed learning buddies so it is no surprise that this new application has already made rounds among parents and children alike. The app’s mission is to enhance children’s literacy skills
by providing them with a unique, game-like reading experience.. It uses captivating narratives to get children excited about reading, with Duo finding just the right stories for your child. Using in-story prompts and questions, the app also helps children develop active reading and improved comprehension skills. To aid children in pronunciation, Duolingo ABC uses in-game activities to help them recognise sounds individually while also teaching them how to blend these together into words and create rhyming sounds. This way it mimics in person phonic instruction. My favorite part of the app is the reading aloud and narration activity which is a great way for young readers to build fluency and confidence as they read in front of their peers.
Kahoot! Numbers by Dragonbox
The award-winning Dragonbox series in math labs by Kahoot is an excellent collection of games designed to help young children learn math. My favorite of the series is Numbers which targets children aged 4-8 years and goes beyond just introducing them to numbers. The thing that stood out to me about the app was the way each number has been assigned a physical shape and identity to create characters appearing throughout the in-app activities. Numbers are called “Nooms” in the Dragonbox universe and children can deploy these in each activity to yield the result they need.
This application has 4 different games: sandbox, puzzle, run and ladder. Each engages children in performing different math functions. With the aid of their beloved Nooms, they use strategy and problem solving to pass each level of the game. The app enhances the learner’s sense of numbers as each number changes based on the math function being applied to it. This grounds the math in the learner’s real-world experience as well.
The app comes with supplementary resources – there is a printable pedagogical guide for educators who want to use it for their lessons as well as worksheets complementing each level of the games making the app a useful resource both in and out of the classroom.
