Here are some ideas for teaching words for Halloween – or about the topic of Halloween – using apps and mobile devices. The ideas are aimed at the EFL/ESL young learner classroom but can be adapted to other contexts.

1. Learn Halloween words
First Words Halloween is aimed at young children, and would be great for the EFL/ESL classroom. In this simple app, children see a picture (of a witch for example), and drag letters to make the word. When children touch a letter (or the picture) they hear the name of the letters, or the word. The illustrations are appealing, and the app would be useful for children who are learning to read in English.

App: First Words Halloween
Platform: iOS
Cost: £1.49/$1.99

Word Carrot is a useful app for learning key words in British and American English. The app is suitable for all ages, and in it, users see a word, hear a word, and then try to spell the word by touching the letters before time runs out. Level 1 (with the first 90 words) is free. Players can buy more words in Levels 2 and 3. Level 3 contains ten words for the topic of Halloween. Using an IWB, this is a fun game to play with a group of learners.
Print a Halloween matching game
Print a Halloween puzzle
Print a Halloween poem

App: Word Carrot UK / Word Carrot US
Platform: iOS
Cost: In-app purchase Level 3 (£0.69p/$0.99)

2. Draw a monster

iLuv Drawing Monsters helps children draw, colour and decorate 20 different monsters. The app would be great for cross-curricular work, helping children to develop confidence in art, and also to develop language around colours and descriptions (and parts of the body). Children can print the monster they create, so you could make a monster book for example; or children could describe their monsters to each other.

App: iLuv Drawing Monsters HD
Platform: iOS
Cost: £0.69/$0.99

3. Play a game

Here are two fun games that older learners might enjoy – either in the classroom as group games using the IWB for example – or at home.

Halloween Chicktionary Lite is a  challenging word game that would be appropriate for older learners (the free version has adverts). Seven trick-or-treating hens give you letters which players use to make as many words as possible.

App: Halloween Chicktionary Lite
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free

I SPY Spooky Mansion would be a great game for older kids. With this app, players enter a spooky mansion, and have to find 7 keys hidden around the place. Players visit different parts of the mansion (the study, the graveyard etc), and solve riddles and puzzles, looking for hidden objects. Children would need to understand the English text in the game, but the game could also provide plenty of practice in talking about directions and locations, and also suggestions (‘Let’s have a look over here…’).

You can see a video of the game here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQdwNEi1kg0

App: I SPY Spooky Mansion
Platform: iOS / Windows
Cost: £0.69 / $0.99

4. Learn some weird facts

Did you know that slugs have 3.000 teeth and four noses? Weird But True is an app with more than 300 facts about the world – all of them weird but true. The app is from the National Geographic, so all of the facts are appropriate and interesting for children, and the facts are illustrated well, helping learners to understand the language. There’s also a ‘weird-o-meter’ where children can vote on the weirdness of each fact – could be a fun feature for the classroom!

This app would provide some great material for quizzes (children could make predictions about the facts before they see them, for example, guessing how many teeth slugs have!); or could be used as a springboard for children to research their own weird but true facts. There is a lot of useful stuff on the National Geographic Kids website – worth having a look:
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/

App: Weird But True
Platform: iOS
Cost: £1.49 / $1.99

5. Stories for Halloween
There are many, many storybook apps on the market, especially for younger children. Here is a great monster story for Halloween, and not too scary! The ebook is highly interactive, and meanings are made clear by the illustrations and the interactions.

Go Away, Big Green Monster (by Ed Emberley) uses simple language, and helps children to deal with fears. First, the monster is built up on screen, then the children can remove him bit by bit (it’s also great for teaching parts of the body and adjectives). Children can listen to the author or a ‘friend’ reading the story, they can read it at their own pace, or they can sing along. Have a look at this video of the app to get a better idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVIDTfwGuwI

This is also a popular paper book, and there are lots of ideas for using the story and the topic in the classroom on the internet, many of which could be adapted for learners of English. For example:

A very simple song called ‘Go Away, Big Green Monster’ with flashcards to download and print:
http://supersimplelearning.com/songs/original-series/one/go-away/

A page full of ideas for using the story in class:
http://pinterest.com/evelynsaenz/go-away-big-green-monster-activities/

App: Go Away, Big Green Monster!
Platform: iOS
Cost: £1.99 / $2.99

Older learners might enjoy telling or writing spooky stories for Halloween, and the Spooky Story Dice app could be a great way to get kids’ creative juices flowing. Roll the dice, and get lots of different ideas for a scary story. Children can use the ideas to tell stories at a spooky storytelling event; to record themselves telling the stories; or to write or illustrate their stories for a class spooky story book.

App: Spooky Story Dice
Platform: iOS
Cost:  £1.49 / $1.99

Another stimulus for creative writing or storytelling could be provided with a scary sounds app.  There are a number of apps that provide these for free, but watch out for adverts, and also check sounds beforehand – some of them can be quite scary. You may prefer to be in control of these apps, or use them with older children. Ask your learners to close their eyes, then play some sounds. Learners can write or talk about what they imagined as they heard the noises, and then create a story, perhaps in pairs or groups.

App: Scary Sounds
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free

App: Horror Sounds
Platform: Android
Cost: Free

There are a lot of apps on the market related to Halloween and I have chosen just a few. Take a look at Shelley Terrell’s great blog post from 2011 which talks about 18 different educational apps for Halloween:
http://shellyterrell.com/2011/10/17/18-educational-apps-for-halloween/

Kim Ashmore, Director & Co-Founder, LearnAhead Ltd

That’s five ideas. Share any others that you have here. We’d love to hear about them.

Here are some ideas for teaching sports words – or about the topic of the sports – using apps and mobile devices. The ideas are aimed at the EFL/ESL young learner classroom but can be adapted to other contexts.

1. Sports vocabulary
Here are two apps to help learners learn words for different sports. Young children can explore the world of sport with ABC Play. With this app, children can learn the names of more than 110 different sports (from basketball to underwater hockey), and can explore them too by following links to youtube videos that have been specially chosen for children. The app is also supported by audio. The app is US focused.

App: ABC Play
Platform: iOS
Cost: £1.99/$2.99

Word Carrot is a useful app for learning key words in English. The app is suitable for all ages, and in it, users see a word, hear a word, and then try to spell the word by touching the letters before time runs out. There are words related to many different topics, including sports. This app is useful for learning and practising ten basic words related to sport.
Download and print a worksheet to practise words for sport.

App: Word Carrot
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free

2. Learn about different sports
Zoo Champs is a sports guide for kids. It presents 30 different sports, with animals doing the various events (and some lovely illustrations for example, of flamingos in the gym). The app also gives lots of interesting facts and trivia about the sports (for example, the gymnastic vault was originally performed on the back of a live bull). The text could sometimes be difficult, so might need some explanation or translation, but most of the texts have audio. There are also fact sheets for older children to read.

Find some ideas for using this app in the classroom on the Teaching Appz website:
http://www.teachingappz.co.uk/listing/zoo-champs/

App: Zoo Champs
Platform: iOS (for iPad)
Cost: £1.49/$1.99

3. Classroom Olympics
The Olympics are over but why not have your own classroom Olympics?
You could hold some simple events (indoors or outdoors) based around questions (in English) such as:

• Who can hop the most times on one leg in one minute?

Or instead, the questions could be about English, for example:

• Who can count from 1 – 20 in English the fastest?

You and your students could think of questions together, then put students into groups to carry out the activities. They can use the stopwatch on their mobile phones to time each other; or even take photos or film each other carrying out the activities. After the activities, there can be an awards ceremony, with the ‘winners’ getting gold, silver and bronze medals.

4. A sports blog
Here is an idea for a project that you could do with older learners, and would work particularly well if you have a school sports day, or if school teams participate in sports events. If not, the project could be carried out with a televised or local sports event (eg a football match).

For this project, learners work in groups and report on a sports event. They can take on different roles (photographer; commentator; note-taker; interviewer; writer; designer etc). Learners watch an event, and as they watch they take notes (these could be written, or they could record themselves commentating on the event); and they take photos or videos if possible. They could carry out interviews with participants (these could be real or invented). Once they have their notes, audio files, photos, videos, learners put together a report about the event. These reports can be posted onto a class or school blog, using a simple blogging platform such as Posterous.

App: Posterous
Platform: iOS/Android
Cost: Free

5. Apps for Healthy Kids
The USDA challenged software developers, game designers, and students to develop fun and engaging tools and games that encourage children to eat better and to be more physically active. You can see the winning games and tools on the Apps for Healthy Kids website: http://appsforhealthykids.com/

The games and tools are not all apps to download from a store, but they would be great for the cross-curricular classroom. You could organise your own competition. Get groups of older learners or teenagers to try out some of the tools and games, and ask them to choose their own winners and runners-up. Or perhaps they could think of tools or games that could encourage children to eat better, or be more physically active?

Kim Ashmore, Director & Co-Founder, LearnAhead Ltd

That’s five ideas. Share any others that you have here. We’d love to hear about them.

Here are some ideas for teaching words for transport – or about the topic of transport – using apps and mobile devices. The ideas are aimed at the EFL/ESL young learner classroom but can be adapted to other contexts.

1. Learn transport vocabulary
Younger learners might enjoy ABC Go. ABC Go is a flashcard app with a difference. The app presents an A-Z of more than 60 different types of transportation, from ambulance to camel to unicycle. Touch a word – camel for example – and you see a high-quality photo, hear the word, and see the word spelled out; in this way it’s a useful app for learning and practising vocabulary. But many of the words also link to interactive activities which have simple instructions (Can you fix the police car?), or to youtube videos suitable for children (note that you need to be online to access these). The app is US focused.

App: ABC Go
Platform: iOS
Cost: £1.99/$2.99

Word Carrot is an app that will help learners of all ages spell ten basic words for transport. Learners see the word, hear the word, and choose the right letters to spell it. You could use it as a game to play on the IWB, or students can use it to practise words outside the classroom. Here is an activity you can print for learners to practise the words further.
Transport Worksheet

App: Word Carrot
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free

2. Buses – sing a song
Wheels on the Bus is a popular children’s song, and this app presents the song in five different languages: English, Spanish, German, Italian and French. Children can sing along, and the animations will help them to understand what the lyrics mean (there are some fun extra verses on this app, such as ‘The bubbles on the bus go pop, pop, pop’ – and children can pop the bubbles on the screen.). Extras include a record facility, and also the chance to hear the song played on a violin, cello, piano or kazoo. Once children are familiar with the song, they could perform actions as they sing (similar to the actions on the screen); or even together you could invent some new verses of things that might happen on the bus (“The children on the bus can play a game, play a game, play a game…”)

App: Wheels on the Bus
Platform: iOS
Cost (iphone): £0.69/$0.99
Cost (ipad): £1.49/$1.99

Platform: Android
Cost: £1.27/$1.99

3. Helicopers – fly a helicopter taxi
This is a rather different – and fun – app for children. It turns an iphone into a helicopter taxi. You are the pilot, and you have to pick up passengers and take them to different places. Move the iphone to make the helicopter fly, and lay it on a flat surface to pick up and drop off passengers.  What’s great about this app is that children can move around, and also that it uses the camera on the iphone to create an augmented reality effect – the helicopter flies wherever you are, in the classroom, in the playground, in your bedroom…

There is no language in this app, but if you are lucky enough to have a class set of ipads then this could be great for developing language in young learners (and not just the littlest ones). Sue Drouin has some fantastic ideas for using this app on her blog CommuniK-9. The ideas are for a different context, but could easily be adapted for EFL/ESL learners. Read her ideas here:
http://communik-9.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/expanding-language-through-apps.html

Just a note: you may want to make sure that a device has a sturdy cover before it’s turned into a helicopter!

App: Helicopter Taxi
Platform: iOS
Cost: £1.49/$1.99

4. Planes – make a paper plane
How to make paper airplanes is a free app with written instructions for making paper planes. Users select a plane (Concorde for example), read the instructions and watch the diagrams. It is a simple app, but could be useful for older learners, especially when learning about the language of giving and understanding instructions in English. Learners could follow the instructions to make a plane of their choice – or could read and watch the instructions on an IWB. Children could vote for the best plane, or could test them out and see which plane performs best. If learners enjoy the activity, they could perhaps design a paper plane of their own, and write the instructions for making it in English – or perhaps film themselves making a paper plane, and add written or spoken instructions.

App: How to make Paper Airplanes
Platform: iOS/Android
Cost: Free

5. Cars – create a car
Create a Car is an app that lets users design a fantasy car. Children can choose from a wide range of vehicle parts, including fins, wings, jet engines and time travel devices – to make their own car which they can save and store in the garage. In the garage they can start the car, and watch it kick into action (but they can’t take it out unfortunately). Children could design a car together as a whole class group, or if you have a number of devices, then they could design cars in groups. 

This is a very creative app, and could encourage lots of rich language use. For example, there is an information screen where users can name the car, write a description, and track its special features. You’ll find ideas for using the app for language development on Jenny’s blog: Speech/Language? There’s an app for that! The ideas could be adapted for the ESL/EFL classroom.

App: Create a Car
Platform: iOS
Cost: £0.69/$0.99

Kim Ashmore, Director & Co-Founder, LearnAhead Ltd

That’s five ideas. Share any others that you have here. We’d love to hear about them.

Here are some ideas for teaching about the topic of the home using apps and mobile devices. The ideas are aimed at the EFL/ESL young learner classroom but can be adapted to other contexts.

1. Vocabulary – Household objects and furniture
Most mobile phones these days come with a camera, and here is an activity you can use with older learners who might have their own mobile phones. Ask learners to take some photos of objects around the home, for example:

• Take photos of five objects you would save from a fire
• Take photos of objects that you think other students won’t have in their homes
• Take photos of everyday household objects from a strange angle (for other students to guess)

Learners bring the photos to school and show the photos in groups – the activities could be used to learn and recycle vocabulary of household objects, and could also lead to some interesting discussions.

Word Carrot is an app that will help learners of all ages spell ten words for basic furniture and household objects. Learners see the word, hear the word, and choose the right letters to spell it. You could use it as a game to play on the IWB, or students can use it to practise words outside the classroom. Here is an activity you can print for learners to practise the words further.
The home Worksheet

App: Word Carrot
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free

2. Design a home – Elin’s House
There are a number of ‘dolls house’ apps on the market and this post will look at three of them – all language free. First of all, Elin’s House. This is an interesting one as it’s a) free b) available for both iOS and Android, and c) particularly useful for EFL/ESL learners.  With this app, users choose a house, and can then decorate and furnish each room however they like. The graphics are not wonderful, but it is quite simple to use, and could be very useful for all kinds of activities. Here are four suggestions:

• You could decorate a room, but add strange things into it (for example, flowers in the bedroom; or a lamp in the garden). Show the picture to your students, and ask them to say what’s wrong with it.
• Use it to get students speaking and listening in English. Ask your students to tell you what to put in each room, and where to put it (Paint the room green; put a table in the middle of the room; put three chairs next to the table etc), and then follow their instructions. Or students could do the activity in pairs: one student gives instructions, the other follows them. This would be great for practising vocabulary, and also good for practising giving instructions and talking about position/location.
• Use it for writing practice. Children could design a room, and then write about it.
• Ask students to try to create their ideal room using the items in the app. Can they do it? What items are missing?

Note:  Watch out for in-app purchases with this app, and make sure that the functionality is disabled before using with learners.

App: Elin’s House
Platform: iOS/Android
Cost: Free

3. Activities around the home – My PlayHome
The second ‘dolls house’ app to be featured is My PlayHome.  This is a virtual, interactive play house, and allows children to role-play typical activities that take place around the home, such as having a meal, having a shower, going to bed and so on. There is also a free version My PlayHome Lite which offers full interactivity for two rooms: the kitchen and living room.

Lisa Johnson has some great ideas for using this app in the classroom on her excellent blog TechChef4u. Here are two of her ideas:

• Take screenshots of a room and have students label the picture using an app such as Doodle Buddy
• Have students compare and contrast a room in the app with a room at home

These ideas could be used with other play home apps of course.

App: My Playhome Lite
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free

App: My Playhome
Platform: iOS
Cost: £2.49/$3.99

4. Household tasks – Toca House
And the third ‘dolls house’ app is Toca House. The app features five floors of a house which children can explore. They meet different characters on each floor, and complete 10 household chores each time they play, such as mopping the floor, washing the dishes, or mowing the lawn. As with the other featured apps, there is no language, so it can be used to present language related to household tasks, and can lead to discussions about who does what around the home.

App: Toca House
Platform: iOS
Cost: £1.49/$1.99

5. Read and listen to a story
I don’t know how many children’s book and story apps are out there – but I do know that there a lot. Many of these stories would work well with the theme of the home, and I am just going to focus on one here:  The Three Little Pigs – Nosy Crow animated storybook. This is a useful story for children learning English as a second/foreign language: it may be well known to them already; and the language is relatively simple – and in this app the story is supported by great animations and actions.

The app presents three modes: read and play; read to me; read by myself.  ‘Read and play’ would be a great place to start in the classroom, and would be ideal with a small group of children, who could interact with the story.  The story makes the most of the ipad’s technical capabilities, for example, children can blow into the microphone to blow the house down, and they can interact with the characters and objects by touching the screen.

This app is a little more expensive, but could be used again and again to inspire lots of classroom-based activities relating to topics from the home (for example, making houses out of different materials), to pigs (making puppets). Or children could make their own books. See this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YMbh5TZCps

App: The Three Little Pigs – Nosy Crow animated storybook
Platform: iOS (iphone and ipad)
Cost: £3.99/$5.99

Kim Ashmore, Director & Co-Founder, LearnAhead Ltd

That’s five ideas. Share any others that you have here. We’d love to hear about them.

Here are some ideas for teaching weather words – or about the topic of the weather – using apps and mobile devices. The ideas are aimed at the EFL/ESL young learner classroom but can be adapted to other contexts.

1. Listen to a song – Itsy Bitsy Spider
Itsy Bitsy Spider (also known as Incy Wincy Spider) is a traditional children’s song about a spider in the rain. This app is aimed at toddlers who speak English as a first language, but it would be suitable for some younger learners (for example aged 5 or 6) who are learning English as a second or foreign language too.

Use the app with your whole class, and get children to sing along (you can record them singing), and encourage them to touch and explore (for example, making rain come down from a cloud, splashing in puddles). Children can also learn about weather and nature by poking the fly that appears in every scene; and there are other learning activities (eg counting from 1 – 10 as a squirrel builds a house).

There are useful worksheets that you can download for Incy Wincy Spider on the British Council’s LearnEnglish Kids website.

App: Itsy Bitsy Spider
Platform: iOS (versions for iPhone and iPad)
Cost: £1.49/$1.99

App: Itsy Bitsy Spider
Platform: Android
Cost: £1.27

2. Learn about the seasons and weather
iLearn with Poko is an app aimed at children aged between 3- 7. The app has three levels all based around basic concepts of the weather and the seasons: In Level 1, children have to click on pictures that match certain descriptions (for example, click on the picture where there are no clouds); in Level 2, children have to click on things that don’t match the weather (for example, a child wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day); and in Level 3, children have to match activities with the right weather. This level also introduces a calendar with months and days of the week.

Again, this app is aimed at native speakers of English, but would be useful for children learning English as a second or foreign language. All instructions are verbal, so learners will come across natural English used in meaningful contexts. They may need some help at first with understanding the instructions, but the app would give learners great practice in developing their listening skills (note that this app uses American English so uses ‘fall’ and not ‘autumn’ for example). The app would also be useful in cross-curricular contexts, introducing children to basic concepts of science and geography. It might also inspire your class to keep their own weather diary for a period of time – perhaps a class blog recording the weather each day?

App: iLearn with Poko: Seasons and Weather!
Platform: iOS (versions for iPhone and iPad)
Cost: £1.99/$2.99

3. Spell weather words
Word Carrot is an app that will help learners of all ages spell ten weather words. Learners see the word, hear the word, and choose the right letters to spell it. You could use it as a game to play on the IWB, or students can use it to practise weather words outside the classroom. Here is an activity you can print for learners to practise the words further.
Weather Worksheet

App: Word Carrot
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free

4. Weather around the world
Here are two activities you can do with upper primary or secondary students. First divide students into small groups, and make sure that each group has access to a mobile device with a free weather app installed (such as Accuweather, or any preferred weather app). Now ask groups to carry out one of the following tasks:

1. Ask each group to research current weather conditions, and to write a quiz for students in another group using the data (for example: Is it raining in Seoul? What’s the temperature in Madrid? Do you need to wear a raincoat in Tokyo? Is it best to be indoors or outdoors in Helsinki today?) When students are ready, get them to swap quizzes and give them a time limit to answer the questions using their weather app. If students use different weather apps, you might get some interesting results, which could lead to a discussion about the accuracy of weather apps.

2. Give students some questions comparing the weather in different places around the world (for example: What’s the hottest place in Germany? What’s the coldest place in Japan? Is Moscow hotter than Beijing? ) Tell students to use the weather app to find the answers as quickly as they can. This is a great way to practise comparatives and superlatives.

App: Accuweather
Platform: iOS (versions for iPhone and iPad)/Android
Cost: Free

One interesting weather app is Weather Doodle, which features animated weather art that represents the time of day and weather conditions of the chosen location. This visual representation of the weather could be a useful asset to the classroom, and might inspire an art project too. This app is not free but it is low-cost.

App: Weather Doodle
Platform: iOS
Cost: £0.69/$0.99

5. Make a weather report
This is another idea for older primary and secondary students. Put students into pairs or small groups, and make sure that each group has a mobile device which allows video recording. First of all, discuss typical weather reports: What information is given? Who is the audience? What do these people need to know? What kinds of phrases are used? You could perhaps watch a weather report or two together as a class at this stage. Next, students should prepare a short weather report in groups, about their own or another country. Once videos are ready, they can be shared with others using a simple blogging app such as Posterous.

Here are some examples of students giving weather reports in French and Spanish. You will be able to find more on youtube (but do watch out for comments). These videos could give you and your students some ideas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97Uha0xAZ1k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUJpzeZKchA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEhdX05u1Ps&feature=related

App: Posterous
Platform: iOS/Android
Cost: Free

Kim Ashmore, Director & Co-Founder, LearnAhead Ltd

That’s five ideas. Share any others that you have here. We’d love to hear about them.

Here are some ideas for teaching words for food and drink – or about the topic of food – using apps and mobile devices. The ideas are aimed at the EFL/ESL young learner classroom but can be adapted to other contexts.

1. Flashcards
There are plenty of flashcard apps on the market including Flashcards for Kids – First Food Words. This app gives you access to flashcards of food items relating to breakfast, dinner, drinks, fruit and vegetables. Other sets can be bought (candy, desserts, herbs and spices, nuts and seeds), along with other games, so this app is probably best controlled by the teacher – using an IWB perhaps.  It is possible to customise the cards including: audio on/off; images/words only; editing of fonts etc, and you can also ‘favourite’ cards to select the ones that you want children to learn. Despite the name of the app, these flashcards are suitable for all ages.

App: Flashcards for Kids – First Food Words
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free

The items of food and drink included in the app relate to the US, but teachers/learners can upload their own photos and recordings to make their own sets – older learners would enjoy making their own cards (a set called ‘My favourite foods’, or ‘healthy foods’ for example). A really interesting feature of this app is that you can easily share sets of flashcards that you make via email or Dropbox.

Here is an idea for one activity that you could do using this app. Take some photos of some items of food – but take close-ups, or unusual views (see examples below). Now show the cards (or photos) to your learners. Can they guess what each item of food is?

2. Spell words for food and drink
Word Carrot is a game that will help learners of all ages spell ten words for food and drink. Learners see the word, hear the word, and choose the right letters to spell it. Here is an activity you can print for learners to practise the words further.
Food and drink Worksheet

App: Word Carrot
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free

3. Learn more about food and drink
ABC Food is a more interactive flashcard app, though perhaps better suited to younger learners.  Items of food and drink are presented in alphabetical order, and once an item is touched then you get to see and hear the word.  What is nice about this app is that many of the items link to child-friendly videos related to the item of food or drink – if you touch ‘carrot’ for example, you get a video of somebody digging up carrots; ‘cucumber’ links to a video of somebody making cucumber pickle; touch ‘watermelon’ and you can listen to a song about fruit – these videos have great potential for the classroom. In the watermelon song for example, children could listen out for all the names of fruit mentioned in the song.

This is a very full app with great-looking photos and videos, and will help children learn more about food than just the names. One thing to note though – you need to be online to be able to connect to the videos. The food items and videos are also US-focused.

App: Little Explorers – ABC Food
Platform: iOS
Cost: £1.99/$1.99

4. What’s for lunch?
Here is an idea from Kathleen Morris’ great blog Integrating Technology in the Primary Classroom.
Learners take a food-related photo – it might be their lunchbox, their dinner or breakfast, or typical local food for example – and then describe (in English) what is in the photo. Take a look at this example: http://collaboration-corner.blogspot.com/2010/02/australia-brookes-lunch.html

With Fotobabble, learners can take or upload a photo, and record text to make their own ‘talking photos’.  Photos can be shared – on a school blog perhaps. A great way to compare what everyone eats or likes; or to talk about healthy eating.

App: Fotobabble
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free

5. Cooking apps
There are many cooking apps, some of which are free. Install and try the free ones before you use them to make sure that they are suitable for your learners – and not full of ads. Here are some paid-for cooking apps that are suitable for younger learners. Get children to suggest ingredients – and how to cook them (shall we boil this?) – and prepare meals for different characters. Will they like the food or not? A great way to talk about likes and dislikes too!

App: Toca Kitchen
Platform: iOS
Cost: £1.49/$1.99

App: Little Cook
Platform: iOS
Cost: £2.49/$3.99 
Kim Ashmore, Director & Co-Founder, LearnAhead Ltd

That’s five ideas. Share any others that you have here. We’d love to hear about them.