Apps for Literacy and Learning

Calm opens by instructing kids to take a deep breath before landing on the home screen. This home screen can be customized, and kids can choose from a range of more than 30 nature scenes and sounds to fit their preference. From this point, kids can either complete a daily meditation that’s provided, choose a sleep meditation, or practice deep breathing. For teachers who have young students, Calm’s Sleep Stories might be useful for rest time. Additionally, when teaching coping and calming skills, teachers could use this app to show students how to focus on slowing down their fight-or-flight responses by using the Breathe function.

Kids and a blue monster together tackle everyday frustrations — like struggling to tie shoes, dealing with separation anxiety, taking turns, and going to bed — and learn how to deal with them. Students must work through one problem before unlocking the next. Animated video clips show the blue monster’s problem, then kids tap his belly to help him breathe deeply and calm down. When the monster is calm, students tap thought bubbles, which produces three possible strategies. Students get to choose which strategy the monster will try and then see him do it in another animated video clip. The technique of breathing, thinking, and doing is reinforced throughout.

Helps teach kids who struggle socially learn how to identify emotions and use strategies to deal with them. The app presents users with a variety of situations and circumstances; this practice helps them understand and define their feelings, consider behavior options, and develop strategies to maintain appropriate behavior. After selecting an avatar and identifying hot spots on the path, kids explore the four zones of emotions. As they play and answer questions, they’ll earn tokens to exchange for rewards. 

Helps kids recognize anger cues in themselves and others. Consider using it as an activity for whole-group instruction with your younger students (such as kindergarten or first grade) or use as a station in a small group during social studies or social skills time too. Small groups could work together to select and play through mini-games. Consider incorporating the game into purposeful social and emotional learning time after a morning meeting or for soft landings in the morning. Place the device and app in a calming corner for students to engage with when they need a break. 

An early-education social and emotional learning app for preschoolers and kindergarten-age kids. It can support teacher-led, general social and emotional skills lessons, or serve as a supplement to specific discussions about conflict resolution, anger management, or expressing and controlling emotions.

Unique take on self-exploration relies on prompts to guide reflection.

The Social Express II is an animated app for boosting kids’ social-awareness skills. Each lesson presents daily interactive social situations using video modeling, “hidden rules,” and suggestions for how to solve problems in daily life. Beginner lessons encourage kids to explore nonverbal cues and stress the importance of eye contact. Intermediate and advanced lessons help kids transfer social rules into real life. Each level includes teacher tips to help teachers guide students in resolving the intended social lesson.

An easy-to-use app that allows you to view and create social stories with photos, audio, and text. Social stories are short vignettes created by a parent, teacher, or caregiver to help a child with a skill, concept, or situation that involves an emotional or social component. Examples range from activity transitions to dealing with emotions to helping students modify their behavior. The app includes a collection of pre-made social stories and users can also create their own social stories, using the camera or camera roll, the devices’s microphone, and text. Finished stories can be printed or shared with others who have the app.