28 of the Best Apps for Kids in the Sixth Grade
At last count, there were over 80,000 educational apps available to teachers. There are apps for everything: literacy, STEM, productivity, audiovisual, etc. There are apps which improve accessibility for students with different learning challenges, i.e. text to voice, voice to text, etc.
While many of these may be a dream come true for educators, the dizzying array of choices is also a nightmare. Teachers just don’t have time to filter through thousands of apps to find the one that works best for the needs of their students. To help, we started to create curated lists of the best apps in a variety of education related categories. In this installment, we will present the best apps for kids in the 6th grade.
When students are engaged in collaborative work, Padlet is a great tool for the classroom. It works as an online bulletin board where students can post ideas, images, videos, and more. With problem based learning, Padlet works as an excellent starting point where students can post research questions and post the answers they find as they research.
Wolfram Alpha is essentially an online database of engineering materials. Students and teachers can simply ask engineering questions, and the app will search the database for relevant materials that should answer the inquiry. The Pro edition of the app also features an automated tutor, homework help, and practice questions.
NoRedInk is a platform for personalized grammar instruction, so this one’s for you, English teachers! Questions are based on student interests, inserting students’ favorite celebrities or activities into sample sentences. More importantly, the lessons are adaptive, automatically differentiating instruction based on student skill level.
Education Genius is a collaborative annotation platform. Whether your text is a piece of literature, a scientific article, or a primary source historical document, you can upload it to the platform and allow your students to annotate line-by-line. As students make contributions, they earn “Genius” IQ points.
One way to keep your gifted students engaged is to encourage them to explore topics on a deeper level, which can certainly be achieved with The Minds of Modern Mathematics.
It’s an interactive journey through the history of mathematics and how it has influenced science, music, art, architecture, culture, and more.
The award-winning Brush of Truth app is a hit with children 8 to 12 years of age. In this app, readers must make choices that influence the story’s outcome. This interactive choose-your-own-story will excite reluctant readers.
WikiSpaces Classroom gives you and your students a safe, private network for having discussions, collaboratively editing pages, and completing group projects. There are pre-built templates for a variety of projects, but students can also work from a blank slate.
For children and adults with reading disabilities and ADD/ADHD, Voice Dream Reader allows a student to highlight text which will then be read to them. For a learner who comprehends things better aurally, Voice Dream Reader is a must have.
With this interactive app, students can practice or dialog with a virtual character. It contains hundreds of modules. It also has speech and severallanguage recognition and gives instant feedback to the user.
Creating virtual realities is not as impossible as it sounds. Students are actively involved in the creation and creative process that goes into building a VR world
Creating 3D paintings is every artist’s dream, and now with TiltBrush, it is a reality. Painting Is done using a handheld “paintbrush,” and the creation possibilities will be awe inspiring for any creative student.
Assists educators in combatting stereotypes about what life is like in other countries. This app achieves this through a data-driven approach.
Features “a day in my life” stories recorded by students from around the world. Also, they can learn about the cultures, geography, and history of each county via the app.
This app gives students the ability to view native people from around the globe, and take an intimate look at their customs, foods, etc.
Allows children to enjoy books written by people from various perspectives, cultures, countries, races, etc.
This app offers personalized language instruction. Students practice English with native speakers or through a series of games.
Is an augmentative and alternative communication app that helps students with communicative disorders express their ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc.
Is an app that helps students to improve their spatial and working memory.
Students can learn all about the earth’s climate with this groundbreaking site.
Provides help for students conducting science experiments.
A comprehensive resource for people looking for help with science projects and experiments.
An app that helps teachers put the A in STEAM.
An app that allows classmates to compete to solve fun engineering problems.
Kids learn to code by using Blockly, a programming language by Google, to teach a robot to dance.
Uses exploration and problem solving, to teach kids how to code.
This app teaches kids to code by solving puzzles and moving robots. Also builds math and critical thinking skills.
This animated educational website has a wealth of resources for teachers and students to make lessons more interactive, engaging, and fun. There are also BrainPOP apps students may download.
Middle school is when students must begin managing their time effectively. This app is a great tool for parents, teachers, and students to use in their daily lives to set up test and homework reminders.
Did we miss any? If so, list them in the comments section below.
