Best iPad apps for EY and KS1

[saladfingers]

We have just received some new iPads from the Welsh Government. They need to be configured for our school as IT services will have administrator controls. I need to supply a list of all the apps we need installed. Our current iPads are 10 years old and many apps won't work on them so my experience is very limited in this area. What are your go to apps for the younger primary children? All ideas gratefully received.

Not sure how far finances will stretch so would prefer free apps if possible.

I did some really good training a while ago about apps and they said to think about what you want the children to do, as in you want the children to create things, rather than just games where they're just hitting buttons. They suggested about 8-10 apps where the children can create content is about enough.

I think some phonics/maths games are worthwhile under teacher direction but for the children to use independently, I'd have Seesaw as a priority. Then Chatterpix, a painting app, something where they can animate, something to make music, one of the Beebot type coding apps, scratch, etc. If you're not using seesaw, something to take photos/videos and then annotate or voice record over the videos. Keynote used to be ok for this but I've not used it in a while with Seesaw. Then see if there are any other gaps in your computing curriculum that need to be filled.

Thank you, those are actually really similar to the apps I have on our old iPads. Seesaw and Chatterpix are brilliant. We used to have one with puppets that you could animate and add voice overs but I can't remember what it was called. Have you any experience of the Numberblocks app?

I haven't actually tried the numberblocks app but DS is obsessed so I might try it at home!

The busy things app has been popular with our FS1 gang.