Fun Freetime: Free Summer Apps

Pirate Rush by TabTale features pirates, high seas adventure, romance, and of course, treasure. This is TabTale’s first arcade and racing game, and kids will love it. The object is to rescue Princess Annie, who was taken by the pirate Bitter Bob. To rescue Princess Annie, you must first collect each piece of a map, which was torn into five pieces by Bitter Bob. Each piece helps you get closer to the princess' location.

In Lego 4+, Lego Lovers (and who isn't?) can build their own Lego vehicles, whether it's a truck-copter, brick-up truck or carbio van. It's simple and fun — drag and place Lego pieces to create your vehicle. Gamers devise ways to bring the cargo to the correct place and collect coins to earn more parts. Once you reach your destination, drag and drop Lego pieces to create a structure to complete the level. (Also available for Android; my youngest loves this one.)

SparkleFish is a hilarious audio story completion game that will have your child laughing uncontrollably. In this educational game, kids record creative words in their own voice for playback inside surprising, ad-lib stories. They can save their recordings and listen to them later. SparkleFish encourages children to think more creatively, and is excellent for teachers and speech therapists.

For Sushi Monster, an app by Scholastic, kids use speed and accuracy to place sushi pieces near the monster and make the target number. By correctly formulating an equation, they feed the monster. To be successful, kids must plan ahead and strategically select numbers from their sushi counter. This app is engaging and appropriately challenging, allowing children to practice, reinforce and extend math fact fluency.

To infinity and beyond! Toy Story Read Along takes kids on a fun, interactive reading adventure packed with games, movie clips, coloring pages, sing-along tunes, and surprises on every page. Children can hear the story read aloud, record their own narration or explore at their own pace. Kids turn pages manually and move back and forth through the story as they choose.