Ever since we have entered the world of iPhone apps we have taken advantage of the many educational apps available for kids of all ages and in multiple languages. Audio Books and engaging interactive games are fantastic tools for learning through play and they are particularly helpful for children who are growing up with more than one language.  Applications for toddlers and preschoolers are plentiful, though I have been looking at those for older kids who can really benefit from fun spelling games to improve their literacy skills and from attractive math games to improve their numeracy.

Literacy progress in both languages is now the focus of my son’s bilingual development. He is now a pretty confident speaker and is able to switch from one language to the other with ease, reading is also improving by the day –though he is still more confident reading in Italian. Spelling and writing however still need a lot of practice. 

Besides the fun based iPhone apps and the resources available online that are predominantly solitary activities, I am a fan of board games, which make learning not only fun but a sociable experience too.  As well as what is available on the market – and there is a lot, Scrabble for starters is a great game to improve spelling – I like to make my own and I often involve my son in the process turning the game making into a craft. Lately we have made two games: a fun image led board game to play with 2 or more children who move along the board spelling the names of the images they meet on their journey and an Alphabet Bingo.

The alphabet bingo is made of recycled workbooks and magazines from where we cut the colourful letters, which we glued to blue thick paper. The main board has the alphabet letters in the correct sequence and the individual cards contain 10 scrambled letters each spelling 2 or more names of animals.

I am particularly keen on the alphabet bingo as you can really change it to suit your needs and make it more difficult as you go along just adding new cards spelling more names or you can just use it with younger children who are learning the ABC.

I was impressed the first time we played the game when my son found an additional name on one of the cards. I had scrambled the letters to spell “elephant”, “pig” and “hen” and he found the word “eagle” as well, which was completely unintentional from my part.