Best Special Needs App for Chistmas from AppyMall

AppyMall is a great online app community for kids apps. Their site is full of app reviews, lists of free apps (like free apps for autism) and so much more. The following is their list of “Best Special Needs App for Chistmas”.

“There is an ocean of Christmas apps to choose from, but when you are looking for Christmas apps for a special needs child or teen, it becomes a bit more difficult to just pull one from the app store. Whether you are looking for an app to help your child to navigate the season, learn another skill during play, or be able to make a card when they may have difficulty with fine motor, there are great apps for all of it. You just need to know where to look. So, here is 2014’s best Christmas app list to help you out.”

First Words Christmas By Learning Touch LLC (1.99)

First Word Christmas is a great spelling and letter recognition app. We own multiple of their apps and have found them to be helpful in teaching our son seasonal and holiday vocabulary. I love that this app is completely customizable. You can set how long of words you want to allow from 3 to 10 letters in length. You can customized how the child can allow letter to be placed… Correct letter left to right or allow placement in any order. The only thing I felt was lacking, was in the animation after a word was complete. It spins and then their is some auditory sound. I think to make it more engaging, the animation could be a bit more relevant to the object… For example, with the word “dove”; the dove could fly across the screen and tweet. For that, I’m giving it 4 stars. ~Lisa Neely on 2013-12-05 22:10:35 ==> User rating: 4 Recommended: Yes – http://bit.ly/18xCKP9

ClickySticky Christmas Sticker Book By invocore (1.99)

ClickySticky Christmas Sticker Book is an interactive Christmas app, in which children can place and re-size a variety of stickers, then watch them animate in 5 different holiday scenes! The app is easy to navigate, good for fine motor, and a lot of fun for children. There is an open link to other apps by the same developer on the home page, but there are no other links, IAPS, or ads. I highly recommend this app! ~Angie Gorz on 2013-12-06 00:02:44 ==> User rating: 4 Recommended: Yes – http://bit.ly/18xCI9X

Peekaboo Presents By Night & Day Studios, Inc. (1.99)

Peekaboo Presents is another great app from Night and Day. So much fun for early learners and kids learning cause and effect. I love the narration, and the clean graphics. The high contrast is great for low vision kids. The narration is kid friendly and fun. A way to extend play is to try and guess what the gift is, based on the sound. This kicks up the complexity a notch! There are no ads or IAPs. Recommended. ~Jo Booth OT on 2013-12-13 17:35:30 ==> User rating: 4 Recommended: Yes – http://bit.ly/1mdnk5k

More Christmas! By Maverick Software LLC (0.99)

More Christmas! is a fun Christmas tree decorating app! In this app, you tap on the tree on the home page, and choose to start decorating with ornaments, lights, or garland. All have many choices, and with ornaments, you can tap on the ones that are already created in the app, or create your own. When you create your own, you choose the color and also pick from different colors of glitter, pens, or stickers, then save your creations in the app to decorate Christmas trees with. You can choose different lights from white to multi-color, or single color, even blinking. Then, tap your choice and tap the locations you want them to be placed on the tree. The app offers many garland options as well. When your tree is completed, you hit the check mark and it is displayed. Kids can tap on the gifts near the tree and they will open with interactive effects. The graphics in the app are fantastic, with many options, you can save your trees as well, and anything saved in the app can also be deleted. There is an undo button, as well as a button to start over. All links are secured, including the option to share your tree with friends. There are no IAPs or ads. I highly recommend this app for creative play and hours of holiday fun! ~Angie Gorz on 2014-11-21 20:38:09 ==> User rating: 5 Recommended: Yes
– http://bit.ly/1yyLtgm

Gingerbread Doodle By Shoe the Goose (0.99)

Gingerbread Doodle is a fantastic app for encouraging creativity as well as teaching children about cooking, the sequence of events and so much more. Children get to decorate their very own Gingerbread house. First choosing the style of house they wish to create. Then comes adding all of the ingredients which you need to add to the bowl by tapping, tilting, or shaking your device. The list of ingredients gets ticked off each time you add one of them. Then you mix the ingredients together, roll it out and put it in the oven. Once it has finished cooking you tap to cut out the shapes you need to create your house. Place each of the parts in the correct position, and then decorate using different colour frostings, shapes, tips. Decorate with lollies, cookies and other decorations. Then you get to eat it. Each item you add to your design can be made larger or smaller by using the arrows as well as being able to rotate them by dragging your finger around the outer circle. This is a brilliant app which teaches the sequence of compiling the ingredients, right through the cooking process, decorating and then eating it. I highly recommend this app. There are no IAP’s or external links. ~Sharon Turriff on 2014-11-30 18:51:27 ==> User rating: 5 Recommended: Yes – http://bit.ly/1yyzO0W

i Get… Christmas Vocabulary Photo Album Books By I Get It, LLC (2.99)

Christmas Vocabulary Photo Album Books is an app designed to help those with special needs understand things associated with Christmas. The app comes loaded with quite a few books, covering topics such as Christmas (general), “Say Merry Christmas’. “Get Christmas Tree”, “Decorate Inside”, “Bake”, ‘Make a Wishlist”, “Visit Santa”, and much more. In each book, there are real life photos, which the caregiver or app user can record the narration for. Once a page is read, you tap the check mark. This app is extremely versatile. You can add pages, personalize pages, edit pages, use your own photos, and so much more. In addition, the app supports multiple users. This is a fantastic app for providing visual and verbal support for those who need it for what can be a very overwhelming holiday. The app also has a child lock option. There are no ads, IAPs, or unsecured external links ~Angie Gorz on 2014-11-25 21:02:32 ==> User rating: 5 Recommended: Yes – http://bit.ly/1yyLjWn

Toonia Cardcreator: Holidays – Christmas and New Year’s Greeting Cards for Kids By 3fs (0.99)

Toonia Cardcreator: Holidays – Christmas and New Year’s Greeting Cards for Kids is a really neat app that makes it easy for young kids, or those with fine motor issues, to make very customized greeting cards for Christmas. Kids can choose from quite a few background scenes, add different characters, and tap buttons on the circle around them to change the way they look and the expression on their face, add animals, trees, and other holiday decorations. It is easy to delete objects, change their size, move them, or rotate them, which makes this app ideal for young kids or kids with fine motor issues. The link to share the finished creation, using email or social media is locked via a two finger swipe. If it is not shared, it will save to the app as is, and can be changed by the child later. The app has no unsecured links, no ads, and no IAP. I recommend it. ~Angie Gorz on 2014-11-25 21:16:13 ==> User rating: 5 Recommended: Yes – http://bit.ly/1yyMYej

Kids Christmas Snow Globe By Kidoteca (FREE)

Kids Christmas Snow Globe is a simple and fun snow globe app! This app displays a fun Christmas scene and kids can tilt their device to move snow around, or try to manipulate with their hands. Also, the app has a music button at the top left. The app plays Christmas music, but the user can tap the button to change the song. If they tap a 4th time, it turns off the music completely, but they can turn it back on. This is a neat little app for Christmas fun, complete with music, and is good for fine motor and cause and effect. I recommend it. There are no links, ads, or IAPS of any kind. It is completely child safe. ~Angie Gorz on 2014-11-24 21:01:35 ==> User rating: 5 Recommended: Yes – http://bit.ly/1yyOME5

Christmas with Corabelle By LogiTales UG (haftungsbeschraenkt) (1.99)

Christmas with Corabelle is a beautifully illustrated and animated Christmas app for younger children. This app includes a matching section with multiple difficulty levels, in which kids match pictures of Christmas items. There is also a section that covers addition and subtraction, a fun section in which you much toss a ornament into a pot and a Christmas tree appears, a patterns sections, and a section that covers counting and matching the items with numbers. Not only is this a very educational educational app, but is so charming, with snow coming down from top of the screen. Children will love this beautiful app. There are no ads, IAPs, and any links are in a secured parent’s sections. I highly recommend this app. ~Angie Gorz on 2014-11-24 23:09:47 ==> User rating: 5 Recommended: Yes – http://bit.ly/1yyP1iz

I spy a reindeer By Visuals Work (0.99)

I spy a reindeer is a neat holiday app for those with special needs. The app contains a simple Christmas themed story, that focuses on the use of the pronouns “I” and “me”, which can be difficult for some on the Autistic Spectrum. The story stars a reindeer, and each page starts with “I spy a reindeer…”, and the reindeer is doing something different. The app has just a bit of interactivity to keep kids interested, but it is not so much that their sensory systems are overloaded, and the graphics are presented against a white, non-distracting background. The story is narrated as well. Plus, if you choose to, you can add a picture of your child, which appears on the last page. This app would be relevant to emergent readers, who do not have ASD as well. Under help, there are links to 2 websites, but other than that there are no other links, social links, IAPs or ads. I recommend this app. ~Angie Gorz on 2014-11-29 21:31:16 ==> User rating: 4 Recommended: Yes – http://bit.ly/1yyRfhO

Pocket Charts! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Match Game By Good Neighbor Press, Inc (1.99–>0.99)

Christmas Matching Game is a wonderful game that is just like using traditional pocket charts, but with a fun Christmas theme. Kids can match fun Christmas pictures, including snowmen, candy canes, and wreaths! There are no IAPS or ads, and the tiny social link buttons are hidden under another button on the home page. I highly recommend this app for children with special needs, as well as early learners. ~Angie Gorz on 2013-11-30 22:19:36 ==> User rating: 4 Recommended: Yes – http://bit.ly/18cMfmG

Holidays – 4 funny christmas games for kids By Jan Essig (1.99)

Holidays – 4 funny christmas games for kids Holidays – is a neat app for kids, which includes four Christmas games for kids to play. The games include a Christmas version of tic-tac-toe, which can be played alone or with a friend, another game, in which the child is show gift hiding in a sled, and they must keep track of it when the sleds move around. In Whack-a-Mole, hand eye coordination is tested as kids must tap specific Christmas characters as they pop up, but they must match the one at the top of the screen. Santa Says like “Simon Says”, in the child must tap to repeat the sequence of the gifts make, so that fun Christmas characters will pop out. This app is tons of Holiday fun for kids, but there is also learning taking place while they play. This app is good for teaching logic, spatial awareness, problem solving, critical thinking, and more. All links are secured, there are no IAPs or ads. Also, in settings, you can change the app to be an Easter game or a Halloween game when the seasons change. So, it is really several apps in one. I recommend this app for early learners, as well as those working at this level. ~Angie Gorz on 2014-11-30 20:19:39 ==> User  rating: 5 Recommended: Yes– http://bit.ly/1r7j4XH

More Holiday Dinner! By Maverick Software LLC (0.99)

More Holiday Dinner! is a fantastic app for speech, life skills, and more! This app offers kids the ability to make an entire holiday meal in the virtual world, including your choice of a main course, choice of several salads, 3 bread options, as well as several different side dishes, 5 kinds of stuffing, and quite a few desserts, too! In the app, kids choose what they want to make, and they drag each ingredient to the bowl. Some just go in, others need to be poured by holding or tapping, and so on. Once all are in, they mix the ingredients by stirring with their finger, and follow the instructions to pour the mixture into a pan or put it into the oven in its bowl. The oven dings when it is done, and on to another dish! Once the holiday meal is complete, you can choose items from the top of the screen to put on a plate and eat them up by tapping on the plate, and even have seconds. This is an excellent app for following directions, sequencing, eliciting speech, life skills, and much more. The app does show other apps by this developer, but they are all secured. There are no IAPs, ads, or social links. I highly recommend this app. ~Angie Gorz on 2014-11-18 22:17:48 ==> User rating: 5 Recommended: Yes – http://bit.ly/11ptxIj

With so many Christmas Apps to choose from we had to split them into different groups. Check out our other Christmas Blogs

– Best Educational Apps for Christmas

– Best ‘Just for Fun’ Apps for Christmas

– Best Book Apps for Christmas

Reprinted from AppMall! Visit their site at http://www.appymall.com/blog/ ,