Seashores to Sea Floors {App Review}

I’m back with another app review from Mobile Education Store!  Kyle knocked my socks off with the Pines to Vines app that I reviewed back in December, so I was super excited to get my hands on Seashores to Sea Floors, another in the Crack the Books series!

Seashores to Sea Floors is similar to Pines to Vines, but it is all about the ocean…a favorite topic of mine!  Often the ocean is a mystery, so the kids seem to always love learning about it, especially the animals!  When you open the app, you are greeted with this menu.  From here, you can access any part of the app you need!  

If you click  the Media button, a submenu will show up where you can access the manual, videos, glossary, student notes, and teacher resources.  Obviously, you should hit the manual if you are a first time user!  Once you are schooled on all the cool features in this app, it’s time to get to learning!  Let’s start with reading!

You can add different students to app and it will create an individualized bookmark for that user…super nice because then your student can pick up right where they left off!  When you open this part of the app, you are prompted to choose a user and the app takes you to where you need to go.  

When you are ready to read, you can choose 1 of 5 levels which are based on Lexile.  A chart with the app’s reading levels and Lexile bands/grade levels is included in the app if you aren’t sure where you should start your student.  

What I really love about the Crack the Books apps is how engaging they are for my readers…especially the ones who struggle!  You can choose whatever level they are on, without compromising the quality of information they are getting.  It’s absolutely amazing!  The photographs change as you scroll through the text and you can click on content vocabulary to hear the word and read the definition.  There is also the option for students to take notes right from the page!  Awesome!  

The Photo Gallery has all of the photos that you can use for previewing the text or just for going back and reviewing.  Each picture can be expanded to full view and there is a little blurb for it.  

As if the photos aren’t enough, there are also videos on various topics related to the text!

One of the coolest features is an interactive map, which you can turn, and click to get more information about the world’s oceans.  This is really awesome, probably the favorite of my students.  

There is a full settings menu, which allows you to adjust text size, reading text, reading the test questions, diction, etc.  You can also sync app info to your Dropbox!

When you are ready to check comprehension, students can take a test!  You select the test, the level, and set the student’s profile. 

The test items vary, from true and false, labeling (as shown above), to short answers.  All of the data is stored in the student’s profile and you can sync to Dropbox or save within the app.

Overall, I love this app just as much as the other one I reviewed like it!  It has many uses in the therapy room, especially for targeting literacy skills and vocabulary, but you can also use it as curriculum based therapy for articulation, voice, and fluency therapy!  The look and feel of it is unlike anything else I’ve seen, plus the fact that it is so interactive, makes it a winner with my students.

Kyle, the main man over at Mobile Education Store, is also running a a Kickstarter Fundraiser to help support his Crack the Books series of apps, please check it out and consider supporting him…he has really supported the speech community with provided us with SO many great speech and language apps to use with our students!  Go check out the video HERE.

Seashores to Sea Floors – The Ocean Biome is available on iTunes for $18.99 (at the time of this review)

Don’t forget to let me know what you think of these fabulous apps!  How do you think you could you use these in your therapy room?  I feel like the possibilities are endless!