Best Android Apps for Homeschool

One of the attractions of Android phones and tablet is the huge selection of apps to choose from. I've found a few educational apps that I really enjoy, so I thought I'd share them for homeschooling parents who are looking for interactive activities and games.

I've also included lists of free and paid apps that might be great for homeschooling! These include Android apps and games for science, math, history, geography, and more.

(Left) Motorola Xoom Android Tablet

Page updated 11/28/11

Great Math Practice, for all Grades!

The Math Workout app is a great math application for both kids and adults!

Traditionally kids in grade 3 learn their times tables, and the math workout application has a tool to help them with this! It has "Times Table Master" which allows you to select which number you are up to, and it will display questions up to that number. This is a fun alternative to flashcards!

The easy mode is great for elementary school age kids who are learning addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It keeps track of how many questions you get wrong, and how long it took you to answer a set of questions. You can change the number of questions per set. The default is 20, but you can reduce it to just 10 questions, which might be helpful for kids.

The medium and hard modes have harder problems, like multiplying 2-digit numbers. These modes are great for middle school and high school kids who'd like to improve their mental math abilities. These levels can be unlocked by doing really well on the easy level, or by paying for the Pro version which is only $2.03. To unlock the medium level without paying, you have to answer 20 questions in 23 seconds, which is quite difficult.... Some kids might be up to this challenge, but if not, you can pay the two bucks! Paying for the pro version also allows you to set profiles, so that more than one person can use the program and keep track of their high scores....

Math should be fun! I find that this Outnumbered game works best after you've spent some time practicing your math with the Math Workout App.

Outnumbered is a game that displays a number, and then you have to select the numbers that add up to that number. The faster you can do this, the more points you get! Also, if you select all of the same colored squares, you get extra points too.

Outnumbered has many levels, so you can start out on easy and work your way up to harder challenges!

Get notifications of earthquakes, and explore their locations!

Earthquakes are one of the things that fascinate me, so one of the first apps I installed on my smartphone is the Earthquake app. I've set it to notify me about all earthquakes above 5.0 (there are usually a couple each day) and I've been having a lot of fun looking at where they're located.

Since I've been learning a lot about geography, it occurred to me what a great homeschool application this could be! You can see the country and sea names on the map, and you can also see the ocean ridges.

This could be a great homeschool app for teaching: Earth Science, Plate Tectonics, World Geography, The Rim of Fire, Ocean Geography and Current Events.

You can set this application to notify you about all earthquakes, or only those over a certain strength, or only those nearby.