Freebies and Fun Things

I've been out of the loop for a couple of weeks.  Two weeks ago the boys had a terrible bout of viral bronchitis and last week the kids and I went out of town, so the post that's been brewing in my mind is finally being typed out : ).

Recently a mommy friend of mine sent me a message saying that she had just bought a Kindle Fire for her son and wondered what apps we had/which ones we liked.  When I responded she told me I could totally do a blog post about it.  So here we are.

Let's start with book/app freebies, inspired by my friend Michelle Repolles...who just happens to be an incredible photographer (she took the pic of my hubby and I to the right).  : )

apps
Here are some of the apps that we've gotten that I really enjoy.  Most are for the kiddos...but sometimes I enjoy playing with them, too.  And the majority of them are free.  Pretty much all of them, because my daughter's Kindle Fire came automatically with free "coins" that you can use to purchase apps with. We purchased apps with the coins that gave you more coins for purchasing that particular app...so we earned more coins!
Games
Frozen Free Fall, Minion Rush, Sonic Dash, Ice Age Village, Smurf's Village, Pet Spa and Salon, Smoothie Maker, Angry Birds Star Wars, Kid Doodle, My Little Pony, Chug Patrol: Ready to Rescue (Chuggington), Wreck-It Ralph, Thomas and Friends, Nemo's Reef, Watch Disney Jr
Educational
PBS, Brain Pop and Brain Pop Jr (We LOVE these!), Preschool All-in-one learning, Phonics Island--ABCs, Food Puzzle for Preschool Kids, Spelling Bee Genius (you can plug in spelling words--it'll read them to you and you have to type them out.  I love this for my 1st grader!), The Electric Company, WordGirl Superhero (my daughter loves this one), 50 States (gives info on each state...pretty neat!), Dr. Panda, Teach Me!, Draw N Learn, All About Learning Press app for phonics, Splash Math
*I've seen some advertisements for a Wallykazam! app that looks really cute and educational...don't know the cost or how good, but it looked cute.
I love a GeoBee app I got for my Iphone. It was free...too hard for my kids right now, but it's a great challenge for me!  I'm a geography nerd anyway ; ).
Book apps/ebooks for kids
The Cat in the Hat storybook app (I picked up several Seuss book apps on Seuss' birthday for a discounted price)
The Smurf's 2 movie storybook, The Sleeping Beauty (interactive storybook), Just Me and My Mom (Mercer Meyer storybook app), Bible for Kids, Bible Stories for Children;
I love the Brenda Ponnay books and alphabet flashcards...so cute!
We have several of the "I Love Reading" books which have a lot of real-life titles about things like puppies, kits (baby rabbits), starfish, etc.--all free
Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown
Ronnie Wilson's Gift by Francis Chan
Jake Bakes Cakes by Gerald Hawksley
Discover Series books: birds, farm animals, fruit, etc.

Many of the free books (you find those by searching "free kindle books for kids" or terms like that) I don't particularly love, but occassionally you'll find some cute ones.  Here are some children's authors I really love...but you could also look up "Caldecot Medal books" for award winning illustrations and "Newberry Award books" for chapter books:
Chris Van Allsburg
Lois Ehlert
Eric Carle
Simms Taback
Patricia Polacco
Robert Munsch

There's so many good ones!  These are just a few...and sorry if I spelled a few wrong!

Now on to book freebies for grown-ups!  I honestly primarily read Christian fiction books, but some of the free sites will offer secular books as well.  I subscribe to "Bookbub" and get a daily email with freebies.  You can choose what genre you like and it'll send you an email accordingly.  There's also lots of facebook pages you can "like" to find daily ebook deals.  But honestly, I've often found a lot of freebies or reduced priced books on Amazon on my own.  Often I just search the publishing company of choice.  For example, one publishing company I like is Bethany House.  So on Amazon I type "Bethany House Kindle free Kindle books" and it'll pull up a page of that publisher's freebies.  You can do this for any publisher.  Or you can type in, "free Kindle books" and wade through a LOT of them.  Also, when I find out about a free book, I often look at the bottom of the Amazon page and it'll say something like, "others who bought this book also bought..." and I'll scroll through it.  A lot of times if someone else finds one free book, they've found others....then it'll show up.  Another tip I've found is searching specific author's books you like...sometimes the publisher will reduce several of their books for one or two days only...you can buy several books for a discount...or free!  One last thing..."like" your favorite authors' pages on facebook. Often I will see posts in my newsfeeds from different author's telling about discounts on their books.  And sometimes one author may help promote another author that writes similar books if there's a sale.  Gotten several goodies that way, too.  If you really like reading and writing reviews, you can also sign up to be a book reviewer for different publishing companies and receive free books in order to read and review them.  I do this with Bethany House, but other publishing companies and authors do this!  It's a lot of fun!

So I won't leave you without a little treat...here's some of the latest freebies for Kindle (not sure about Nook) to add:
Janette Oke "Once Upon a Summer"
Leslie Gould "Courting Cate"
Tracie Peterson "Treasures of the North"
Mary Connealy "Out of Control"
Jen Turano "Gentleman of Her Dreams"
Ann Gabhart "The Scent of Lilacs"
Suzanne Woods Fisher "The Choice"
Maggie Brendan "No Place For a Lady"
Lorna Seilstad "Making Waves"

 I know this post is getting long, but I wanted to add one more Free Resource if your kids like art.  I LOVE this site!! It's called Art for Kids and it is truly kid-friendly.  Here is a video from the site. There are videos and step by step instructions on how to draw all kinds of things!  There's also art supply reviews/info as well as sculpting and painting tutorials.

I realize that I'm not able to include everything I want to in one post...so we'll have to do this again.  Stay tuned! : )