FREE App Today: Pocket Zoo with Live Web Cams

Thanks to Lorraine Akemann of Moms With Apps for organizing another great App Friday- today Pocket Zoo with Live Web Cams is FREE on the iTunes store. This app allows you to navigate a virtual zoo (by clicking on a map), read information about each animal, hear their animal sounds, and access web cams of selected animal habitats at zoos. Web cams of course are hit or miss- sometimes you see the animal, sometimes you see an empty habitat, zoo staff or, if it's night, nothing. But this is still a very cool feature to be able to access ("try" might be the word to use with your students, especially if they are meltdown-prone) from your device.

Click on the sound icon to hear the animals' sounds.

Beavers!

Language Lens:
Animals are a great context to elicit language from any age group. In this app, the organization of the zoo would be an opportunity to elicit spatial and temporal concepts (Who do you want to visit first? Next?). Seeing the animals in "action" provides for richer description. This app could skew towards older students as well, with exploration of the text and possible use of graphic organizers, etc.