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"The summer is a great time to explore new-to-you iPad apps that you might want to add to the iPads that you have in your classroom. Each day this week I'm going to share a selection of apps appropriate for four ranges of pre-K-12 grades. On Monday I shared 21 apps for Pre-K through 2nd grade. Yesterday, I shared apps 3rd through 5th grade students. Today's list features apps for grades six through eight. "

"My Incredible Body is an iPad app (currently free) designed to help students learn how the human body works. The app features eight sections. Those sections are circulation, muscles, senses (vision, smell, hearing, touch), kidneys & urine, skeleton, respiration, digestion, and brain & nerves. Each section of the app contains short animated videos that explain the functions of each system and how it works."

"iPads are powerful tools for teachers in the classroom. In addition to being robust, mobile creation devices for students, they help you to stay organized, be on top of your classes, create content and lessons, focus on continued learning, and build your PLN. Here are five ways to turn your iPad into a robust, education machine! "

"Of all the apps that students have shared with me over the years, Foldify is probably my favorite. A few years ago one of my my students used it to design a bunch of characters and buildings that he then printed, colored, and folded according to the Foldify print-out. He then used those characters in a video that he made. In his video he and other students provided the voices for each character. Last year Foldify introduced Foldify Zoo for designing and printing animals. This spring Foldify released Foldify Dinosaurs for designing, printing, and constructing dinosaur models."

"A couple of weeks ago at the Future Schools Expo in Sydney I facilitated a workshop about making media with mobile apps. The idea of creating talking pictures was one of the ideas that was a hit with some of the participants in the workshop. In the workshop I shared examples of using ChatterPix Kids to have students create short audio stories about their favorite animals. I also shared an example of using Morfo to create audio biographies in which students give voice to famous people in history. Below is a short summary of both of those apps as well as another app useful for a similar purpose."

"Scratch Jr, the popular programming environment for kids, is now available as an iPad app. Scratch Jr for iPad uses the same drag and drop programming principles used in Scratch. On Scratch Jr students can program multimedia stories and games."

"T-Charts Pros and Cons is a free iPad app designed to help you organize your thoughts about a question or dilemma. This simple app provides a clean layout in which you can write your pros and cons lists. Each thing that you write on your lists can be given a different weight. For example, if you're trying to decide if you should study or go to a party you can give extra weight to "will probably do better on the test if I study" in your chart. Within T-Charts Pros and Cons you can create and manage multiple lists. All of your lists can be emailed to friends for their input and feedback."

"Math Slicer is an iPad app that presents a fun alternative to using flashcards to practice basic mathematics skills. In Math Slicer students are shown addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems that they have to answer by "slicing" the correct answer in half. The answer choices jump up on the screen and students have to slice them before they disappear."

"Stick Around is a new iPad app developed by Tony Vincent and Morris Cooke (the developer of the popular Explain Everything app). Stick Around gets its name of the sticker element of the app. The app contains educational puzzles that students solve by dragging stickers into the correct locations on the puzzles. The puzzles are essentially matching activities that can be customized by the teachers. The best aspect of the app is that teachers can create their own puzzles"

"For years Jenny Eather's A Maths Dictionary for Kids has been a favorite resource of mine and many other teachers for years. Maths Charts by Jenny Eather is the iPad companion to the website. Math Charts by Jenny Eather provides simple and clear definitions of math terms. Each definition includes a diagram to illustrate the term's definition. You can print any and all of the visuals included in the app."

"Have you recently updated your iPad to iOS 8? Have your students' iPads been updated to iOS 8? If so, Tony Vincent has a great overview of some of the "hidden" features of the iOS 8 that teachers and students will find to be helpful to them. Tony's video is embedded below."

"For the last 18 months Google has allowed you to upload your own PDFs and EPUB files to your personal Google Books account. Unfortunately, you could only access those uploaded files through a web browser or on the Google Books Android app. That has changed with the latest update to Google Play Books for iPad. The latest update to Google Play Books for iPad enables you to read your uploaded files through the app."

"In the year that I taught language arts before moving into the social studies department one of the challenges that my students faced in writing short stories was coming up with ideas to get started. I held a lot of brainstorming sessions with those students. Today, there are lots of apps that can help students generate creative story ideas. Here are five worth taking a look at."

"Notezilla is a neat iPad app that features sheet music synchronized to recordings. As you listen the recording the sheet music scrolls along. You can choose to see a red line moving to indicate the notes being played or choose to not see the red line at all. You can select sections of a recording to hear and see in your Notezilla library."

"One of the great things about the iPad in a classroom is that it enables students to pinch and zoom to see artworks in more detail than they would find in most text books. The following five apps allow students to do that and more."

"Rugged Rovers is a free iPad app in which students can create simple designs for space rovers. Students draw a design for their rovers then add up eight wheels to it before taking it for a virtual test drive. Students test their rover designs by driving them across a Mars spacescape."