A notepad. A calendar. A good dictionary. A graphing calculator. Lots of books. An encyclopedia. Flashcards.

All supplies that kids need for school, right? That would take up a lot of space in a backpack, but luckily there’s an app for that. Your kids likely have an iPod… maybe even an iPhone. Take full advantage of it by loading it with a handful of apps geared towards students.

A notepad.	Simplenote	Sometimes you just have to jot down a few notes on the fly. Simplenote let you do this, and then automatically synchronizes with your computer and other devices. You can add tags to make the notes easy to search, and even share them with others.	FREE
A calendar.	Cozi Family Organizer	iCal is great and all, but sometimes you have to keep the rest of your family in mind, especially when it comes to mom driving you here and there. The Cozi iPhone app allows you to ffortlessly manage your family calendar, shopping lists, and to do lists, and keep your family journal updated with special moments and photos.	$1.99
A good dictionary.	Wordbook English Dictionary and Thesaurus	Having a good dictionary is essential when it comes to all the reading and writing your kids do in school. This particular app has 150,000 entries, a built-in Thesaurus, Web links and even spoken pronunciations. And it’s fast!	$1.99
A graphing calculator.	PI83 Graphing Calculator	I remember my mom stressing over having to buy me a $90 calculator my freshman year of high school. The PI83 Graphing Calculator app is designed to replace the TI83 graphing calculator, and with over 100 different math functions, it does a good job of that, making expensive and bulky graphing calculators a thing of the past!	$0.99
Lots of books.	Stanza	This was one of the first apps I downloaded to my iPod touch. Having over 50,000 books available at your fingertips… for free! How exciting is that? You’ll find all the classics that are on your kid’s school reading lists, and can buy popular new books as well.	FREE
An encyclopedia.	Wikipanion	You can find just about anything by browsing Wikipedia. Wikipanion provides a dedicated search box for this purpose. I like the bookmarking feature that lets you bookmark entire pages, as well as individual sections. Images can be saved quickly and easily to the Photo library for future reference	FREE
Flashcards.	iFlipr	Create your own flashcards and carry them with you everywhere! Importing your notes is easy – just copy and paste from a spreadsheet. Then add pictures and sounds, edit fonts and font-sizes, highlight, and make lists in a WYSIWYG editor.	$4.99

It may not be something you want to encourage your kids to buy, but did you know that CliffsNotes are now available on the iPhone as well? $1.99 each. (I probably bought WAY too many of those in high school!)

What apps are on your back-to-school supply list?

About the author

Mariana Perez wrote 21 articles on this blog.

A Texas transplant living the suburbs of Washington, DC, she's a stay-at-home mom to two active little girls and understands the importance of finding #dBest parenting and tech products out there! While her kids are napping you can often find her tweeting @ohMariana and writing at Riding With No Hands, where she shares hundreds of reviews of products her family loves. When she’s not blogging or taking care of her girls, she loves to do crossword puzzles, watch TV, and dabble in photography and web design.

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