It has been 6 months since I last brought you our favourite app recommendations, and in that time we have been busy discovering lots more so I thought it was about time that I brought you our new recommendations of 10 great kids apps! Many of the apps in the previous post we are still using and enjoying, so do check out that list too if you missed it the first time around. This time I have split the apps into literacy, numeracy, and play and imagination categories.
Literacy
This is an app I’ve been really excited to start trying out with the boys. It has so many books inside it, and they are presented in such a fun way within different worlds. The app is free to download and allows you one free story per day within that, but with a subscription you can have unlimited access. We have been given a 3 month subscription in order to try this app, and so far I think it’s great! There will also be a giveaway coming up for one of you to win a subscription so keep a look out for that.
From the stories we have tried so far, I was really impressed with the amount of variety. There is a preschool playground with many books for very young toddlers to help build vocabulary and there are also books for much more advanced readers. I really like that there are stories from different cultures too.
Jonty the Dinosaur Who Could Not Go to Sleep
This is a charming story app for young children, with plenty of interactivity, soothing music and beautiful illustrations. We really enjoyed this and you can read our full review here.
Kindle App – Hugo the star fish E-book
The Kindle App shouldn’t be overlooked as a usual app for children. There is a wealth of children’s e-books available. Recently we tried out a book from the Hugo the Happy Starfish series: Good Friends – The Island of Tolerance
This is a simple and sweet story for young children and what I really like about it the most is the strong and clear message, all about tolerance and acceptance of differences in others. This is something I am always keen to emphasise to them. I would never like to see any of them excluding others because of their looks or because of any differences, just as I would hate to see any of my boys being shunned by children because of their differences. As a mixed race family, with a different religion to the majority, the children having unusual Arabic names and Mr T having special needs, it is something we may encounter at some point. I hope not though, and this is the type of book which helps to weed out these negative attitudes from an early age.
Hugo is a little starfish who is hoping to find some new friends, but when anyone comes along who does not look the same as him he quickly rejects them! Towards the end of the story, he learns that this is not the right attitude. There are 10 Hugo the starfish books within the series and you can find out more at mystarfish.org
Twinkl Phonics
The Twinkl Phonics suite was mentioned within my resources to help your child with reading but it deserves another mention here as a very comprehensive phonics app. It is a fun and effective way to support your child’s literacy and is suitable for pre-readers of about 3 years old up to early readers of around 6 years old. Look out for a giveaway of this app soon over on my Facebook page. Find out more on the Twinkl website.
Numeracy
Eggy Numbers 1-100 from Reading Eggs Apps.
We recently tried out the Mathseeds programme from Reading Eggs, which is great for children of age 6 and under. If you have are interested in giving that a go, click the link for our full review and promotional code to give you free access to an extended trial.
As Mr Z is very good at maths, he didn’t find Mathseeds quite challenging enough for him so I have been looking for some more maths apps to keep him occupied. Eggy Numbers 1-100 is aimed at age 5-8 years and is a new app in the Reading Eggs range. I was not sure whether this would be challenging enough for him, but actually it is quite challenging as there is a lot of speed involved in the games so it encourages children to develop their quick thinking. There are 6 games included, each with different difficulty levels. The games are:
- Balloons
- Dot 2 Dot
- Estimation
- Gridlock
- Space Bugs
- Fishy Fishy
The concepts involved are quite simple, such as multiples and differences but because you have to think and answer fast, it keeps you on your toes. See the video below for more.
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Splash Math
Splash Math is a set of apps that I came across when looking for something more challenging for Mr Z. There are 6 apps, aimed at different levels from grade 1-5, plus “kindergarten.” These are based on the American school system, so UK readers should be aware that it may differ from our school curriculum. Personally, that’s not a huge issue and so far I have been really impressed with Splash Math. We currently have the free versions and Mr Z is mainly using grade 3 and 4. This free version will allow the child to preview maths topics and complete a certain amount of questions before it cuts you off for the day, but I am thinking of buying the complete version at some point as it offers so much learning in a fun way. Mr Z often asks me if he can play this, which has to be a good thing! You can find out more at Splashmath.com
Character, Imagination & Play
This is a great new app which includes cutting edge augmented reality features, something which is new in children’s iPad apps and definitely has a wow factor to it. It also has 3 games for children to enjoy. Well made apps featuring children’s favourite characters are almost guaranteed to be a hit and this definitely didn’t disappoint. You can read our full review here.
I – imagine
I recently reviewed this for Babyworld and was quite impressed with it. This is a free app, and the quality of the graphics and interactivity is amazing. The app enables you to design characters to resemble your child and family members, and to record your voice so that it will be played at appropriate times during the story.
Read the reviews for this app on Babyworld or download free from the app store
Toca Pet Doctor
We have a few Toca Apps and they are great for Mr R (age 2). This one involves caring for a variety of sick animals and is pretty easy and intuitive for even a young child to use. In this app there are 15 animals in need of some TLC from their pet doctor, each one is treated in a different way – for example untying a knot in a poor worm who has got tangled, or soothing a bird who has bumped his head. You also get to feed the animals food, and once they have been treated they go to sleep.
Like all of the apps we have tried from Toca Boca, it is a pretty simple concept but very well made and engaging for little ones. You can download the game here from the app store.
Turbo Fast & Sonic Racing
Mr Z would not be impressed if I did not include these two apps in the fun section. They may not be as educational as some, but these are his two favourite games for the iPad and he really enjoys playing these as a treat. The graphics on both are great, and they really do grip and entertain him. He would recommend them to any other children around his age (5 years old)
Turbo Fast is a free game on the app store. Be aware that there are in app purchases of tomatoes which your child can buy to customise their snail which helps them to progress through the stages quicker. Mr Z is extremely keen on getting extra tomatoes so we have turned the in-app purchases off, otherwise he would happily spend all his money on this! If your child is a Turbo fan who enjoys gaming, you may also be interested in our review of Turbo Super Stunt Squad for Xbox 360.
Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing is a paid app but at £2.49 there is a lot in it to keep children entertained, with 25 missions and 3 grand prix cups. It’s good to see classic characters like Sonic remaining popular with the next generation!
Which apps would you recommend for children? Are there any here which have caught your eye? Let me know in the comments!
Disclaimer: Some (not all) of the paid apps included were given to us free so that we could review. However, I retain full editorial control over which apps to include in our top 10s. I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.
Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.
I love the dinosaur who won’t go to sleep!! This is a great post – we are always looking for new apps…we try not to rely on the ipad too much but I like to know there are good things for them when they do have time on it so this is perfect. Bookmarking this! Thank you.
Great selection. We don’t have any of these but we do use the Kurio for things like Reading Eggs.
I’m hearing a lot about Twinkl Phonics recently, it sounds very supportive, Turbo fast looks and sounds real fun.
What a great round up. I think the Twinkl stuff looks really good. I wouldn’t have thought t use my Kindle for kids books, I will now x
There are some lovely apps here, Bud is really starting to use them more and more so round ups like this are a good source of ideas for me.
These all look amazing – I don’t even know where to start with them all 🙂 Thanks for sharing them with us. I think I may ask hubby to decide which we should try first!
A great selection here, like others I’ve heard a bit about Twinkl recently. Some good app ideas 🙂
such a great post, I’m always on the look out for new apps! have you heard of Dr Panda? Wilf LOVES it! x
I had one ages ago called Playful Minds – Maths. I was great for 5-8 years and 6yo loved it.
I like the sound of the Twinkl phonics app in particular; I am on a course about helping to teach your child with reading and the next session (which I sadly have to miss due to a more important commitment) is actually about phonics and he has recently been referred to SALT, although we are still awaiting on an appointment so this sounds particularly useful.
Some great ideas. I didn’t realise Twinkl and Reading Eggs did Apps, will have to get downloading!
We don’t have an ipad so don’t have any apps for the kids. I like the sound of Twinkle and I know Fran would love the Tree Foo Tom app, she spends most days dressed up as him doing her own version of big world magic!
What a great round up, I would love to try out the twinkl phonics for F as he suddenly got really interested in letters and words. x
My children really don’t use apps. as much as they could do. They like screens, we’ll have to explore some of those 🙂
Mine love Toca and Turbo. Toca robots is the fave!
These all look great and although I know twinkl is an amazing website I never knew they had an app so thank you very much
I am a big fan of Twinkl but I didn’t know that they also have an app. I will definitely be looking this up. We haven’t really explored the world of apps yet so I have pinned for us to start exploring. We are huge Tree Fu Tom fans so this will definitely be another one we will be trying. Thanks for the recommendations.
We didn’t try some of them.
Thank you for the suggestion.
What some great sounding applications – thank you so much for the lovely suggestions. 🙂
The kids are always on the look out for new apps, will share a few of these with them!
These are some great apps i haven’t heard of. I can’t wait for my kiddos to try them. Thank you so much for linking up with us at The MaMade Blog Hop!
ive had the turbo one for a while now and i infact love it too lol, I secretly even have it on my phone haha x no joke x
Interesting, the only one we have out of all these is the eggy words one and the boys aren’t big fans. Will have to check out some of the others x
What a great selection Anna. Love the idea of Jonty the dinosaur that won’t go to sleep – bit like my 3 YO! Must have a look at some of these, we don’t have any 🙂
These look great, my son would love the Tree Fu Tom one 🙂
This is a really great post, I am always on the look out for new apps. The only one we have from your list is the Toca one, we have all the Toca’s – the kids absolutely love them!
This is a really useful post. I am often thinking that I want to get another app for the kids…for example when they are ill or when we are going on a long car journey…and it is hard to know what to go for. I shall come back to this post when I next feel the need to get another one!!
We had until recently had loads of the Toca ones.My 5 year old is always takes loads of photos, so I got rid of them.She is really into the Cbeebies app at the moment, Alphablocks being her favourite.I’ll take a look at the Twinkl and Reading Egg ones I think.
Thanks for sharing these – the eggy numbers looks great but I can’t find an app for android sadly 🙁 My favourite app for the kids is Lickety Split as it gets them doing things quickly with its timers and countdowns, it is my saviour!
I love reading reviews of apps as I’m always on the look out for new ones for my son to help his learning. He relies a lot on his iPad as he has autism and the apps help him absorb new vocabulary and concepts.
Thanks for sharing these – I like to read trusted reviews before letting my kids loose on Apps!
Thanks for the advice on apps I will have a closer look with the children and pick a couple for them to try.
thanks for sharing, more interesting!
Annie loves the sonic racing game, but she is useless at driving and it can take her 20 minutes to make a lap!!
Wow, this helping me much! I’m so confused to find any apps that fit and will make my son learning but also having fun! I’m thinking to get The Turbo Fast for my son. He loves gaming =D
This is a really great roundup 🙂 I shall certainly be referring to it for some downloads for Grace 🙂 Thank you for linking to PoCoLo x
I love posts like this as the app store is so full of kids apps that look great but are rubbish, or vice versa, and it’s awful when the kids have been bugging me to download something that looks ace, and then it’s not! I’m also on the lookout for a maths app for my eldest so shall have a look at splash math today. #blogclub
My son wants to check out now Jonty the dinosaur and Hugo the starfish, and I’d like to get Twinkl Phonics to help him with his English. Our favourite app so far is La luna. It’s charming, entertaining, and a must if you like cinema. I recommended it on my blog: http://abilingualbb.blogspot.com.es/2013/12/reach-for-stars-with-la-luna.html
Best regards from Barcelona,
Marta
Hi again! I have sent my email to be an email subscriber, but I haven’t received your confirmation e-mail. I’ve tried twice :C Can you add me to your list, please?
jonty dino -supercute
I’ve download Farfaria last week and it happened to be kid’s recent favorite. SimpleK12