High-quality apps you can feel good about using with your child.
Librarians have been giving advice about how to make choices in media forever! Books, music, movies... Apps are simply another form of media to hit the market and for families that are choosing to use apps with their kids, it can feel overwhelming deciding which apps to choose.
There are a number of great resources about using apps with kids. Here are a few favorites:
- Family Time with Apps
- Apps en Familia
- iPad apps and your Pre-Reader
- Tips for using screen media with young children from Zero to Three
Read to start browsing apps? Check out our most recent app reviews below:
With all of the hype about the recent Barbie movie, why not try out a Barbie coloring app? In the free version of this app, users can color a limited number of Barbie illustrations (including a Barbie with an artificial leg and vitiligo).
By the same folks that brought us the Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls books, now you can listen to the stories through an app! Stories of women and girls from long ago or from right now, from artists and activists, to scientists and athletes, and from all over the world.... there's a wide variety of stories to explore. In the spirit of "good night" some of the stories are told in a slower,…
If you know a young kiddo that loves trains then this is the app for them! Labo Lado actually has several train-adjacent apps, but this one is my favorite because of the option for kids to draw their own train cars! Players start the game by creating a train. They can choose from pre-made train cars (lots of silly options like a birthday cake car or a watermelon car, plus some more…
Got a kiddo who needs a little extra help speaking words? Sago Mini has worked with a team of speech-language pathologists to create this beautifully simple, kid-friendly speech therapy app. First, users will choose a general topic (e.g. animals, letter sounds, etc.) and within that category there are different exercises for individual words (e.g.
If you love Wordle and you think your child might enjoy it too, if it weren't for some of those really obscure vocabulary words.... try Spellie! Just like Wordle, Spellie isn't found in the app store, it's available for free, on the web and you can play whenever you'd like! Spellie has an easy (4-letters, one hint already given) mode, medium and hard mode. When you solve a word on Easy…
Daniel Tiger helps parents navigate challenging situations with kids, this app helps parents navigate the shows! Many thanks to the dad who told me about this app in a conversation at the library. If your family has watched Daniel Tiger and later wants to remember the song for a particular topic, this app is the perfect tool to find it quickly and easily.
A multiplayer strategy game with lots of options to customize preferences. In this game, players can choose what sort of garden they want to play in (a kitchen garden or a bed of tulips), how many players (1-4) and whether they are real people sharing this app with you or whether you want to play against one or more "computer players," which language you want to play in (English, Dutch or…
An incredible exploration and playground of light and color for all ages! Tinybop (one of my favorite app developers) has come out with a new app and it's all about color and light, but explored in six different ways that were deeply engaging even for this adult reviewer.
Do you have loved ones who live far away or who can't visit you in person as often as they'd like? Try out Caribu. Both parties download the app and then you call each other in the app. Choose a book to read together or a page to color together or one of the fun, kid-friendly simple games to play. You'll be able to see a video of the other caller while you're reading (or coloring or…
Because it's nearly impossible to accurately represent the sizes of countries (on a round planet) on a flat map, the world maps that we are accustomed to seeing are distorted. This app is a great way to get a real sense of how large different areas of the world actually are. Simply tap and hold on the country you'd like to explore (or state in the US) and it will highlight in a color.
Letter Rooms is a word scramble game with a few unique twists. Shift letter tiles around to spell the word that answers each clue. As you progress in the game, new challenges (like letters you can turn on and off or toggle through some different letter options) will appear. The letters are in white against a colored background. Fun note-- if you put the letters in alphabetical order you'll…
Videos real people signing common sentences. Watch the short videos, practice the signs yourself, then play a game where you have to identify which signed sentence the person in the video is signing. The videos include a wide variety of ages, races and abilities. In addition to the sentences being signed and written out on the screen, there is also a voiceover speaking the sentence and small…