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:
The original Hideout app was one of my first reviews for this site. Amazingly, that app is still around and has had elements added to the original "treehouse" to make it even bigger. Now, there's also another Hideout app called "Flying Kitchen" that features a (you guessed it!) flying "kitchen" and four new…
A pleasing simple music creation app by the band, Lullatone. This app features a grid of 30 grey raindrop images. When you tap a raindrop, it makes a sound and turns a color (that drop only ever makes that particular sound and turns that particular color). Over the next six seconds, the color fades, but the color and sound will repeat every six seconds until you reset the…
A simple but surreal matching game with a draw-your-own option. In this game, first choose your language (English, French, Spanish or German), then match the colored shape (based on a pear shape, but with extra bits added) to an outline that will make it into an animal (or just enjoy the funny juxtaposition of two mis-matched images superimposed on top of each other!).
A story-starter, in French or English! With simple design, this app allows players to mix and match phrases to make sentences from the sublime to the ridiculous. If you hit the button in the top right corner, you can hear sounds associated with each of the phrases ("kisses" gets a kissing sound, "a star" gets a sweet little chiming note), sort of an aural "reading" of the mini story you'…
A charming sing-along (or read-along) app based on the song (and board book) "Skeletitos" with the catchy chorus, "tumba-laca, tumba-laca, tumba, tumba..." It's a song about Dia de los Muertos, skeletons, and telling time and the illustrations (as well as the song) are full of beautiful Latinx cultural elements.
A news app specifically designed for kids. Each day, 5 new articles are posted with topics ranging from human interest (it's right before Halloween as I'm writing this review and today's top story is about a candy maker) to world news (there's also an article about the presidential election in Argentina). When you click on a story, you can read the text in English, Spanish, French…
Similar in format to Sago Mini Road Trip or Sago Mini Airplanes, in Trains players must first choose which train they want to use. Their chosen train appears on the next screen at one of six train stations that are around the track that runs through this game. The track runs through several different types of landscapes (icy cold, big city, camp ground, farm, etc.) with a single pleasant…
A spooky, Halloween version of the Where is my Hat? app reviewed earlier on this site. The hats are spookier, the costumes are costume-ier and there are spiders in their webs in the corners of this app, but other than that, it's pretty much the same as the original, but... it's free! Once again, my favorite part about this app is the built in 2-player option, the impulse control…
A classic favorite that apparently I've never reviewed for this site before, but perfect for October!
Little Kitten is back for more adventures, this time in school! Try out a number of mini-games with Little Kitten and his friends, including matching games, counting games, sorting games, and more.
Sesame Street videos in Spanish! Are you looking for Spanish content for your child? Whether they are learning Spanish or Spanish is their primary language, listening to the Sesame Street videos in Spanish is a great way to get more Spanish language content into your home.
Do you love Mad Libs stories? Here's a new twist! With Yak Libs kids can choose a story, fill in their own words or let the random word generator choose words, and then either read the story out loud themselves (or perhaps more hilariously) have the automated voice (think: Siri or Alexa) read the story out loud for them. Favorite stories can be saved and listened to over and over again…