Since your child is old enough to play on a phone or tablet, why not give them an app that’s more stimulating and challenging? There’s a growing trend of fun apps designed for educational and creative play so here’s a few of our favorite games built to encourage, learn, and explore!
Pretty Pet Math uses a Frogger-style game to quiz kids on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Players need to guide their Pretty Pet across a busy street and into the gate with the correct answer. This makes for a good mix of entertaining gameplay and actual mathematical problem solving. In addition, the touch control system helps younger players develop eye-hand coordination.
Read Me Stories is an app that never gets old because a new read-along picture book is added every day. All stories contain colorful, engaging graphics, and the words highlight as they are read, making it easy for kids to follow along while improving their reading and pronunciation abilities. The app is free and comes with a free story a day; in-app purchases of $0.99 – $1.99 unlock additional story collections.
Funbrain Jr. is a collection of fun, educational, skill-building games for kids in preschool and kindergarten. The mini-games cover everything from pattern recognition to the ABCs. The fact that Funbrain Jr. has a variety of in-game activities means it can keep kids enthralled for longer than most games. It’s a great way to keep kids stimulated on a long trip or any other time they may get bored. Although this app requires very little parental oversight some parents may be frustrated that it lacks any sort of report card feature.
Music4Babies serves as a great musical introduction if you want your child to one day play an instrument. It explores the basics of reading music, pitch, and arranging notes. It also allows your young maestro to make songs of their own with labeled notes. The app is open-ended and doesn’t have any built-in lessons, so it may require some guidance on your part, but it remains a great way for kids to begin exploring music.
Math vs. Zombies 2 is a math app that has lots of features for both students and parents. It includes 7 mini-games that explore concepts like counting, greater/less than, and multiplication. The app is designed for kids age 5-11 so the later levels can get pretty challenging. Especially relevant for parents is the report card feature, which tracks progress against Common Core standards.
