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Best Apps for Kids for Learning
The following are my favorite apps for my two and four year old (toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarten, and beyond) to help them engage in learning during screen time. These are both kid and mom approved (The mom being me) and my four year daughter has gone through phases of loving and learning from each of these apps. I also love that each of these apps has the potential to grow with the child:
Skills: number recognition, counting, basic addition, spatial awareness, puzzles
My daughter loved this game at 3-4 years old, and learned all of her numbers and how to count to 100 based on this game. Kids basically drag numbers into their places in a "puzzle" to help with number recognition and meaning. My daughter kept requesting to play this game. After playing this game, she started pointing out numbers while driving past exits and speed limit signs on the highway, which was super exciting! It seems to help kids get acquainted and familiar with numbers, counting, and give them the tools needed for early math. We ended up buying the package that goes up to 100 (though numbers 1-5 are free) but it was totally worth it.
Skills: Alphabet and letter recognition, letter-sound recognition, phonics, sight words, pre-reading skills, reading skills, spatial awareness, puzzles
Another Endless app, this app helps kids hear the sounds that each letter makes when pulling them in to make the word. They then hear the words when pulling them in to make a sentence (and how they are said are typically indicative of their meaning, like "down" sounds like it's going down). My daughter laughs at some of the ways the "letters" and "words" speak, and really enjoys it. Some words are available for free, again because my daughter loved it, we bought a bigger package of words. It's also helping her recognize sight words like "the" in a fun way.
Skills: Tracing, fine motor skills, letter recognition, pre-writing, writing, handwriting, cursive, visual-spatial skills, hand coordination
Tracing was something we really wanted my daughter to practice during screen time, as we really believe in the benefits of tracing (which is a huge component of the Montessori method). My daughter has difficulty writing letters naturally and planning motor movements, and thus this is really helping her to gain control of her fine motor functions and build confidence in making letters. It's super impressive how much her drawing and tracing skills have improved since using this app! We do a few letters every day and going through the app is super rewarding for her. We did purchase and it's totally worth it!
Skills: Pre-reading and reading skills, alphabet, letter recognition, letter-sound recognition, phonics, building words, building sentences
This is my four year old's current choice, and I love that she loves it! You first build your own monster, and then select your reading level (hers is not yet reading) and then can begin your adventure! It teaches letter-sound recognition, and then practices building a word by putting these sounds together. It again has a fee, but is totally worth it for us.
Skills: Drawing, visual-spatial awareness, coloring book and drawing pad replacement
So I absolutely LOVE this app for MYSELF as a teacher and adult. I use it all the time to create drawings/visuals, answer keys, and even to-do lists for myself. I also use it to fill out forms for doctor appointments or sign documents. I just happened to one day pull it up for my kids to use and they love it too! You can change between different colors, use a blank canvas or pull in a picture off the internet and color it like a coloring book (we did lots of T-rexes), and I love being able to just save and keep their pieces of artwork digitally. I'm sure there's probably other drawing apps for free, but this is our favorite and well worth it for me.
We've been doing it with our fingers, but we also just got these thicker styluses for our ipads which were recommended by our occupational therapist for better gripping for little hands:
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