KinderTown Blog | Educational App Reviews, Activites, and More!

Best Travel Apps for Children Ages 4-6

These educational travel apps apps are enticing enough that your children will want to use them while you are traveling this summer. They can create a new element, an imaginative short story, or tinker with inventions of the past and present. Download them before you set out on your next adventure.

Toca Boca: Elements (iOS, Android, Kindle)

This app is the chemistry lab for young kids! It’s the perfect place for exploring how different materials interact. The app is ingeniously designed around the world of a science lab. The incredible part is that children do not have to be able to read or understand all there is to know about chemistry to engage in tinkering in the lab. As children dabble with the “elements,” they create new “elements” for their own periodic table. Please note that the “elements” and periodic table are not based on the actual scientific reactions occurring but rather give children the understanding that when elements are placed under certain conditions, a new element can be created. The app does not provide narration so parents be sure to provide lots of vocabulary and ask your child lots of questions while using the app. For example: What do you think is happening? Encourage them to ask questions too. This app will make your child feel like they have all the tools of a mad scientist! The app is appropriate for children ages 4-8 and free at the time of this publication.

Journeys of Invention (iOS)

This app is designed for the curious child. Ever wonder what the inside of a light bulb looks like or an old typewriter? The app, created by the Science Museum in London, includes pictures and videos that are completely fascinating; most feel like you are holding the invention in your hands. Journeys of Invention is a wonderful app for any child (or adult) interested in science, technology, and math.

Word Games for Kids -Futuba (iOS)

Word Games for Kids is highly recommended as a multifaceted game to use with your family. The app is completely customizable for what you want kids to learn and play. This is one of the few apps designed completely for social play. Either play with the provided content or create your own. Up to four players can sit around the iPad. Tap “start” and the game begins. One game might have the center showing a picture of a pig. The first player to tap the word “pig” on their panel scores a point. After winning three rounds, the child is awarded a Futaba which is a small seedling. Word Games for Kids comes with several learning sets, but what makes this app exceptional is the fact that you have complete control of the content. Design your games by using the camera on your device or add your own text. The latest update provides an option to use Dropbox to upload images. The amount of customization allows both parents to get creative. The options seem limitless and all for free!

4 Travel Apps for Young Children

School is soon over for the year and summer is officially upon us. Summer is a great time to travel and nothing is more portable or entertaining than your mobile device or tablet. Download these educational travel apps before you hit the road to keep your littlest one entertained and educated.

Sago Mini Road Trip

Does your child love playing with pretend cars and trucks? This app takes the same playful theme into the digital world. Explore with your own custom designed vehicle, and find new paths and roads along the way. The app leads to natural conversations about your own travel such as….How will we get to grandma’s house? Or the beach, or Texas? Or how else do people travel when they take a vacation? The app is pure fun for the vehicle lover! The app is $2.99 and appropriate for children ages 3-4.

Miko Goes on Vacation

Miko Goes on Vacation is a great story for kids getting ready for a trip. We highly recommend the Auracle series because of the amount of features given to parents and kids. Read the story yourself, have it read aloud or set the app to auto play. Record yourself telling the story and even change the text in the app. We love these features for kids interested in re-creating and retelling the story in their own words. A sweet story about how the main character, a kid mouse named Miko, adapts and stretches in order to have a wonderful day at the beach. The app is $1.99 and appropriate for children ages 3-6.

Thinkrolls – Logic and Physics Puzzles for Kids

In Thinkrolls, rolling character balls take the stage as your child solves increasingly complex problems to allow their character to progress through the maze. There are two levels of game play, easy and hard. Easy is recommended for children 3-5, and hard for children ages 5-8. KinderTown recommends that all children begin at the easy level to understand the goals of the puzzles. Your child does not have to spend a long time at this level to be ready to move to the harder levels, but this will set them up for success. A blinking “redo” symbol flashes in the corner to assist your child when they are stuck and unable to complete the challenge. The challenge is then reset with the maze. The challenges in the mazes come in the form of obstacles. Some unique obstacles include fire blocks, ice blocks, balloons, and KinderTown’s favorite, the jelly block. The jelly block allows your character to jump up from one area to another. Another child tester favorite was the fire block. Watch out! If your character rolls into the fire block, it will turn black and burnt, which our child testers loved! However, the goal is to not become burnt. Children eventually solved the puzzles after experiencing the burnt characters. As the levels progress, children have to use visualization skills to predict the cause and effect of several “moves” in the puzzle. Concepts about physics and chemistry are sprinkled along the way when children must make decisions about the moving gear box, figure out how to make the balloon pop and move the ice to squelch the fire. The app offers an amazing amount of content in the 90 levels of easy game play and 90 levels of hard game play. Be sure to read the Chapter descriptions in the settings section for parents in order to have a complete understanding of all the challenges presented in each level or chapter. Thinkrolls is a truly unique app priced at $2.99, available for iPhone and iPad, and is recommended for children ages 3-7.

Dr. Panda’s Ice Cream Truck

Invent your own ice cream flavors with hundreds of different combinations. Choose your ice cream flavor, the perfect toppings, and mix them all together to create a unique creation. As you create the different combinations, feed them to the friendly animals and see their reactions. An app designed for limitless fun. The app is $1.99 and appropriate for children ages 3-4.

5 Apps for Creative Kids

Check out our top apps for creativity. Your creative kids will enjoy the varied experiences these apps provide and many are free!

Art Class with Dr. Panda

This app provides virtual creative experiences your child will appreciate. There are six different virtual art activities for your child to experiment with in Art Class with Dr. Panda. Create your own pottery with the virtual lathe. Then fire it and paint it. Fold origami paper to make a virtual pinwheel to play with in the wind. Design a virtual kite to sail through the sky. Arrange colored pegs on a board to make a unique design. The best part is your child can experience the process over and over again, and play with the finished creations. The app is currently free and appropriate for children ages 3-6.

Draw and Tell HD by Duck Duck Moose

Draw and Tell brings the best features of drawing apps into one fabulous art experience. Choose from a blank page, your photos, or one of the available backgrounds to start a project. Tools such as crayons, stickers, paint, and erasers can be used while the app records your child singing, talking, and moving stickers around the screen. Not feeling up to creating your own picture? Your child can choose from a variety of coloring pages and drop paint into the lines to create a vibrant scene. This is another top free app from Duck Duck Moose.

Faces iMake – Premium!

Faces iMake encourages creativity, experimenting, learning, and expression in one magical app. Loaded with friendly instructions, first time users will find lots of direction and encouragement built into videos and examples. The whole family will enjoy creating pictures through the manipulation of a wide variety of images–from food to musical instruments. The platform is easy to use and supports collaboration and discovery that “children” of all ages will enjoy using. This is one of our favorite apps at KinderTown! The Premium version is available for $1.99.

MoMA Art Lab

Many museums and educational organizations create apps to accompany their exhibits and collections. This app is a great way to take a virtual field trip to the Museum of Modern Art. MOMA Art Lab features 9 different activities that explore the use of shapes and lines in unique ways. For example, construct a virtual mobile and watch it move. Create a collage and then shake your iPad to reconstruct the it. MOMA matches an artist’s work with the activity to educate children about modern art while creating their own masterpieces. KinderTown really likes the audio directions for each activity, making the app accessible to children as young as four. In addition, there is a light-bulb icon which provides ideas for creating your own original artwork. The app allows children to save their work within the app. MOMA Art Lab is free and appropriate for children ages 4-8.

Apps That Teach Telling Time Concepts Through Games

It’s never too early for your child to become aware of telling time: time of day, when certain activities occur, what time of day you eat breakfast, or what time someone arrives home from work. Also, because of the digital age in which we live, be sure that you have both analog and digital clocks in your home and have your child compare them at different times of the day.

Telling Time App Reviews

Todo Telling Time

Todo Telling Time is an app that includes six games that develop time-telling skills. There are three levels of game play included in each of the games. KinderTown likes how concepts about the clock are developed in several of the games, such as counting by 5s and arranging the numbers on the clock. Todo Telling Time also includes games about time that include understanding the days of the week, the months of the year, and the calendar. The app also includes a fun quiz section that parents can use to inform them about their child’s development of these skills. The app is priced at $4.99 and contains three levels of content that should last from approximately kindergarten through second grade.

Interactive Telling Time – Learning to tell time is fun

Interactive Telling Time presents time in a variety of interactive ways. Your child can learn about digital and analog clocks by playfully experimenting with artful clocks. Watch day and night modeled as your child interacts with hours and minutes. The app provides a variety of games for children of different ages in your home or classroom. Older children will be able to set the clock to the minute in the Set the Time! game, while younger children will enjoy assembling the clock in the Play Puzzle game. Time and clock vocabulary is thoughtfully presented in the app. There is a quiz section that provides the parent with an assessment of their child’s knowledge of time. The app does have a fun aquarium play area where students can earn stars to buy fish or objects for their aquarium. This is a lite version to try out for free but it has ads and pop-ups; proceed with caution before handing that version over to your child. The app costs $2.99 and is available for iPhone and iPad.

Quick Clocks – Telling Time

Quick Clocks has three different areas for learning. The first section, Find the Clock, shows your child the time, and they must select the correct clock, all while being timed. The app records your child’s time, and then they can compete against their personal best score. This app is great for kids who like competition or obtaining a goal. The second section allows your child to set the clock to the given time, again while being timed to see how many problems they can complete in a given time frame. The last section is called Question Time, where the child writes the time with their finger and the app tells whether the answer is correct. The app does have the ability to have multiple users and remembers each user’s scores in order for them to compete against themselves. Each section has 3 levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. The app costs $1.99 and is available for iPhone and iPad.

Improve Your Kid’s Spatial Reasoning Skills with These 4 Apps

Spatial reasoning is the ability to visualize shapes and objects in different ways and draw conclusions about those shapes. It’s this strong ability that architects use when designing a building or that a sculptor uses when planning a design. This skill is often overlooked in traditional schooling but is a vital skill to develop. Children with well-developed spatial reasoning skills often perform better at STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) tasks. The following apps help develop these skills, but it is equally important for early learners to play with hands-on objects such as blocks, puzzles, tangrams, or pattern blocks to develop these skills.

Spatial Reasoning App Reviews

Dragon Shapes Lumio Geometry Challenge (iOS only)

This app walks children through an introduction to shapes through tangram puzzles. As they are presented with a puzzle, a sidebar introduces them to the shape and distinguishing features about the shape. The shapes include triangles, squares, rectangles, hexagons, trapezoids, pentagons, and rhombi. As children solve the puzzles, the ideas that shapes can form larger composite shapes or designs is reinforced. The shapes in the app are able to be manipulated and turned fairly easily. There are four levels of game play in the app, and there is a storyline involving the rescue of the village dragon that is developed through completion of each level. The app costs $2.99 and is available for iPhone and iPad.

Montessori Geometry – Recognize and learn shapes (iOS only)

Montessori Geometry is filled with games, free exploration activities, and other learning gems in the traditional teaching style of Maria Montessori. There are games for playing with shapes, learning activities that connect kids to seeing shapes in the “real world,” and a dynamic 3D exploration activity for kids to rotate and interact with every side of the shape. The app presents the formal language for all of the shapes so you won’t just hear the words circle and triangle but also the specific technical terms, such as scalene triangle. The games are in the classic Montessori style, so kids are able to use self-correction and move from activity to activity. There is also a point tracking feature where kids can earn medals while they are playing. The app costs $3.99 and is available for iPhone and iPad.

Cyberchase 3D Builder (iOS, Android, and Kindle)

In Cyberchase 3D Builder, encourages kids use flat 2D shapes to build 3D structures. There are eight levels of play to keep kids interested and really amp up the difficulty. The app strength is in developing the relationship between flat and 3D shapes. The app does provide prompts as the levels increase in difficulty for children who may need assistance. Overall the app is a fun experience where kids won’t even realize they are learning. The app is free and appropriate for children ages 4-8.

Tangram for Osmo (iOS only)

The Osmo tangram kit comes with tangram pieces that interact with the iPad. Download the free Osmo tangram app to get started. Osmo offers a nice Getting Started section to familiarize your child with the use of the pieces and their interaction with the screen. The child must arrange the tangram pieces to match the on-screen arrangement. The Osmo system detects the tangram pieces to check to see if they match the shapes on the screen. While constructing the pictures, your child is developing important visual spatial skills. After your child completes the Getting Started section, the app offers different pictures for your child to choose from and construct with the tangram pieces. The app also indicates the level of the pictures from easiest to hardest by color-coding them yellow, orange, and red. The yellow puzzles offer color clues, and the orange puzzles offer black-and-white shapes. The app does offer a hint button if needed to complete the puzzles. The hardest level offers just one solid black outline. Arranging the tangram pieces is challenging, engaging, and also fun to complete with a friend.

3 Apps That Help Your Child Practice Sight Words

As children begin to learn to read, they come to recognize many common words in our language known as sight words. Some examples of sight words are they, were, was, and here. Often these words cannot be “sounded out” and help improve reading fluency if memorized. Check out these apps to help build your child’s bank of sight words.

Sight Words Ninja – The Endless Slicing Game to Learn to Read (iOS only)

Designed after the famous app, Fruit Ninja, this app presents sight words to children to slice and chop. The app begins by tossing 1 word into the air for children to slice. The word is said aloud, and children must slice the correct word. There is not a lot of feedback given for words sliced incorrectly, other than the word being grayed out. Parents, keep watch to be sure your child is discerning the correct word and not slicing all the words presented. As well as watching your child play, be sure to set up the game in the Settings area at a level where your child is challenged and the words are appropriate. There are five different sets of words, three levels of difficulty, and options for the length of the game. The app costs $1.99 and is appropriate for children ages 4-8.

Sight Words Ninja - Slicing Game to Learn to Read

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Sight Words Ninja - Slicing Game to Learn to Read

Developer: Innovative Investments Limited

Price: $1.99

Word BINGO (iOS, Web)

Word BINGO provides a fun way to practice recognizing and spelling over 300 words from the Dolch sight words list. Three activities engage children to identify spoken Dolch words, and one activity has children unscrambling letters to practice spelling them. Every time you make bingo or spell ten words, two of the other activities become available. These activities are game-like, entertaining, and motivating but still have users practicing from the word lists. Children earn bingo bugs that they can play with after successfully completing activities. Some key features in Word BINGO are the multi-player format, a user report card, levels for word lists and games, and thorough instruction and options pages. Parents, be aware that the music is upbeat and could be viewed as distracting to other children working nearby or to yourself. There is an option to mute the sound. The app costs $2.99 and is appropriate for children ages 4-8.

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Word BINGO

Developer: ABCya.com

Price: $2.99

Sight Words Games & Flash Cards for Reading and Spelling Success at School (Learn to Read Preschool, Kindergarten and Grade 1 Kids) (iOS, Android, Kindle)

This app provides a variety of games for reinforcing identification of sight words. In each game, words are paired with speech so even very young children can experience over 200 sight words. The games are engaging and fun for young learners. Children will enjoy the word machine, which pops out 3 options for a sight word from which the child must pick the correct one. Another unique game is the gears game in which children must listen to the center gear say the word and match the brightly colored gear with the sight word. In the end, the gears make a puzzle in which all the gears turn and move together. The app costs $2.99 and is appropriate for children ages 4-8.

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Sight Words Games & Flash Cards for Reading and Spelling Success at School (Learn to Read Preschool, Kindergarten and Grade 1 Kids)

Developer: Terasoft, a.s.

Price: unknown

3 Apps to Build Story-Writing Skills

Story-writing is a complex process that begins in early childhood as storytelling. Check out these apps that encourage storytelling and ultimately composition.

Tell About This (iOS only)

Prior to writing a great story, children must develop an idea, formulate multiple sentences, and have the ideas and sentences come together to make a story. This app, Tell About This, works with the very beginning stages of creating a story but limits the parameters to focusing on verbalizing the ideas. The app has created a bank of visual and auditory prompts for children to respond to. The pictures provide a prompt for children to generate ideas, think out loud or tell a complete story. All of the pictures in the app are real photographs and many include young children doing many of the things your children probably enjoy doing, such as jumping in a bounce house, playing in leaves, swinging on a swing, or playing an instrument. There is surely something that you child can connect with in the app. The app is $2.99 and appropriate for children 4-6.

Write About This (iOS only)

Write About This is meant to be a next step for children after they’ve used the Tell About This app or are more adept in creating stories and are ready to write words to accompany their ideas. The app has a similar setup but includes an area for children to write directly in the app. The app allows the child to record their story as well. Sometimes children are able to verbalize a story more effectively than writing one, so parents could use the recording feature with their child first, and then the child could play it back to write their story. There is also a Quick Write section for children to take their own picture and create a recording and/or writing piece. The app costs $3.99 and is appropriate for children ages 5-8.

Story Dice – ideas for writers (iOS, Android, Kindle Fire)

Story Dice is an open-ended experience that sets the stage for storytelling and language to develop. The app is simple. Tap the screen, and a set of picture dice (choose from 1 to 10) appear on the screen. Use these pictures to create a unique collaborative story, play memory games, or inspire your child’s next composition. Check out the “More” section of the app for even more ideas. This is a great app to inspire children with creative ideas.

Apps for Learning Letters and Sounds

When parents think of early learning skills, learning letters is one of the first skills that comes to mind. The apps discussed in this blog post will help your child learn about letters. Remember that learning the sound of a letter is just as important as being able to identify the letter itself.

Montessori Letter Sounds– Phonics in English, Spanish, French, German & Italian

This app gives parents and children a progression in early literacy skills. There are four levels in the app that start children with playing with sounds and increase in sophistication to building words. The app provides a fun “I Spy” section, which challenges children to choose picture cards that coordinate with the letter sounds given. The “Letter Sounds” section gives the letters and sounds to listen to while tracing the letters. Children can record themselves saying the letter sounds as they learn them in the app. Writing the letters is incorporated into the learning, and a Montessori- inspired sand tray is in the “Toolbox” section of the app to help practice letter formation.

Duck Duck Moose Reading

Duck Duck Moose Reading is a solid phonics practice app for your beginning reader. Children quickly progress through five varied phonics activities, each focused on a specific set of letters. Games are entertaining to play and are designed to focus on individual sounds, letters, or both letters and sounds in the context of words. Kids earn animals to add to their zoo after each series of activities. Parents are given a progress report for multiple kids who log into the app. Duck Duck Moose Reading is perfect for children at the kindergarten or first grade level and costs $2.99.

Starfall ABCs

Starfall ABCs brings each letter to life with pictures, animation, games, songs, and stories. Using a clearly articulated voice, each letter is identified by name, sounds, and words. Children interact with each letter by tapping, sliding, sorting, and dragging objects through five or more screens of engaging phonics learning. Many of the letters include real pictures as well as animations. The most exciting part of this app may be the sign language animations from the bottom menu. Starfall ABCs is a must-have app for children learning their letters, letter sounds, and beginning reading skills.

Interactive Alphabet ABC’s

Interactive Alphabet ABC’s makes every letter a toy. Tap on brightly colored letters to hear the letter name, sound, and a word. Enjoy each unique letter environment that is created about the letter word. Tap, drag, and pinch the screen to tickle dinosaurs or feed olives to ogres. The baby mode feature is especially nice, with each screen progressing to the next letter after 15 seconds of play. A variety of music options will help parents who get tired of hearing the same old tune repeated over and over again. Interactive Alphabet ABC’s is a lot of fun and reinforces phonics at the same time. This app is great for children who are just being introduced the letters of the alphabet.

Early Math Apps for Multiple Skills

The following apps provide practice with multiple skills in the area of early math. These apps can provide the parent insight into skills their child may need additional practice with or provide a review of previously learned skills. In addition, changing the skill keeps the attention of children as they practice what they have learned.

Marble Math Junior

Marble Math Junior offers an engaging maze for kids to roll their marble around as they solve problems. Kids who like to physically move around can use the motion controls of the iPad to tip it and turn it to make the marble move, allowing them to collect the given items. Each time a maze is presented, the directions tell children how to collect the items(for example, “collect from first to last” or “collect numbers that multiply to make 8”). The directions can easily be read aloud to the students as they tap on the words. If children answer incorrectly, they can easily try again using the Replay button or tap the Show Me button to see the answer. There are three levels of gameplay to make the app long-lasting for kids. Children will enjoy collecting the extra surprises hidden in the maze, such as the flashlight that turns your marble into a special spotlight. The app presents a number of early elementary math skills including telling time, addition and subtraction, comparing numbers, multiplication, and beginning fractions. Parents can easily control what skills are presented to their child by using the checkboxes under Skills on the main screen.

Mathlandia – early math learning for kids

Mathlandia provides 6 early learning number games for your child to enjoy. Experience content that takes your child through the simplest counting games to a subtraction experience that is so supportive we think a 4-year-old would benefit from playing. Each game is paced slowly with purposeful animations and illustrations. There aren’t any distracting noises or overly stimulating graphics in Mathlandia. Your children will enjoy the number play and counting games.

Bugs and Numbers

$Bugs and Numbers touches on a variety of math concepts that span a wide age range, including counting, sorting, patterns, measurement, time, money, and fraction activities.$

Bugs and Numbers is the third in a series of early learning, playful math apps from Little Bit Studios. The app touches on a variety of math concepts that span a wide age range, including counting, sorting, patterns, measurement, time, money, and fraction activities. The games are beautifully designed and completely fun for kids. There is even a bug reward area for some free play. Our only note is that some of the games advance quickly, so you might want to choose the games carefully so as not to frustrate your child. Join in on the play when you first start Bugs and Numbers; this is the app you’ll enjoy playing, too!

Science Enrichment Apps for Elementary Students

Journeys of Invention

This app delves into the most fascinating inventions in history. The app was created from exhibits in the Science Museum in London. There are 80 objects from the museum to explore. The app does have a fair amount of complex reading, so, parents, you should read along with your child. Rotate the 3D replica of the first battery or a model steam engine or the first supercomputer. The pictures and 3D objects are captivating in this app. Many of the objects have corresponding videos or pictures of historic documents that relate to the object. Everyone is sure to learn something new! The app costs $9.99 and is appropriate for children ages 7 and up.

Star Walk™ for Kids

A fascinating learning tool for your kids, Star Walk™ for Kids brings the solar system to life. Each planet has a fact card and a short video to explain key facts about the planet. There are extra movies as well that explain space-related ideas, such as the Hubble Spacecraft. A wide variety of constellations and stars turn the sky into an imaginative area for kids. The most amazing feature of Star Walk™ for Kids is that children can take an iPhone or iPad outside and point it to the sky to guide their exploration, and the app will map the stars seen from your location. This is a great activity for parents and children to do together. The app does not collect any personal information but is able to use the location features of your device. This app would be a great complement to any unit of study on the solar system. The app costs $2.99 and is appropriate for children ages 5-8; also, itis available for iPhone and iPad.

The Human Body by Tinybop

The Human Body by Tinybop is an app made for exploring and asking questions. There is animation to accompany the 6 different body systems. Encourage and answer your child’s questions while exploring, and they will direct the learning that occurs. Tap different parts of the brain, and an animation appears, depicting what that area of the brain controls. Also note that the app does perform functions of the body that may make some children say “yuck,” such as burping and throwing up. The app is not narrated, so parents need to provide the support for the learning. In addition, the app offers a parent section and an option to set up multiple profiles for different children. Children can record questions while using the app, and parents can respond to them. Tinybop has even made a helpful parent guide to accompany the app, which we highly recommend downloading and using it with your child. It’s perfect for answering the tough questions your child may ask. In the parent’s section, the urogenital section is available for separate purchase so that you decide when that is right for your child. This app is brilliantly designed for scientific discovery.