Apps 4 Kids: The Best iPhone and iPad Apps for Kids

Kid Maestro: learn instruments names and sounds

Michel — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:05:10 +0000

If we do get a lot of apps focused on farm animals and their sounds, learning about musical instruments, in the other hand, is really rare. In fact, this is the first time I come across an app that tackles the subject.

Kid Maestro is simple and straight-forward. You get the image of an instrument, its name (written and spoken) and its sound. Swipe to get a new instrument and so on, until all of them (about 10) have been shown.

Musical instruments are surely a mandatory part of any child’s education and Kid Maestro is one of a kind app, certainly worth to be part of our toddlers repertoire.

Kid Maestro, by Katherine Simon. $1.99 (iPad only)

The smart ‘My Silly Sounds Farm’

Michel — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:50:00 +0000

Here is yet another app that plays around farm animals and sounds. For the very little ones, having those apps at hand is fun, educational and entertaining. Yes there are a lot of apps like this out there, but what makes a simple farm great are the details and the quality of the execution. And this is what we should have in mind when choosing what to offer our little ones to get faced with.

My Silly Sounds Farm is the kind of app in which the producers where really worried about every detail: beautiful illustrations, greatly recorded sound, and smart interaction. You can easily record your own sound for each of the animals and arrange them together to create a simple scene with the original animals sounds or your own recording.

My Silly Sounds Farm, by Sequel Creative. $1.99 (iPad and iPhone versions)

Build a word with WordWorld’s app!

Michel — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 23:52:40 +0000

Children from all over who watch TV had probably already seen and liked Word World, the show. For those who like the show and for the ones who don’t know it yet, Build a Word app is a world of fun. Very simple, very straight-forward, build words little by little by dragging the letters in to the shapes forming the name of animals and watch the them come to live. Ideal to children starting to learn how to read.

Build a Word by Word World. iPhone version 99¢

ABC Wildlife

Michel — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 16:25:17 +0000

Another great app for the first steps in the alphabet, is ABC Wildlife. This cute app has over 80 animals along with pictures and small movie clips of the actual animals. It has an interesting navigation proposition where you start from the alphabet but any other letter in the animals’ name is interactive and will let you explore other letters and animals names. Gracefuly produced, comes with versions for the iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch.

ABC Wildlife, by Peapod Labs. $2.99 (iPad), $1.99 (iPhone)

Interactive Alphabet for iPad, ABC Flash Cards

Michel — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 17:26:28 +0000

Here is a nice application for introducing the alphabet for the little ones. Interactive Alphabet for iPad features the whole alphabet with example words and interactivity for each letter. With nice calm music and voice, is certainly a good addition for introducing letters to toddlers.

Interactive Alphabet for iPad, ABC Flash Cards, by Piikea St. $2.99 (iPad)

Lola’s Alphabet Train, gets you training words

Michel — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:02:01 +0000

For the ones interested in using the iPad and iPhone for helping kids learn how to spell, Lola’s Alphabet Train is a step up from the basic spelling apps like First Words and others. Built along with the Panda character named Lola (check the developer’s site for other Lola apps) and setup like a train voyage, this app comes with elaborated spelling exercises for kids who already are making their first steps in spelling and recognizing words.

The app might be a little complicated for the little kids to be handled alone and the company of an adult or older children can be a good idea to help through the menus and options. But overall it’s a great app to help on reading. It comes with 4 languages to choose from: English; Spanish; French and German.

Lola’s Alphabet Train, by Beiz. $2.99 (iPad) / $1.99 (iPhone/iPod Touch)

Baa Baa Black Sheep, perfect interactive puzzle

Michel — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 22:32:17 +0000

Duck Duck Moose is one of the best companies developing apps for little kids out there. By the time this was posted they had already published 5 amazing apps: BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP, FISH SCHOOL, ITSY BITSY SPIDER, OLD MACDONALD, WHEELS ON THE BUS. All extremely well produced with great music, interaction and illustrations

Baa Baa Black Sheep is their latest app release and it is a great all-in-one app. It is an interactive discovery puzzle game where kids have to go around looking for specific objects to match the required shapes. While they look for the objects, they get to browse through different scenarios and interact with the characters on the scenes while learning numbers, manners and listening to good music. At this point the app was out only for the iPhone / iPod Touch, but it also looked great doubled on the iPad.

Baa Baa Black Sheep, by Duck Duck Moose. $1.99 (iPhone / iPod Touch)

Watch the demo video:

SpinArt Studio’s spinning adds a great twist to drawing apps

Michel — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 12:07:10 +0000

It could be another well done drawing app but SpinArt Studio has a simple but great feature: it spins the canvas while you draw and that adds a whole new dimension to creating digital art on the iPad. Choose from different canvas, brush types and colors, turn on the spinning feature and let your imagination go free to create beautiful compositions! After you’re done, save or share it. Who knows, maybe print and hang it?

SpinArt Studio, by Brian Smith. $3.99 (iPad)

Watch the demo video:

LetsTans, let your kid exercise the brain!

Michel — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 01:54:22 +0000

LetsTans at first seemed to me too complicated for my 4 yo son. This is not a simple app, or doesn’t even seem to be kid oriented, but my son not only managed his way though the menus but also mastered a great part of the Tangram puzzles. And he loves it, as he little by little is beginning to leave behing the ‘little kids’ apps and looking for more challenging tasks. And this is certainly a great step further.

LetsTans DELUXE comes with:
• 1250 hand-crafted puzzles.
• 10 modes from easiest to hardest.
• 7 different skins in Classic+ mode.
• 50 colors in Junior and Silhouette modes.
• Time counter with pause option.

LetsTans DELUXE, by Grabarchuk Puzzles. $2.99 (iPhone / iPod Touch version)

The ‘Elly the Reindeer’ books series

Michel — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 23:56:23 +0000

UPDATED: There are 2 new titles out and iPad versions of the Elly the Reindeer stories series!

Meet Elly the Reindeer. A cute little book character with 3 5 apps already out that are just adorable. Elly and friends like ‘Aapo’, ‘Fin’ and ‘Snowy Owl’ go on delightful adventures in ‘The Birthday Party’, ‘Elly Goes to School’ and ‘The Windy Day’ and two more.

The apps have clean and beautifully structured illustrations, that make excellent use of colors and proportions, really helping on our kids’ visual education. Stories are simple and fun, the ones that kids ask us to read over and over.

Although these are straight-forward books, with no voice, sound of interaction, the stories and illustrations are so nice they are worth having on board of our touch devices.