Do your preschoolers love to play games on your phone and tablet? Mine sure do. They can be really great distractions when you need a few minutes and a lot of them are really educational. For the past 2 years we’ve downloaded loads of apps – some paid, some free. And it’s pretty easy to tell which ones are worth keeping and which ones to delete when I start running out of space on my phone…we’ve all been there.
So I wanted to share with you some of our favorite apps!
Most of these do cost money, but my husband has an app that tells you when apps are free which is often how we find new apps for the kids. So you can buy them now or wait until they’re free again!
Here are our top 8 apps!
1. Preschool and Kindergarten Learning Games – ABC letter training – This is a new one we just tried and my preschooler loves it! She’s really getting into identifying letters and this app helps you learn to write them! And in the car today she told me that kangaroo starts with K! (That is on the app). The app says it’s free, but just a preview is free so it allows you to see if your kid will like it. The rhyming words and mazes are a little more difficult for my 3 year old, but I think 4 and 5 year olds would love it! They also have Kids Games for Boys and Girls which helps kids identify letters and learn to write numbers.
2. Peekaboo Barn – There are a couple of different apps this company does, but Peekaboo Barn is our favorite! There’s a little barn that the kids can tap and it opens with an animal, their sound, and a kid voice tells you what animal it is. It helped my girls learn to identify animals. It’s simple enough for a 1 year old, but my 3 year old still uses it too. We also love Peekaboo Wild. This is probably the one I’ve had on my phone the longest.
3. Nighty Night! – This super cute app takes place on a barn and the kids have to put all the animals to bed by turning out the light in each room. During winter you can set it to winter mode and it snows and has a little snowman that sings “Jingle Bells.” My girls really love that. It’s a fun interactive app.
4. Princess Fairy Tale Coloring – My kids love to color, even on phones. This is a fun app that has uncolored pictures and you just tap on the different parts of the pictures and it colors in the right colors for you! I love this for the younger kids because they don’t have to try to find the colors and get frustrated when they can’t. The colors are preset. And as you color, more things appear in the pictures!
5. Kids Academy Bingo – Do your kids like to sing? Mine sure do! And they love music! This is a fun interactive app that sings the Bingo song and my girls love to sing right along. The graphics are fun and there are a lot of other songs for you to buy as well! The only thing I don’t like about it is that when you open the app, it pops up an ad for one of their different songs or apps which of course my kids click on and then get all frustrated that they aren’t seeing the song. Other than that, it’s definitely one of the best kids songs app I’ve seen.
6. Kapu Forest – This app has a lot of different activities for each of the forest animals on the main screen. My kids will do these over and over and they catch on pretty quickly. Most are just fun little activities to do. There is one activity that teaches shapes and another that sorts colors, but most are just for fun.
7. Pepi Bath – My kids love this app! It teaches hygiene like brushing teeth, washing hands, taking a bath, going to the bathroom, and washing your clothes. It’s super interactive and you know when you’re finished with each scene when they give you a round of applause. I’m pretty sure it’s a British app because there are a few different things than what we do in the US. Like pulling a chain to flush the toilet or hanging your clothes to dry. But my kids didn’t seem to notice. We also downloaded Pepi Doctor and Pepi Tree which are also great!
8. Sago Mini Forest Flyer – This fun little app is about a little bird that flies around the forest and comes across lots of little things. It’s very entertaining and also has a seasonal aspect as well. It keeps my kids entertained for a while.
What are you favorite apps? We’re always willing to try a new one!