Google Play is currently featuring us — Tech with Kids — as an expert in selecting the best apps for children. You can find our Expert Picks on the front page of the “Family” category in Google Play until Oct. 15, 2015. Wonder which apps we think are best? See our picks by clicking here.
When Google asked us to curate our favs among the family-friendly Android apps, we immediately pulled up our own Best Picks Lists relating to Android Apps:
We quickly realized that we couldn’t include all of these great apps on Google Play, so we tried to find a balance between hidden gems and blockbuster favorites. Every one of the apps on our Google Play Expert Picks list has earned our Best Pick Award and has a full review on our Tech with Kids site.
After submitting a list to Google Play, we discovered that some of our top-rated Android apps had not opted into Google’s “Designed for Families” program, so they couldn’t appear on our list being showcased on Google Play. We didn’t want you to miss out on these great apps, so we decided to share them with you here instead:
Moo, Baa, La La La! – by Sandra Boynton
Toddlers interact with animals in this Sandra Boynton classic that is darling, whimsical, and hilarious! — Read our full review here
Kids explore 18 different activities that teach early learning concepts such as counting, patterns, shapes, logic and more. And they do it while playing with realistic-looking bugs. — Read our full review here.
Zoinks! Scooby-Doo wants to romp with you in this virtual pet sim filled with mysteries! — Read our full review here.
This collection of over 300 levels presents the player with a mass of seemingly unconnected dots and lines to rotate until you start to see order out of the chaos. — Read our full review here.
A variation of Charades where the group acts out words, trying to help the designated player figure out what is on the screen of the smartphone or tablet (which he is holding up over his head.) — Read our full review here.
Monument Valley
A visually arresting puzzle game filled with landscapes that would have made M.C. Escher proud. — Read our full review here.
In this tower defense game, kids fend off the undead by planting hilarious zombie-killing plants in their front yard. — Read our full review here.
We want to thank Google for asking us to curate Android apps for them. And parents and teachers, we hope you will find some favorites among our Expert Picks List!
Have you recently added a tablet into your kid’s life? You and your child are about to embark on a wonderful learning adventure.
From “Kiddie” app
If you are like most folks, you have dipped your toe into the apps marketplaces by downloading free apps. While there are some great free apps (check out our rec list: FREE and Fabulous: Top Apps for Kids), most aren’t really free. Tons of apps are masquerading as “free,” when in truth, they are making money by advertising to your child or enticing them to spend your money with in-app purchases. To learn more about how the world of freemium apps works, read our blog article here.
Think of the content you are about to put on your tablet as your child’s media diet. The key is to not fill it with junk. You want to give your kids compelling apps that are rich in fun and make them think or learn something new.
Here at Tech With Kids, we play and test thousands of apps every year, looking for the best of the best. We screen out the apps that contain:
We write reviews of the apps we love (and pen a few reviews about the ones you should avoid); and then sort them for you into helpful lists.
When selecting apps for your child, keep in mind your child’s age, interests, and the operating system of your device.
One way to start, is to look at the best apps recommended by age. The key to hooking a child on digital play is to find apps that are right for their developmental age. The following lists are a good place to start:
Many kids have strong interests or preferences. As parents, we all know that we can use our child’s interests to introduce them to new things. I have a son who went through the “car and all things that go vroom” stage. If I wanted to teach him math, all I needed to do was use a bucketful of cars in the lesson. The same concept holds true with apps. And thus, we go looking for apps based on typical interests of kids. Here are some lists to check out:
Our site reviews more apps for iOS (the operating system running the Apple devices of the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, which are found in the iTunes App Store) than for Android (the operating system running app found in Google and Amazon app stores). That is because most children’s app developers release in iTunes first. Only when they reach some economic success do most children’s app developers then reprogram their apps to play on the Android system. And interestingly, when they do release in the Android marketplaces, they don’t automatically show up in both the Google and Amazon marketplaces — so make sure to search both. And sadly, Windows tablet owners, your choices are even slimmer.
All of our rec lists feature iOS apps. A great list to start with is our:
That list was created at the very end of 2014, and it identifies the best of the best apps that were released in 2014. So this list gives you a way to find the most current top-rated apps. It is displayed by age, with the apps for young children listed first and the ones for older children at the end.
We have just recently created three lists that pull together the Android apps which received our highest ratings. We divided the lists by ages into: