Mobile Fun for Kids Google's Play Store features a well-stocked Family section loaded with kid-friendly games, apps and educational tools that parents and children can enjoy together. With that in mind, we've taken a look at of some of the best Android apps for kids, featuring everything from parental controls to interactive storybooks and electronic playsets that you and your children can enjoy worry-free.
Amazon FreeTime Unlimited provides a fun-filled child-friendly space filled with books, movies, TV shows and videos from a variety of kid friendly and educational brands, such as Disney, PBS, and Nickelodeon.
A parental controls system makes it easy to set limits, configure educational goals (and choose appropriate media), restrict categories, and find conversation starters and discussion questions to help connect with what your kids are watching and reading.
The app also includes a safe web browsing mode that lets kids access a carefully curated collection of sites and videos. Users can try out the service for free for a month, and subscriptions cost $2.99 per month for Prime members, and $4.99 per month for everyone else.
With access to more than 35,000 children’s books, audiobooks, educational videos and quizzes, think of Epic as a sort of Neflix of education subscription services.
Epic allows kids to explore a vast library of child-safe content, with material designed for kindergarten up to 7th grade reading levels. Personalized reading recommendations help your kids find new material to devour. An Epic for Educators version aimed at librarians and educators is available for free.
With the PBS Kids Video app, your kids can catch their favorite PBS Kids characters and shows on your mobile devices, or streamed to the big screen with a Chromecast.
Kids can catch Thomas & Friends, watch the Muppets of Sesame Street, the Odd Squad, Curious George and other beloved characters.
Kids and parents can stream full episodes, as well as check out the schedule of their local PBS station schedule. Parental resources include guides for intended age for videos, learning goals for each video, and links to other PBS Kids apps and educational games.
BrainPop offers up fun and educational videos, with a rotating set of Featured Movies related to various educational subjects ranging from science and math to art, history, and social studies.
The free app comes with a daily featured movie (including closed captions) and a related quiz, allowing curious kids to learn something new every day. BrainPop subscriptions (check if your school has one!) provide even more movies and quizzes daily.
The non-profit educational site Khan Academy provides a wealth of free educational videos and online lessons, and its Khan Academy Kids app continues in that same vein. Kid-oriented videos and courses help your student work on language skills, math, logic, and emotional development, and it’s all presented in a child-safe environment and format.
Endless Alphabet is part of Originator Inc's "Endless" line of edutainment apps, and it introduces kids to letters and words, presenting toddlers and children with a series of minigames.
Children put words back together in easy and engaging spelling puzzles featuring talking words, and afterward, they're rewarded with short animations that explain each word's meaning.
The free version lets you try the app out with seven free words and animations, and an in-app purchase unlocks the full game with more than 100 word puzzles and animations. Originator's Endless line has since expanded to include Endless Numbers, Endless Wordplay, and a Spanish language app.
Your child can learn to count — and even get a rudimentary introduction to addition — with the colorful Moose Math app, which stars a moose that runs a juice bar.
Your kid can play around with a variety of mini-games that sport a mathematical bent, such as Moose Juice, which has them following numerical recipes for smoothies. (Add a specified number of each piece of fruit to a blender to complete the task at hand.)
App maker Duck Duck Moose produces a number of interactive apps aimed at the preschool-to-elementary crowd, and this counting app can really help your preschoolers and kindergartners get comfortable with numbers and following instructions.
Minilab returns with a delightful sequel to Artie's Magic Pencil with Artie's World, an educational drawing game aimed at kids ages 3 to 6. Join Artie and his magical pencil as he explores the world, bringing ideas to life, sharing toys and gifts in simple learn-to-draw style exercises.
Kids will learn to draw with simple shapes guided by dots, with each object and animal named with friendly voice-overs. The app lets you and your kid explore Artie's village and eight free toys and gifts, with more unlocked through in-app purchases.
The app features seasonal updates, as well as no third-party advertising or social media links to keep the experience safe and self-contained.
The works of Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, are classics of children's literature, featuring fantastical illustrations of imaginative characters and easy-to-follow language.
The Dr. Seuss Book Collection #1 app brings together five of Oceanhouse Media's digital adaptations of Dr. Seuss's most beloved works, such as The Cat in The Hat, The FOOT Book and Fox in Socks, into one convenient app.
In addition to the original text and illustrations, the app features digital extras, such as the ability to record your own voice narration and vocabulary learning tools.
DragonBox Algebra 5+ is a genuinely clever educational math game that skillfully hides the fact that it's teaching your kids algebra. Targeted at kids ages 5 and up, DragonBox Algebra starts out with simple logic puzzles that have kids matching symbols together in order to clear one side of the screen.
Each new puzzle adds new quirks and game rules that cleverly mirror the basic rules of elementary algebra, until in no time at all, your kids are unknowingly balancing the sides of an algebraic equation to isolate a treasure box symbol, gradually replaced with 'X'.
The game features 10 chapters with 200 puzzles in total, and covers addition, division and multiplication.
1. Amazon FreeTime ($2.99 per month for Prime members; Ages: 3 and older)
A parental controls system makes it easy to set limits, configure educational goals (and choose appropriate media), restrict categories, and find conversation starters and discussion questions to help connect with what your kids are watching and reading.
The app also includes a safe web browsing mode that lets kids access a carefully curated collection of sites and videos. Users can try out the service for free for a month, and subscriptions cost $2.99 per month for Prime members, and $4.99 per month for everyone else.
2. Epic ($7.99/month; Ages 6 to 12)
Epic allows kids to explore a vast library of child-safe content, with material designed for kindergarten up to 7th grade reading levels. Personalized reading recommendations help your kids find new material to devour. An Epic for Educators version aimed at librarians and educators is available for free.
3. PBS Kids Video (Free; Ages: 8 and under)
Kids can catch Thomas & Friends, watch the Muppets of Sesame Street, the Odd Squad, Curious George and other beloved characters.
Kids and parents can stream full episodes, as well as check out the schedule of their local PBS station schedule. Parental resources include guides for intended age for videos, learning goals for each video, and links to other PBS Kids apps and educational games.
4. BrainPop (Free; Ages: 9 to 12)
The free app comes with a daily featured movie (including closed captions) and a related quiz, allowing curious kids to learn something new every day. BrainPop subscriptions (check if your school has one!) provide even more movies and quizzes daily.
5. Khan Academy Kids (Free; Ages 5 and under)
6. Endless Alphabet (Free; Ages: 8 and under)
Children put words back together in easy and engaging spelling puzzles featuring talking words, and afterward, they're rewarded with short animations that explain each word's meaning.
The free version lets you try the app out with seven free words and animations, and an in-app purchase unlocks the full game with more than 100 word puzzles and animations. Originator's Endless line has since expanded to include Endless Numbers, Endless Wordplay, and a Spanish language app.
7. Moose Math (Free; Ages: 8 and under)
Your kid can play around with a variety of mini-games that sport a mathematical bent, such as Moose Juice, which has them following numerical recipes for smoothies. (Add a specified number of each piece of fruit to a blender to complete the task at hand.)
App maker Duck Duck Moose produces a number of interactive apps aimed at the preschool-to-elementary crowd, and this counting app can really help your preschoolers and kindergartners get comfortable with numbers and following instructions.
8. Artie's World (Free; Ages: 3 and up)
Kids will learn to draw with simple shapes guided by dots, with each object and animal named with friendly voice-overs. The app lets you and your kid explore Artie's village and eight free toys and gifts, with more unlocked through in-app purchases.
The app features seasonal updates, as well as no third-party advertising or social media links to keep the experience safe and self-contained.
9. Dr. Seuss Collection ($14.99; Ages: 2 to 6)
The Dr. Seuss Book Collection #1 app brings together five of Oceanhouse Media's digital adaptations of Dr. Seuss's most beloved works, such as The Cat in The Hat, The FOOT Book and Fox in Socks, into one convenient app.
In addition to the original text and illustrations, the app features digital extras, such as the ability to record your own voice narration and vocabulary learning tools.
10. Dragonbox Algebra ($4.99; Ages: 5 and up)
Each new puzzle adds new quirks and game rules that cleverly mirror the basic rules of elementary algebra, until in no time at all, your kids are unknowingly balancing the sides of an algebraic equation to isolate a treasure box symbol, gradually replaced with 'X'.
The game features 10 chapters with 200 puzzles in total, and covers addition, division and multiplication.
