A bunch of great educational-ish iPad apps for kids
In this post about Minecraft yesterday, I wrote a footnote about educational-ish1 apps on my iPad:
On my iPad, I have a screen full of educational apps that the kids can work with pretty much anytime they want without asking.
I posted a screenshot of that page on Twitter, and I wanted to follow up with some App Store links as well as some links to other apps that people tweeted back at me. (Note: my kids are 6 and 8, so YMMV.)
Minecraft Pocket Edition - Duh. It doesn’t do quite as much as the full versions available on other platforms, but they’re improving and adding stuff all the time and the touchscreen experience is great.
The Tinybop Collection - Beautiful, fun apps. The kids most often work with The Everything Machine and Simple Machines.
Mate in 1 - A game that challenges you to find the checkmate using just one move. Ollie takes chess after school once a week, so I downloaded this for when he wants some extra practice during the week. See also Mate in 2.
Monument Valley - This is a straight-up game, but it’s so well-made (I love the soundtrack) and the logic puzzles are genuinely challenging that I’m happy to let them work with this one. Ollie has made it all the way through while Minna is still on level 9. Gonna get the Forgotten Shores IAP too.
The Numberlys - This one has ceased to be educational for my kids, but it’s great for the younger set.
Crazy Gears - 99 levels of mechanical puzzles involving gears.
Hopscotch - Use an intuitive drag-and-drop interface to build games. It includes many video tutorials for learning how everything works.
And here are a few recommendations from others that I am eager to try out:
Quick Math Pack - Four math apps, including multiplication, fractions, and telling time. See also Prodigy Math Game, The Counting Kingdom, the DragonBox apps.
Barefoot World Atlas - An annotated world atlas. This looks great…downloading now.
Epic! - A eBook library for kids 12 and under with 10,000 titles. A couple of very strong recommendations from people for this.
Brain It On - Draw shapes to solve challenging physics puzzles. See also LiquidSketch.
Endless Reader - For beginning readers. The same company, Originator Inc., has many other apps as well.
Professor Astro Cat’s Solar System - Learn about the solar system with a cat and mouse as tour guides.
Deep Green - Top-notch chess game.
Lots of good stuff there…I’ve downloaded a few already. I really really wish the App Store had a try-before-you buy policy. I have no idea which of these apps the kids will actually like/play and it would be nice not to have to spend $50 to find out. Anyway, thanks to everyone who shared their favorites. Let me know if I’ve missed anything great!
As you might have guessed from reading this here web site, I tend to have an expansive definition of what is educational. Hence, “educational-ish” to adjust people’s expectations.↩
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