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10 best kids apps for Android to keep your kids entertained
As the platform matures, it seems that more and more parents are willing to give their kids tablets, let them play with smartphones, and allow them to engage with new technology in general. Of course, if you’re going to let your kids play with tech then they should probably have some apps to play with that are age-appropriate. The good news is that there are plenty of apps that kids can use without you having to worry about it. Let’s take a look at the best kids apps for android!
The best kids apps for Android
ABC Kids
Price: Free
ABC Kids is an educational app. It focuses primarily on phonics, learning the alphabet, and a little bit of writing. There is also letter matching, upper and lowercase, and word association. The interface makes it harder for kids to exit the app. Otherwise, it’s a very simple experience overall. ABC Kids also has no in-app purchases, no advertising, and it’s free to download. It’s one of the better kids apps for younger children. It’s a bit simple for older kids.
Google Play Books
Price: Free / Book costs vary
Google Play Books is arguably the best of the kids apps for books. It has a large selection of both adult and child content. Additionally, it has things like comic books. Best of all, the app includes features for reading each type. The interface is clean. Unlike most, this one doesn’t have any child locks or anything special. It’s just a really good ereader with content for almost any age. The app is free although books will usually cost you money. It’s worth noting that the service does have some free selections as well. Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook app are also excellent.
Intellijoy kids apps
Price: Free / Varies
from. You’ll find apps for reading, counting, shapes, music, animals, puzzles, preschool, and a lot more. Most apps have good reviews and most of them are free. The ones that cost money don’t seem to cost more than $2.99, That’s fairly inexpensive. This is a great one-stop shop for a ton of educational content for kids and they even have an all-in-one app that helps you browse the various games and apps.
Khan Academy Kids
Price: Free
Khan Academy Kids is a learning app specifically for kids. It’s by Khan Academy and their adult learning app is simply spectacular. The kids version is very good as well. The app covers things like reading, language, writing, math, and some extra stuff like social development and problem-solving skills. Kids get a bunch of cute, colorful animals that deliver each lesson and there are a bunch of mini-games to help make the learning more fun. This is obviously for younger children. We’re talking Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade along with possibly third or fourth grade. The app is entirely free with no in-app purchases or ads.
Kids Doodle
Price: Free
Kids Doodle is a fun little drawing app for kids. It goes with a black background approach with highly colorful, neon glow style drawing. There are other brushes and other effects, but this one just looks really cool when you have the neon glow thing going. On top of the drawing features, there is a playback feature where you can watch yourself create the thing you drew. Plus, the app has a dedicated gallery mode so you can view all of your past drawings. It’s simple, fun, and free to download and use.
Nick Jr.
Price: Free / Requires cable subscription
Nick Jr is the official app of the TV station. As such, you can find plenty of Nick Jr content. That includes full episodes of a ton of shows, exclusive video content, and more. A lot of stuff is available for free in the app. However, you can get more if you have an existing cable subscription. Simply sign into the app with your cable subscription and you’ll have everything the app has to offer. It also has some educational games built in. At worst, it’s free to download and try.
Oceanhouse Media apps
Price: Free / Varies
Oceanhouse Media is a developer on Google Play with a bunch of classic kids content. The developer specializes in lightly interactive ebooks for kids. One such example is The Cat in the Hat. You download the app and the child can either read the book on their own or have the app read it to them. There are some classic kids characters here like Little Critter, Berenstain Bears, and Dr. Seuss. Most of the apps have a single price tag of about $1.99 give or take, or you can use most of them for free with Google Play Pass if you use that. The apps worked pretty well in our testing and should be more than good enough for most.
PBS Kids
Price: Free
PBS has always been known for having great children’s content. Now there is an app with tons of that stuff. You’ll find a number of kids shows including Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, Wild Kratts, Odd Squad, Dinosaur Train, and plenty of others. The service seems to work very well and we had no trouble streaming video to our devices. The interface works well. However, parents may need to start the videos for the kids. This one also has Chromecast support so you can watch it on your TV and you can buy more shows if you want to. It’s truly one of the very best kids apps.
YouTube Kids
Price: Free / $12.99 per month
YouTube Kids is an effort by Google to separate the kid-friendly content on YouTube and then put that content in its own application. YouTube Kids is a good resource for parents and there are a ton of videos available for kids to watch. The app also comes with Chromecast support so you can watch it on TV. The service had issues in the past with bad commercials and less than friendly kids videos. However, most of those issues have been sorted out. You can also pick up a YouTube Red subscription and get an ad-free experience on YouTube Kids as well as the regular YouTube app.
Almost any streaming service
Price: Free / Varies
Most streaming services these days have a kids mode or at least a bunch of kids shows. Netflix has a specific mode for kids and competitors like Hulu have a bunch of kid-friendly content. This is a bit of a cheap pick, but it’s effective and these apps actually do work. At the end of the day, you may have an educational show on TV while your kid doodles with a different app. We recommend checking out the usual suspects like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video first before going to the more niche crowd.
If we missed any of the best kids apps for android, tell us about them in the comments. You can find our most recently updated app lists by clicking here.
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