Too much screen time for kids can be harmful to their development. A study from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that preschoolers shouldn’t have more than one hour a day behind a smartphone or other screens. But technology won’t go away, and instead of fearing the use of tech, we should take advantage of it.
Smartphones are little computers, and both iOS and Android platforms have a ton of useful applications. We made a list of best educational kids apps for Android, so you can direct the time children spend with the phones into something useful. This way, children will have their time with the smartphone, and won’t even notice that they are learning.
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Best Educational Apps for Kids
It’s hard to find quality apps from the enormous application stores. Both the iOS App Store and the Android Play Store have dedicated categories for educational apps. The main subcategories you could explore if you are a parent or a teacher can correlate with school subjects. You can browse apps for Math, English, Science, History, Geography, Languages, Arts, Music and Coding.
Math is probably the most popular search, and there is a lot of apps that try to solve math problems. The perception is that math is difficult, and it’s no wonder that there is the whole list of apps that can help the student in crisis.
For those who are reluctant to use apps, or you are a student with the task to complex for most apps, you can still work with tutors or go to online math problem solver. For all others, we already browsed through the vast space and navigated back with our best kids apps for Android.
Elephant Learning Math Academy
This is one of the best apps for learning basic math concepts. It’s available for Android and iOS, but also as a web application. Elephant Learning Math Academy is for kids 2-16 and it contains 32 interactive math games.
Read with Phonics
After going through math basics, it’s time to learn English, and one name stands out for learning Alphabets. Read with Phonics is for learning synthetic phonics in an interactive way. With this app, your kids could connect the letter to the sound, which is a great way to jumpstart the reading. This English app follows the curriculum and has very good reviews.
Audio Sky Tours
Interactive Astronomy app that enables you to explore the night sky and learn about stars. It comes with one free and six guides in total. Lessons length is 20 minutes, and you can choose between a male and female narrator. The audio guide follows constellations and sky object you can observe with the map taking into account viewers location and time of year. The lessons will give you all relevant information with a little history and context as well as well thought pauses for users to absorb information and take a closer look at the stars.
James’ amazing adventures: learning games for kids
Adventure and learning game in one through its fun gameplay teaches kids how to match color, shapes, and sounds. Its also aimed at shape identification and sorting basic navigation and isolating sound. The games are easy and fun. One of them requires matching the baby bird to its mother by associating them through their sound. The game has parental control whereafter solving a math problem, parents can set difficulty levels and set the duration of playing time. James’ adventures are designed for 2 to 5-year-olds and have been widely approved.
** Start With Art!
The app follows visual arts curriculum and with high-quality animation takes kids through four lessons. Animated art guides Tickles, Furnace and Ruby take users through Art as a Language, Messages in Art, Line and Shape lessons. Every lesson has two projects with topics like creating model sculptures. App teaches about art concepts but also encourages practical work.
Match & Find
App for improving working memory aimed towards children with special educational needs. Working memory is important for later development of language and numeracy skills. The app helps with developing memory, matching and sequencing skills. It can train visual and auditory memory and it has support for kids with poor fine-motor skills.
This list of educational games can be a great start, but you should keep an open eye for a new app for kids all the time. These apps successfully direct kids to learning without pressure. This way young ones can play and learn at the same time.
Bottom line
When you’re browsing over 80,000 educational apps consider these elements. Try to evaluate how user-friendly UI is, does it have quality content, parental control, and gamification elements. The app should have features that make you want to participate and learn along the way. Always check the reviews and the number of downloads. Choose apps that are built for the age of your children so the concepts in the app relate to kids mental capabilities. The best apps have some features in common, they focus on activities rather than just answering questions and they include narration, because young kids are not fluent readers, or even not readers at all.
Guest article written by: Robert Everett is a freelance author with great attention to facts and details. His culture-savvy and educational background and contribution in various media outlets helped him developed a personal style with the ability to write about different topics. He is not reluctant to share his vast knowledge and experience with the audience and to share his insights via articles, blogs and social media accounts.
