Three Great Toddler Learning & Play Apps

I am sure you have seen the online articles admonishing parents for letting their young children use tablets or other electronic devices. The dirty stares when you are sharing an appetizer with your husband and your child is deeply entranced in their Ipad movie. Let’s just be real, sometimes, having a few minutes for uninterrupted adult conversation, laundry or cooking dinner is a necessity and tablets can be a great source of entertainment and education for your little one.

When choosing apps for my younger children, I try to find games and activities that are both educational and entertaining. I look not only for familiar characters but also subjects that I know will be attractive to my children.

When at all possible, I try to make a point to have “tablet time” with my children. This is when I sit down with them and we work on an app together. This allows me to gauge their level of understanding, learning and progress.

Today, I want to share three of our favorite children’s app companies. All three of these companies make a variety of children’s apps that are both educational and fun. They are colorful, have engaging music or sound effects and are especially easy for my toddler to navigate.

Duck Duck Moose

Duck Duck Moose has a large variety of educational apps that include math, reading, music, story telling, drawing and other introductory skills. They have bright and creative graphics that use familiar songs and stories to engage your child. This has been a favorite of my daughters for many years and now my son loves them too. We have at least 10 of these apps, so it is hard to pick a favorite. While these apps are not as “deaf friendly” as some others, Ezra is quick to figure out what is expected of him without visual cues.

Many of their apps have a leveled choices for easy, medium and hard. You can also purchase their apps in singles or bundles starting at $0.99.

Tiltan Games

Tiltan Games has so many apps it would be impossible to try them all. We downloaded the Dino Fun Pack that includes puzzles, mazes and connect the dots. At first Ezra didn’t like the puzzles. It took us a few times going through it together before it clicked that he needed to slide the pieces into place. There are several boards to choose from at a variety of levels. Once the puzzle is complete, the child is rewarded with a stream of balloons that can be popped and makes a bunch of falling stars. While I didn’t look at every app, I did notice that most of their toddler/preschool apps also offer leveled difficulties.

One of the nice things about these particular apps is that they are very deaf friendly. Flashing objects and visual cues help Ezra navigate the mazes and dot to dots easily. They also have a wide variety of common holiday games and puzzles which I am sure all kids would enjoy. They have many apps that you can download for free and bundles starting at $3.99.

Thematica

Not to long ago Ezra went through a planes, trains and trucks phase where he loved everything with wheels. I went on a app search for construction vehicles and found a great children’s bundle by Thematica. The bundle included multiple apps that had construction vehicles, ships, rockets and fire trucks. Within each app, there are 8 different vehicles that each have a different logic tasks associated with them. As you complete each task, a gold star appears at the bottom showing your progress and no matter how many stars you get, there is a celebratory show at the end of the task.

This is a very deaf friendly game, as there are little signs along the path that give you clues as to what you need to be doing. At first Ezra needed a lot of help figuring out the smaller tasks but once I showed him what he was supposed to do, he picked it up quiet quickly. I would be comfortable saying that he can finish almost all the vehicles tasks in all four apps independently now. However, he definitely has his favorite vehicles and tends towards playing the same ones over and over.

Unlike the other games I mentioned, these apps focus more on sequencing and logic. They require the child to remember a sequence of activities and complete them. While there is some matching, ABC and number work but these apps are not traditional preschool apps. You can find them individually and in bundles starting at $2.99.

These are just a few of our favorite Toddler friendly apps. I would love to hear about any products that your children love. Let me know in the comments.