We totally tried to be those parents who didn’t let our kids have ipads, ipods, iphones, etc…we really did…I caved first, James held out a bit longer. I quickly realized that this little parenting tool (ok, I shouldn’t call it that, but seriously) could give me an extra five minutes (or ten, or twenty, amiright?!)…I could sit here and say “limit screen time, don’t let your kids watch tv/youtube/Netflix, etc” but I’d be outright lying to you, so I’m just gonna be honest here because sometimes I want to poop in peace or just finish dinner without two kids attached to my legs, so I’m going to share our favorite iphone apps for toddlers with you! We have quite a few favorites over here…
Lark uses it more than Arlo, but he’s started to pick up on a few. I try to pick apps that are somewhat educational, but there’s some just-for-fun ones in the mix too…
Anything Sago Mini – But seriously…how cute are these apps?! Our favorites are:
- Sago Mini Fairy Tales – Fly around with a little kitten fairy and discover fun, little surprises in the forest. Lark’s favorite is the troll under the bridge!
- Sago Mini Babies – Dress them, play with them, feed them and even change their diapers!
- Sago Mini Music Box – You move about a scene as you tap your finger it adds little details to the scene that also function as a musical note creating songs like Jingle Bells and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
Anything Toca – These again are so cute! I am obsessed with the graphics and the amount of detail they put into them. Our favorites are:
- Toca Lab: Elements – The science nerd in me loves this one! You have sort of a periodic table of ‘elements’ and you have to find right combinations of elements and reactions to solve them. It’s a new spin on matching games and we love it!
- Toca Robot Lab – Create your robot using random pieces so each one is unique! Then fly them through a maze with obstacles that require problem solving to get through.
- Toca Boo – This one is hilarious! You travel through rooms and turn lights on and off to scare other characters, in a funny and cute way. Great for Halloween!
- Toca Band – This one is so creative! I love anything musical and this one is so good. You get to choose from different sound effects, some instruments, some singing like opera and even beatboxing, to build your band. Every time it’s a different melody and is so interactive.
- Toca Hair Salon – We laugh so much with this one. Choose a fun character and style their hair! Cut it, wash it, add a bow…the possibilities are endless! Our fave is the lion and his fancy mane. We like to stick all the bows in it.
- Toca Life: City – All of the Toca ones like this are great (I think we have Vacation too). It’s a miniature city with the most adorable little characters! Shop for new outfits at the clothing store, step into the local café for a bit to eat, turn lights on and off, move around furniture…so much fun!
Bubl Apps – I won’t itemize these ones individually, since they’re fairly similar, but we have Bubl Draw, Bubl Gelato, Bubl ABC and Bubl Tap. They’re great sensory apps with different shapes, sounds and colors. From Bubl “our apps help children to feel the connection between color, sound and form.” So well made and again, the artwork is these makes me giddy! These apps are available in a bundle.
Busy Shapes – This one is great and can actually get quite difficult! But it’s so fun to watch Lark figure out the puzzles and be proud of herself. You have a gameboard of sorts with a specific shape and you have to find the hole it fits into, similar to a shape sorter, but it gets harder where you have to figure out, based on elements on the gameboard, how to change the shape’s color or shape to get it to fit into the hole.
Peppa Pig: Holiday – Is anyone else’s child obsessed child with Peppa Pig?! Actually, I love Peppa Pig with their British accents. This one is fun because Peppa and her family are on vacation and you can play all sorts of mini games, like a counting one where you have to count the number of suitcases they need to take with them.
Our two favorite Alphabet/Number apps are LetterSchool (both letters and numbers) and Interactive Alphabet ABC’s. Both are apps where you learn the letters/numbers by tracing and hearing the sounds.
Along the same line is another favorite, Endless Reader. Also has letter recognition and sounds, but goes a step further where you place the letters into a word and the word into a sentence. It’s accompanied by fun little monsters to animate the sentence.
Arlo sort of interacts with all of them, but he’s still not entirely understanding of what’s going on. His favorites are Old McDonald by Duck Duck Moose and Toca Train. Old McDonald is fun with several scenes that have interactive elements that are animated with animal sounds, etc. It was a favorite of Lark’s as a younger toddler as well. You can even play the song in other languages, although, I’ve turned the music off at times because it can start to grate on your nerves, if you get my drift! Toca Train is great as well and fairly simple with a little train that you can navigate through a fun, little scene.
We have a pretty good mix of apps for the kids and I really think they can be beneficial for kids on so many levels, but we do try to limit time with them…most of the time…
What are some of your favorite apps for toddlers and kids?
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