iPad apps for young children

darragh o meara

I got my 3 year old daughter an iPad for Xmas, I'm now looking for some recommendations for app suitable for her to use. I'm mainly focusing on educational type apps.

I'd appreciate any help.

Darragh

shanec1928

with out being smart would you not be better getting one of those leapfrog things that you always see adds on the tv for? that would be better based towards that age group

fish fingers

My 3 year old loved Super Why until he discovered angry birds. One super why is painting , but the other one is letters and all that. He loved it

darragh o meara

I was waiting for that alright. I was going to get one but decided not too for a few reasons:

The leap pad was next to impossible to get before Xmas.
The cost of the games/carts were between €10/15, iPad apps cost a good deal less.
The iPad has better future use ie. as she grows up the content can be changed.
We have a car holder in the car so she can watch some movies when going on trips in the car.
My daughter is already familiar with operating my one and knows how to open apps etc.
Finally the iPad I got cost a about the same as the leap pad, also the leap pad is very hard on the batteries so would end up costing an awful lot more in the long run.

darragh o meara

fish fingers wrote: »

My 3 year old loved Super Why until he discovered angry birds. One super why is painting , but the other one is letters and all that. He loved it

My daughter loves angry birds too

biko

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/42822/app-day-cut-the-birds

Jsmurff

riite dont no anything about whats being disscused here but just wanted to say darragh I first thought the idea of a 3 year old having his/her own Ipad as an idiotic idea (because children like to unintentionally break things for pleasure.... well I know I did ) but when you bring the factors that you mentioned into light it actually makes sence :cofused: Imagine That!

hoodwinked

in my 2 and a half year olds folder in our ipad she has

humf - paid ( a good app even if they aren't familiar with the show) it taught her how to draw by numbers, color co-ordinate, etc... there is a game where you have to direct a car to collect toys while avoiding the blocks and another one where you match the outline to the character (this helped her with jigsaws in real life) there are 9 mini games in it.

she has a good few of the free 'talking ben/john' range (with violence turned off in the settings) they are the ones that imitate what they say, its helped our one be more concise with what she says when she realised she couldn't understand what was being said back she corrected herself more clearly, or 'talking hippo' which is meant for toddlers. talking ben also has a mini game where they mix colorful chemicals in a chemistry lab,

another one called 'shapes toddler pre school' it taught her shapes such as hexagon and crescent with flashcards and a quiz where they 'win' stickers you can stick to a picture when they get them right!

another one she likes is 'kids doodle lite' it allows her free draw in multicolored illuminous colours.

and not really educational but fun nonetheless

she has a disney app where she gets shorts of disney related content and greetings from her favourate characters.

and a spongebob tickler app that she loves.

dekeed

Be wary of "in app" purchases! My 8yr old ran up a bill on my cc of over €100 in a couple of weeks. He didn't realise it to be fair to him. I contacted the Apple cust service.. and as always they are fantastic to deal with (phone companies take note!).
The key thing to know is to go into general settings... restrictions... and turn OFF "in app purchases".

Tom Dunne

dekeed wrote: »

Be wary of "in app" purchases! My 8yr old ran up a bill on my cc of over €100 in a couple of weeks. He didn't realise it to be fair to him. I contacted the Apple cust service.. and as always they are fantastic to deal with (phone companies take note!).
The key thing to know is to go into general settings... restrictions... and turn OFF "in app purchases".

Or, you can set it to always require the password for purchases. And make sure you use a password your child cannot enter (special characters, etc.)

jc84

Got my 4 year old niece an iPad for Xmas, she loves the Disney princess apps, theres also a lot of Disney storybooks available for download

zinzan

An iPad of her own! :eek:
No way would I be getting our little fella one, but that's your business.

We let him use mine supervised for a short while on Sunday mornings so for him on my iPad we have:

'I see ewe' and 'I hear ewe' - two animals/sounds type things,
'ABC phonics' - simialr, with colours and some simple words too
'Animal fun' - again a name the animal app, sounds are a bit annoying in this one
'Find the rabbit' - limited no. of pics to find the rabbit in but fun for a while
'Farm friends' - very basic app with some short animated Lego Duplo characters
'Duplo Jams' - another duplo themed app with music
'Lego 4+' - very basic fun little game where they build a vehicle and then collect studs to unlock more parts.

loinnsigh

My 3 year old loves:

• Elmo Loves ABCs (try the lite version first, but it's worth buying the full version.
• Crayola Paint & Create
• Ladybird Classic Me Books (was 79c last week, not sure if it still is...)
  Also Anrgy Birds and Doodle Jump

smokingman

My son (2yrs 2 mths) loves playing with my wifes ipad.
It's incredible to see him pick it up so easy and when I saw him doing the pinch-to-zoom thing for the first time, I had a big smile on my face!

His faves are the Smurfs and Charlie Brown ones (can't remember the names but they're similar in that you have a top down map and you can set the characters walking around to do things) but the others he spends time actually concentrating on are the babytv ones (card memory games, shapes and colours etc) and an app of "flashcards" (I'll get the name and post an update when I get home) that have a picture, the word and a spoken calling out of what's on the screen.

TG4 also have a very cool flashcards one that teaches basic Irish words.
It's pretty cool to hear a two year old point me at something and give me both language names for it

RoryMurphyJnr

My lad (4.5) loves the iPad, uses it like a pro, one minute he playing some games Lego 4+ is a favourite, and disney stories and toy story.
Next he's looking at photos or listening to some music.
I've put some videos on it for him as well.

Wouldn't be bothered with a leapfrog etc, the iPad is far superior.
Couple of things to note if you have small people using them, get a screen guard to protect from sticky fingers, then screen wipes to wash off the jam.

Also Youtube on it doesn't have a filter for kids only but you can just hide the app altogether if needs be through restrictions in settings.

R

Soarer

Don't know if it's available for the iPad, but my 3 year old is always playing Jetpack Joyride on my iPhone.

Granted it's not educational, but it's brilliant for hand/eye coordination.

Bellu

Well, here are some nice list of apps for Kids to start with the iPad:
http://www.aneesoft.com/tutorials/ipad/top-8-best-ipad-apps-for-kids.html
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/10-best-ipad-apps-for-kids-937546

dekeed

It is quite incredible how easily the kids take it up. I watched a documentary recently about Steve Jobs and Will.i.am from the 'Black Eyed Peas' (music band :-)) was saying how incredible it was that the iPad comes without any instructions... yet everyone seems to be able to use it - quite incredible!

ringadingding

Our daughter (4) has an Ipad2, it's brilliant for her, we have loads of apps aimed for kids.

We had a leap pad too, it's just not in the same league.

I have always just typed in 'preschool' into the app search bar and routed around for ones that look good.

Im hooked on flick soccer myself

She's very careful with it, though i hate to see her climbing off furniture holding it....

etar

a few that my 3 year old loves are
caboose
Injini, child developement suite (lite version is free)
Gube for child appropriate u-tube
any of the 123 kids fun apps and
bugs and buttons

Johnny_Fontane

my 2 year old is addicted to youtube. he gets into all sorts of weird stuff (like scary makeup lessons and GTA type scenario violence), but mostly looks at fire engines, fire stations and cartoons of all types.

RoryMurphyJnr

Johnny_Fontane wrote: »

my 2 year old is addicted to youtube. he gets into all sorts of weird stuff (like scary makeup lessons and GTA type scenario violence), but mostly looks at fire engines, fire stations and cartoons of all types.

word of warning very easy for small people to go from something they should be looking at on youtube to something they shouldn't with them even realising.
you can hide the youtube app on the iPad through Setting/General/Restrictions

Clementine2010

My two year old loves the iPad and most apps are only 2 or 3 euro and she gets hours of entertainment from them, I try to download educational apps and SuperWhy is a great one. The Disney app for iPad is free and although not educational has lots of hidden game and cartoons in it, great for trying to keep them occupied in the car etc. The coloring apps are also great, I think some people think its terrible giving kids screens like this, but you have to remember learning is changing and our kids will learn differently then we did as computers and technology are now a part of everyday life. They can use the iPad/iPhone with ease.

Theres also some great reading books for the iPad encouraging them to read and use books even though they're not books in the traditional sense!

megatr0nic

Just to let you know that my apps for children are free for the next few days.
I design developmental learning aids for toddlers and pre-schoolers for iOS devices.
LearnEarly

darragh o meara

megatr0nic wrote: »

Just to let you know that my apps for children are free for the next few days.
I design developmental learning aids for toddlers and pre-schoolers for iOS devices.
LearnEarly

That's a great app. I'd gladly pay a few euro for that.

megatr0nic

Thanks Darragh,
glad you like it. My other, currently free, app is Farm Buddies.

Farm Buddies

Feel free to tell your friends, post a review in the App Store, or like Megatronic Games on Facebook.
Thanks

soundsham

Miss olive for my 2 yr old
There is a game where you pop balloons and have to match the pairs
Granted she makes me do them till the last 3 or 4 pairs

wush06

megatr0nic wrote: »

Just to let you know that my apps for children are free for the next few days.
I design developmental learning aids for toddlers and pre-schoolers for iOS devices.
LearnEarly

megatr0nic wrote: »

Thanks Darragh,
glad you like it. My other, currently free, app is Farm Buddies.

Farm Buddies

Feel free to tell your friends, post a review in the App Store, or like Megatronic Games on Facebook.
Thanks

Hey thanks for the free offer of the apps. Do these work on the new ipad. Cant get them to work for me.

Hobbes

Feed me. Thinkit is only iPHone (no iPad app yet).

Involves a monster speaking something and three answers. You feed the monster the correct answer.

Starts off with shapes, colors, numbers, letters and then moves onto more abstract learning concepts.

r3nu4l

My 22 month old enjoys the following apps:

Baby Aqua
My First Words
ABC song
i-xylophone
Activity Farm
Drawing Free
Counting 123

The app she loves most and one I think is fantastic is: The Night Before Christmas, a Magic Ink books production. It's a readalong (or be read to) book that is very well illustrated and has a host of small activities to do after each 'page' has been read.

Clementine2010

The free Disney one is great and gets the most use in our house, really just an adverts for Disney but its brilliant