There’s lots of great educational app content for kids out there now.

We’ve been spending some time thinking about what makes a kids app truly special.

Wired’s Geek Dad shared a great challenge a while back. He wrote:

One thing that defines us as GeekMoms and GeekDads is our desire to see our children question and challenge the status quo, to help them grow into human beings who are capable of tackling the future and making this world a better place. If they are going to do that well, we need to begin to look at the new technology offered to us by iPads and touch tablets and start demanding that we design applications that make the most of that technology.

Where are the applications that help teach preschoolers how to build simple structures, a digital version of building blocks?

Where are the applications that teach the laws of physics to primary school children by taking the use of the three-axis gyroscope and accelerometer one step further?

Where is the application that uses computer programming concepts and ideas I haven’t thought of yet because I am not smart enough, and creates something that becomes essential to all children’s learning and development and can only exist on the iPad?

We still think these are great questions.

Which apps do you think are best rising to this challenge?

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Considering an iPad and interested in what kind of educational content is out there for kids? Here are some of the best and most popular apps – which, when taken as a whole, present a compelling case for the role of the device as an educational tool. Let us know what other apps your kids love in the comments — there’s a lot of great content out there, and not all of it ends up at the top of the App Store listings. But here are some of the apps that did…

Top Educational Kids iPad Apps in the App Store

Star Walk is one of those special apps that delivers upon the iPad’s promise of being a “magical” device. You may in fact have already seen this one — it won the Apple Design Awards in 2010 and was featured among the best iPhone apps of 2009.

The iPad version continues to provide great astronomical information — but the real “wow’ of this app is the fact that it delivers a full screen augmented reality view of the heavens that rotates as you move your iPad around — turning it into a super-powered virtual telescope.

Strongly recommended both for experienced star gazers and the youngest observers of the heavens. (Although the littlest Gallileo wannabes may need a bit of help..) You can get it from the App Store here.

Honorable Mention: If you’re looking for other fantastic astronomy apps, both Mars Globe HD and Solar Walk 3D Solar System are great.





Fish School HD continues Duck Duck Moose’s strong tradition of producing quality kids educational apps for the iOS platform. Like their previous iPhone mega-hits, Wheels on the Bus and Itsy Bitsy Spider, Fish School HD features strong animations that can help engage kids in a learning experience. This app features a dynamic school of fish that swims into place to display letters, numbers and shapes — and, like a well-trained aquatic marching band, the fish are perfectly synced with the accompanying music. Fish School HD guides kids through different learning modes and periodically rewards them with free play with the fish. If you’re looking to help kids learn letters, numbers, and shapes, it’s hard to go wrong with this one.
You can get it from the App Store here.




Math Bingo has been one of the hottest kids apps in recent weeks and has been extensively featured by Apple — but in case you missed it, Math Bingo is wonderfully focused on a simple concept — you answer math problems to fill spots on a bingo board. This drill-style learning is complemented by adorable little “bingo bugs” that you place on your board as you correctly answer problems. Once you win a round you are awarded a bingo bug to keep and then given the chance to play with it for a bit — not only by touching it, but also by moving your iPad around and triggering the accelerometer. Great fun and a great reward for learning. My three year old isn’t quite ready for this yet, but apps like this one and Math Ninja are driving her curiosity around this whole “math” thing. Last night she spent an hour with me asking questions like what is 3+4 and 5+2 and 1+4 and on and on.. Anything that engages my daughter in learning like that is a tool I want in her life. If you’re interested you can get it from the App Store here.




Full disclosure here – Build A Zoo is our app, and we’re proud of it – but you don’t have to take our word for the fact that it is a great learning app for the iPad – Apple named it a “New & Notable” education app just the day after it was released. Build A Zoo features six different learning games that kids can play to earn animals for their zoo. The included games help develop a nice balance of skills including spelling, memory, matching, as well as timing and fine motor skills. Interested in seeing what your kids think? We’ve got some promo codes for free copies of the app that we’d be happy to share with you, our loyal readers — just let us know in the comments..We’re all out of promo codes for the current version, but you can still get it from the App Store here.

There’s absolutely no doubting the fact that Cookie Doodle is an incredibly engaging app. Kids love to play house – and this app lets them bake and decorate cookies without the mess. Trust us – if your kids like baking real cookies, they’ll love this too. We have seen some comments in user reviews that this app is void of educational content — but we disagree. If you’re looking for apps to help your kids get a jumpstart on reading, writing and arithmetic, than this probably isn’t the best app for you. But if you believe the process of going through a self-guided yet structured creative exercise can help your child learn to think, than this is probably an excellent app to add to your child’s collection. Just be prepared to help eat the virtual cookies.. You can get it from the App Store here.

Math Board is a classic – one of those apps that validates our claim that mobile devices are the modern chalkboard. This app takes that idea quite literally – math problems appear and you have the ability to work them out by hand on the virtual chalkboard. The app features deep options for customizing both the type of problems you want to answer and the overall quiz. Further it also stores your quiz results and displays them in an easy to see dashboard. Perhaps the best part of this app is it’s ability to deliver value across a wide range of learning levels. Depending upon the child, it’s easy to see this being useful as a regular learning tool for kids from as young as 4 to as old as 13 — and not many apps can make that claim.
You can get it from the App Store here.














Color & Draw is a modern coloring book. It includes a wide variety of line drawings that kids can color in, as well as stickers that can be added to drawings, and the ability to import images and draw on them. The app’s user interface is simple and clean and easy for little kids to figure out — meaning you don’t have to fight with the technology at all and can instead get straight to the fun of coloring. Color & Draw also makes it easy for you to save and share images — meaning that even if junior’s next masterpiece doesn’t end up on on gramma’s fridge, it may end up on her desktop. Sound like fun?
You can get it from the App Store here.
























The Cat in the Hat has always been a classic, and it’s only gotten better on the iPad. The iPad version will read to you, or let you read and explore the story yourself along the way. Really, the magic here is the story – but the occasional convenience of having the book read itself and the fun of being able to interact with story elements gives this version a freshness beyond any paper copy.
You can get it from the App Store here.




















123 World Geography is both a guided coloring exercise and a great introduction to geography. It’s best explained by watching the demo built into the app, but the essence of it is that you get to color in a wide range of maps. Once you’ve finished coloring in your map, you can also easily save or share your colorful cartography with friends. A great app for the kids in the car on any road trip.
You can get it from the App Store here.
































Super Why is a favorite of many kids from the PBS Kids series. Their app is true to the series – with classic characters each hosting their own game, including sentence completion, rhyming, spelling and a letter hunt. The visual look of this is obviously top-notch and the learning games are of obvious educational value. Some reader reviews seem to indicate that there’s been some instability with this app – but I’m happy to say that I’ve not been able to crash my iPad with it. Which is lucky, because our kids love it.

This list is based on a mix of our personal take and iTunes App Store data as of early June ’10. We’re confident all of these are truly great iPad apps for kids — but we’re not convinced our list is completely comprehensive. Although the situation has improved greatly since we put together our list of Top 20 Kids Educational Apps for the iPhone, the nature of the App Store still makes it easy for some great apps to slip through the cracks and makes it even harder for them to ever get rediscovered. On that note – are your kids using any great educational iPad apps that you love that you don’t see on this list?

Let us know — we’d love to feature some reader favorites here.

Do share.

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We just launched our most recent kids educational app yesterday – and today it ranks among the top twenty educational iPad apps. The app is called Build A Zoo and features six different educational games that help kids improve their spelling, memory, and coordination skills.

Some of the included games include:

Monkey Letter Scramble
Match letters to spell a word and then watch the monkey dance. Letters are spoken when touched and words are spoken when all letters have been matched.

Bird Card Flip
Flip cards to match birds. Helps develop memory and matching skills.

Polar Bear Bowling
Help the polar bears knock down penguin pins — a light-hearted game that helps kids practice their timing.

Elephant Mindreading
Toddlers have to find the person in the crowd that the elephant is thinking about. Great for matching and object recognition.

Turtle Race
Toddlers have to be quick to help the turtle win this race. They need to press a button to power their turtle — and develop fine motor skills along the way.

Dolphin Beach Ball
Drag the dolphin to catch the falling balls and keep them out of the water. Great for working on both timing skills and coordination.

If you’re interested in a promo code, let us know — we’ve got a few to give away still.

But really we just wanted to celebrate today, so we thought we’d share this amazing elephant with you.

Quite something, huh? My daughter and I watched it together – and now she wants to go see an elephant. Off to the zoo we go..

And again – if you’re interested in a free copy of Build A Zoo, just let us know in the comments..

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In case you missed it, the New York Times ran a story that covered the research of Sherry Turkle, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Initiative on Technology and SeIf. In particular, the piece focused on her recent research which found that heavy parental use of technology is associated with feelings of hurt, jealousy and competition among kids. Her findings will be published in “Alone Together” early next year by Basic Books. The thrust of the story was:

Child-development researchers are concerned that smartphones, instant messaging and Twitter are creating distracted parents.

On the face of it, this may seem to be a plausible perspective. Mobile devices are undeniably having a significant impact on how we connect, learn, socialize, and parent. The article certainly seemed to resonate. Links to it were splashed across social media today, and one our local papers – the Star Tribune – saw fit to put the article on the front page of their print edition.

To be frank, we find the perspective advanced in the article to be both disturbing and counterproductive. We do not mean to minimize the fact that people are busy, overstimulated, and overconnected. They are. We also do not want to discourage a communal conversation around how technology fits in our life.

Our problem is the way that this article framed up the discussion – leading with the idea that plugged-in parents are alienating their kids misses all of the benefits that technology can bring to family life. My daughter learned her ABCs on an iPhone. My son can videochat with his European grandparents via Skype. My grandmother keeps track of the whereabouts of her entire brood via Facebook. She’s close to 90 years old and almost blind – but technology keeps her connected to us all. These are not small victories for technology or for our family — they are major victories. And they are happening every day in families all across the world.

This article misses all of these victories in its rush to proclaim that technology is alienating us from each other. And on the basis of what evidence? A qualitative analysis of 300 people? Really? It may be a vain hope, but I truly would like to believe that one of our nation’s flagship media outlets would look for more robust data and a better balance in perspective before running a story like this that has deep implications for the role that technology plays in our lives.

We believe there’s more promise in focusing on the opportunities that smartphones create for kids and families.

Fast Company’s recent cover story on how smartphones are impacting learning is worth considering as a counterpoint to the NYT article. Other examples of the positive impact of technology on kids are not lacking – in fact they are everywhere. Students in Tennessee are benefiting from mobile learning. So are students in the UK. As are students from Singapore to Texas.

Our point is not that smartphones (or any technology) are a magic cure for what ails society. But we do believe that all technology is a tool that can be applied for good or ill, and that it up to us to define how the technology fits into our life.

Fear-mongering articles like today’s NYT’s piece are dangerous precisely because they have the potential to blind us all to the good that can come from a smart use of technology.

Worst of all – coming from a publication on the defensive about the impact of the Internet on their revenue stream – this just tastes like a bit of technology-bashing sour grapes. Especially when it’s immediately on the heels of the New York Times clipping the heels of some talented student developers for “stealing” their content. Don’t get me wrong – I love the New York Times. I just hope for more from them in the future. There is an opportunity to show people how technology can positively impact us – and it’s a story that can not only sell papers but also lead the way to a better future. Here’s hoping they take up that challenge.

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Current standardized tests are:

a) A simplistic way of assessing learning outcomes
b) Culturally biased
c) Responsible for “teaching to the test”
d) Narrow in their focus
e) All of the above

I’m sure that when first introduced, scantron forms seemed like a wonderful invention.   The technology simply and easily allowed many, many exams to be graded in a compressed period of time and has ultimately enabled a national, standards-based approach to learning.  Sounds great, right?  Well, perhaps, except that anyone that has taken a standardized test somewhere along the line can speak to the limits of the current approach.  The complaints are familiar — standardized tests evaluate a narrow slice of learning, standardized tests measure test-taking skills rather than true knowledge or critical thinking skills, standarized tests are culturally biased, etc.  And when you think about it – the approach is flawed.  We have built an education system that caters to standardized tests and we build standardized tests that are grounded in what a scantron machine can read.

Looking forward, we do believe that there is a better way.   Immersive, educational applications can evalutate performance as quickly as any scantron machine.   But educational applications can go further.  Quite simply, they can deliver a deeper exam experience than any paper-based test ever could.  For now, most test-related mobile applications are focused on test-prep rather than acutal test-delivery.  Many of these apps are usefuls tool for coping with our current testing system.  That said, we believe that ultimately mobile devices could be the platform that not only prepares students for tests — but also the platform that delivers and grades these tests.  We believe that mobile technology can unlock a fresh approach to testing — and that in a world obsessed with standards, we believe that a fresh approach to testing can enable a fresh approach to teaching — one that looks beyond the narrow confines of a number two pencil.

Interested in helping prepare your kids for this brave new world?  So are we.  And for today, our recommendation to you is to pick up an old classic, reimagined in modern form.  There’s nothing like The Cat in the Hat — but you’ve never seen the Cat quite like this before.

Reinvented for the iPhone and the iPad, The Cat in the Hat is a perfect way to introduce kids to both reading and to their digital futures.  You can get it here if you’re interested.

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Almost half of the top 100-selling apps in the iTunes App Store were for preschool or elementary-aged children in November 2009, according to a content analysis by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, which promotes digital media technologies to advance children’s learning.

(source)

Given the fact that the app store sells $200 million in apps each month, there’s an enormous opportunity for designers and developers to make money creating educational content.

This translates into great news for parents and kids — it should mean a huge volume of quality educational content for kids.

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With Apple soon to announce it’s ‘latest creation,’ we have a feeling Apple’s influence on the digital world will burst forward quite a bit this year.

More specifically, the iPhone continues to show incredible upward trends, and signs point to a fantastic 2010.

If we combine our sunny iPhone forecast with the general upward mobile trends (more users, more content, more ad revenue, and, most importantly, more influence on our lives), the clarity of our mission – namely to positively impact the educational use of the iPhone – grows stronger.

We genuinely believe, despite tens of thousands of apps to discuss and millions of current users, that our conversations here at the ikids blog can make a difference, so as we move forward this year, please feel free to comment on posts or let us know better ways to mold the conversation.

Our first new year’s resolution is to get back on track with reviews…more to come soon!

-us

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Say goodbye to textbooks and hello to the next-gen mobile tools that will power our children’s education. Increasing access to high-end mobile devices and an explosion of mobile educational software are leading to pilot programs focused on determining the role this new technology should have in the classroom. These pilot programs are already demonstrating significant impact on student learning. Curious about what else lies ahead? Here are four trends driving the death of the chalkboard and the coming mobile education revolution:

Smart phone penetration will hit 82% by 2013
In order for mobile devices to be the future of education, kids need access to devices that are more sophisticated than yesteryear’s Razr. Text-to-screen, in-class polling exercises are a great component of many forward-thinking teachers’ current curricula, but for mobile devices to take center stage in the classroom, better devices need to achieve ubiquity. This is happening — fast. eMarketer recently reported that by 2013, 82% of all mobile devices in use worldwide will be smart phones.

The App Store is producing an explosion of educational mobile content
In little over a year, the iPhone App Store has taken the world of mobile computing by storm — and educational apps have been a huge part of this. This exponential increase in the availability of mobile educational software parallels the improvement of the hardware devices — and is just as critical for mobile education to be a reality. Translation tools, musical instruments, learning games, and mobile books are just the tip of the iceberg. Every day more than 10 new educational kids apps are added to the App Store. Tens of millions of educational apps have already been downloaded. And while this focuses narrowly on the impact of Apple’s iPhone, the broader trend here is clear — others are following the lead of the App Store, and as soon as there are smart phones in everyone’s hand, there will be first-rate mobile educational software to match.

Existing pilots of mobile education are demonstrating success
Preliminary research from both Australia and the US is finding that when using iPod Touches as part of their class activities, school attendance increases, students are more willing to come to school, and they do more homework. Further quantitative research is needed, but it seems obvious that kids will learn more if they are engaged in the process — and cutting-edge mobile devices like the iPod Touch are brilliant at driving engagement.

Mobile devices offer access to the internet in places the traditional web doesn’t reach
In Africa, for example, mobile web penetration is six-times higher than the traditional web. This means that for many people using their mobile devices is their only means of accessing the practically infinite sources of scholarship available online. Similar circumstances hold true in India, where video English lessons are delivered via cell phones to rural schools that can afford neither English teachers nor computers for their students.

What’s all that add up to? More powerful mobile devices, in more people’s hands, powered by a growing digital library of educational software. Together these trends make one thing clear — mobile education is poised to have a significant impact on the way our children learn.

Looking for more information on how the forces driving the embrace of mobile education are already playing out in the real world? Check out this discussion on iPod Touch implementations in schools that is happening on Classroom 2.0.

[Editor's Note: We originally published this on ezinearticles.com, but have shared it here for the large chunk of our audience that may not have seen it there. We still believe in the thinking.]

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It’s easy to love the App Store, but I do have one frustration – it lumps in kids learning apps with all educational apps, including those aimed at goals such as teaching Korean to businessmen and logic to prospective lawyers. In my mind, this makes it harder for developers to share their kid-specific content, and harder for parents to find quality apps. Someday, we hope, Apple will find a way to display kids educational apps in their own category within the app store. Until then, we’ll keep you updated on great options when looking for learning apps just for the kids.

Top Kids iPhone Apps in the App Store

Wheels On Bus

1. Wheels On The Bus
Price: $0.99
Description: Created by parents, Wheels on the Bus is a fun, interactive musical book, based on the popular children’s song. Come aboard the bus to spin the wheels, open and close the doors, swish the wipers, pop some bubbles, make a dog bark, and much more!
Read a Review
Get It From The Store

Cute Math

2. Cute Math
Price: $1.99
Description: Your little one can count baby penguins, pick the right amount of apples to put in a basket, move some happy birds around to solve addition problems, and drop apples off a tree to solve subtraction problems.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Toddler Flashcards

3. Toddler Flashcards
Price: $0.99
Description: Toddler Flashcards has cards to teach children the names of animals, foods, things – as well as advanced stuff like the alphabet or numbers. Over 200 images, text in English, French and Spanish.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Voice Toddler Cards

4. Voice Toddler Cards
Price: $0.99
Description: A collection of talking flashcards. Cards speak in English and Spanish. You can also add your own voice to any flashcard.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Preschool Adventure

5. Preschool Adventure
Price: $0.99
Description: Contains simple activities parents can do with their toddlers: ocean colors, space shapes, monkey body, farm sounds, animal matching, dot-to-to numbers.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Word Magic

6. Word Magic
Price: $0.99
Description: A picture is shown and and kids select the missing letter for the word shown in the picture.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Five Little Monkeys

7. Five Little Monkeys
Price: $0.99
Description: Little Monkeys jump on the bed to music — kids can build counting and math skills by taking the monkeys on and off the bed. Interactive objects teach concepts like on/off, open/close and more.
Read a Review
Get It From The Store

ShapeBuilder

8. Shapebuilder
Price: $0.99
Description: Shape Builder educates & entertains your little one with easy to move shapes that snap into place on top of silhouette puzzles. Real images are revealed when the puzzle is complete.
Read a Review
Get It From The Store

Letter Tracer

9. Letter Tracer
Price: $0.99
Description: LetterTracer is an educational tool that helps preschoolers and other pre-reading children trace and paint letters and number shapes. The exposure to letters and numbers helps prepare children for reading and writing.
Review Coming Soon
Get It From The Store

Pick A Letter

10. Teach Me Toddler
Editor’s Choice
Price: $0.99
Description: Teach Me Toddler helps toddlers learn letter names, letter phonics, numbers, shapes and colors.
Read A Review
Get It From The Store

Suzy Dress Up

11. Suzy Dress Up
Price: $0.99
Description:Create and customize Suzy’s wardrobe and accessories with options including: hat, shoes, jewelry, purses, pets, glasses, hairstyle, eyes, mouth, skin color, wings, costumers and more.
Read A Review
Get It From The Store

PopMath Basic Math

Animal Memory Match

Best of Eye Spy

Flash for Kids

Letters A to Z

Coloring Book

abc PocketPhonics

Math Flash Cards

Lady Bug Tree

Let us know — we’ll be putting together a few other Top 20 lists in the coming weeks, but next time not based on sales.

Do share your favorites.

[Editor's Note: Descriptions listed in this article are adapted from the info provided by developers on iTunes. Our take on the apps can be found in the relevant reviews -- linked from above as available]

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