While limiting screen time for kids is essential to help protect their mental health and social skills, it is also just as vital to ensure that the time they spend with their devices is worthwhile. This is where iPhone and iPad educational games come into play. Luckily, agencies like Diversido help businesses and startups roll out interactive educational platforms, learning management systems, online education platforms, classroom management solutions, and more.
This piece looks at some of the best educational iPad and iPhone games from the top developers to help kids effectively learn through their devices.
Tappity
Age: 4+ | Price: free (first 14 days)
This app from Tappity, inc. provides an interactive science education experience for kids, with over 100 topics on the human body, animals, earth, weather, and space. The lessons are divided according to age. Moreover, parents receive newsletters detailing their kid’s progress and may be invited to join the class. The app is free to download and provides a 14-day grace period before membership fees are activated. According to the App Store, users get 10 payment options ranging from $14.99 for a month to $164.99 for quarterly membership.
Khan Academy
Age: 4+ | Price: Free
A great companion for teachers, the Khan Academy app helps introduce, practice, and review topics. It primarily focuses on sciences but also features reading, math, history, economics, and more. The content is organized by course and grade level, which makes it easy to use according to the student’s skills l. Khan Academy also allows to track your progress and pick up where you left off. Moreover, it comes in at least 19 languages, which makes it one of the most considerate educational mobile games.
Shape Gurus
Age: 4+ | Price: $2.99
Shape Gurus is a charming app that takes children through a short journey of learning basic shapes, colors, and sizes. It helps foster problem-solving and thinking skills by requiring kids to sort, classify, and match shapes. It features apparent audio and brightly colored objects, such as flowers built from various forms, while the scenes transition smoothly from one to another. The app may be used at home by the kid or in a classroom setting to complement the teacher’s work. Conveniently, Shape Gurus comes in 12 languages.
Montessorium: Intro to Colors
Age: 4+ | Price: Free
Drawing inspiration from the colorful Montessori tablets, this app helps teach the basics of colors, including:
- Primary and secondary colors
- Shades and gradients
- Identification, matching, and naming of colors
- Mixing, painting, and creating colors
- Fine motor skills
The app employs voice narration and dragging functions to ensure usability. Moreover, it is one of the most accessible educational iPad games, delivered free of charge in 11 languages.
Star Walk Kids: Astronomy Game
Age: 4+ | Price: Free
This game brings astronomy to life inside and outside the classroom through a virtual planetarium. Pointing the iPad or iPhone towards the sky brings up a map that matches the view of the stars from the user’s location. The app also has a compass to help find North, and an icon at the top-left corner provides facts about space. Moreover, the app is free, and it only takes an extra $0.99 to remove the ads. Users also get a choice of 11 languages.
Math Bingo
Age: 4+ | Price: $2.99
Math Bingo is a compact educational app that bundles the usual addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication practices into an interactive game in three modes — easy, medium, and hard. The easiest level has single-digit problems, while the hardest features three digits and includes products. Players get a “BINGO” shout-out when they successfully answer five questions. As for your language choices, however, you only get English.
Coding for Kids: Learn to Code
Age: 4+ | Price: Free with in-app purchases
This award-winning educational program teaches kids the basics of coding with the help of over 200 interactive games, such as firefighting, playing dentist, popping balloons, and solving puzzles. It is tailored to help with problem-solving, memory, and logical thinking. Among the concepts kids get to learn are:
- Sequences
- Loops
- Functions
- Debugging
- Arrays
- Coordinates
Although the game is free to download in the Apple Store, it includes in-app purchases ranging from £1.79 to £78.99.
Yousician
Age: 4+ | Price: Free with in-app purchases
Yousician is a personal music teacher app built on the belief that learning needs to be fun. It focuses on the guitar but also has piano, bass, and singing lessons. Getting started on the app begins with selecting the primary instrument and testing the user’s skill level. It is an excellent app for beginners, self-learners, advanced musicians, and music teachers. Additionally, users get a choice of 11 languages. The only caveat is that Yousician involves costly subscriptions, ranging from $19.99 a month to $179 a year.
MentalUP Educational Games
Age: 4+ | Price: Free with in-app purchases
As the name suggests, this app is all about mental training. It provides entertaining and scientific iPad games that can be personalized according to the child’s age, level of education, and performance. The app features over 100 games, including math quizzes, brain games, memory games, IQ games and tests, daily learning workouts, logic games, etc. Language options include English, Spanish, Turkish, German, and Portuguese. Although it is free to download, in-app purchases range from $13.99 to $89.99.
World Geography Quiz Game
Age: 4+ | Price: Free with in-app purchases
A great learning companion in and out of class, the World Geography Quiz Game helps kids learn about countries through 26 topics, including flags, languages, religion, population, heads of state, currencies, and more. It also allows for competitions with other players around the world. The target users are kids aged four years and older, but the app pairs best with grades 4-10. In-app purchases are affordable, including options such as 1,000 hints for $2.99 and topic unlock for $3.99. The app is available in 22 languages.
Nowadays, kids have access to tons of free or inexpensive educational games and learning opportunities on an iPhone or iPad. Most games conveniently have varying difficulty levels to accommodate to a wide age range.