In today’s technology-saturated world, there really is an app for just about anything. While many apps help adults with productivity, organization, insight, and more, children can also benefit from learning apps that enhance their growth and development. The Gardner School is proud to be a preschool focused on technology. We recently explored the app store to compile a list of some of the best preschool learning apps. If you’re hoping to continue your child’s learning experience beyond the classroom, here are twenty popular apps to explore together.
10 Paid Preschool Learning Apps
Endless Alphabet is a highly-recommended educational app that helps children learn letter recognition, vocabulary, and basic spelling skills. It features interactive puzzles and animated monsters that guide children through various words and their definitions. It’s designed to make letter learning fun and engaging, with vibrant visuals and playful animations.
Curious children will love learning about science, reading, math, social studies, art, technology, and more through the short animated videos of BrainPop Jr. An amazing app to prevent the “summer slide” in skills, children can be engaged in self-directed learning on all their favorite topics.
Regularly ranked as a leading children’s learning app, ABCmouse.com offers a comprehensive digital learning resource for little ones. With more than 10,000 learning activities, this app allows children to read books, play games, listen to music, watch videos, and much more. Not only was it designed by learning experts, but it was created to help your child enhance the development they experience at school.
AlphaTots is a fun app created to help teach preschoolers their letters by using 26 engaging puzzles and mini-games. Through interactive alphabet and engaging songs, this app is designed to help children learn to recite their ABCs and remember what they are learning. This app allows preschoolers to build robots, dig for treasure, and even zap alien spaceships, all while learning letters and their sounds.
Monkey Preschool Lunchbox is a collection of exciting educational games for your preschooler. The app teaches children about colors, letters, shapes, and counting as a lovable monkey helps little learners along through the activities. The app also allows children to select a cartoon sticker and set it on a personalized virtual canvas board once a series of activities are completed successfully. This helps students gain a sense of accomplishment and also keeps them motivated outside of the classroom.
HOMER
Consistently ranked as one of the top preschool learning apps, HOMER offers a variety of fundamental subjects like math, reading, creativity, critical thinking skills, and social and emotional learning—nearly everything required for a quality preschool education. Parents can even personalize their children’s learning experiences according to their particular interests.
Busy Shapes & Colors is an app aligned with the Montessori principles of self-directed, hands-on learning. The app is designed to grow children’s fine motor skill development. With its unique approach and user-friendly design, it’s perfect for the youngest learners who are just starting to interact with technology.
This mathematical adventure app is designed to introduce basic counting, addition, and subtraction concepts to little learners. Children engage by helping a moose and his friends do various tasks, such as making “moose juice” smoothies and finding hidden animals. It also generates reports so that parents and teachers can keep track of their student’s progress.
Toca Nature was created to bring nature to your child’s fingertips. Suitable for older preschoolers, this app helps them to explore creativity in a clear and open-ended way. Toca Nature has a calm aura about it, with soothing background music to accompany the beautiful scenery.
Explore Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood
Have fun exploring Daniel Tiger’s neighborhood through this app. As they explore their surroundings, children can stop by the neighborhood grocery store to pick up fruits and veggies, visit the bakery for treats, stop by the doctor’s office, or play a tune at the music shop. In each location, there’s a special game to enrich their play experience.
10 Free Preschool Learning Apps
Play free learning games with this learning tool. Preschoolers will discover, explore, and learn through over 50 interactive games featuring popular PBS KIDS show characters, including Daniel Tiger, Wild Kratts, Sesame Street, The Cat in the Hat, Dinosaur Train, and more. Not only does this app include features for parents to provide a safe, kid-friendly learning experience, but it’s perfect for children of all ages.
Bring digital joy to your little one’s learning experience. Designed to inspire a lifetime of learning, Khan Academy Kids is a fun educational app developed by learning experts to feature multi-language books, stories that teach social skills, printable family activities, interactive games, and so much more.
It’s no secret that you can learn just about anything on YouTube, but YouTube Kids was created to make exploring online videos safer and simpler for little ones. Currently rated the top free app for kids in the iTunes app store, YouTube Kids offers a suite of parental controls, filters, user feedback, and human reviewers to keep videos family-friendly.
Learning Games 4 Kids: Toddlers
This app offers endless possibilities to keep your toddler busy with useful and engaging games that teach geometric figures, colors, units, logic, sizes, and more with Funny Food characters. With a simple, user-friendly design, this app is a great learning tool.
Laugh & Learn: Where’s Puppy’s Nose
In this Fisher-Price app, babies are immersed in an animated learning environment where their little finger taps, swipes, tilts, and shakes teach all about body parts with two fun characters (Puppy and Kitty, which are also popular Fisher-Price toys) and music. The app is designed for babies 6 months and up and is available on iPhone and iPad.
LEGO-loving preschoolers will be all aboard for this interactive app that allows kids to drive the colorful LEGO DUPLO Train from station to station as a train conductor. Kids can learn to load cargo, build bridges, stop at crossings, help passengers, lay tracks, and more. With intuitive icons and user-friendly navigation, it’s easy to see why this app has become so popular.
Teach Your Monster to Read—Phonics
Suitable for ages 3 to 6, this app for iPhone and iPad is commonly used in preschool, primary school, kindergarten, and first-grade settings as an interactive teaching resource. Children will create a monster and take it on a magical journey through three extensive games that teach and improve reading skills and phonics.
For many children, the bedtime story (or several!) is a non-negotiable part of their evening routine. When you’ve read every book in your library several times, it’s time to bring in the experts through the Storyline app. This delightful tech tool gives you and your child access to thousands of children’s books read by well-known and skilled actors. Your child will enjoy watching some of their favorite books come to life through the filmed readings, and they just might discover a few new stories!
Known for its easy, playful app interface, Duolingo ABC helps children learn to read through gamified activities and amusing stories. You can help your preschooler practice some of the skills they are already learning — phonics, handwriting, sight words, and vocabulary — with this app (and have fun doing it!)
Bedtime Math
Many preschool parents know how important daily reading is for children, but in the U.S., math skills can sadly lag behind letter recognition. The Bedtime Math app takes the concept of the bedtime story and expands it to include number recognition. The app starts with a story and a fun fact and then offers elementary math-based questions for children as young as two years old.
The Gardner School Loves Learning in All Forms
While this list is only a start, there are numerous other learning apps to discover. At The Gardner School, we treat technology as a friend when it comes to learning, and we’re intentional about incorporating technology into the classroom environment. We hope this list is helpful to you in continuing the learning experience at home.
