Mobile apps have made it super easy for kids to learn in fun and engaging ways, anywhere anytime. There are tons of learning apps for kids out there and the choices can sometimes be confusing.
However, one of the effective ways to select a learning app for your kids is by considering their learning interests and needs. To this end, I have curated for you this relatively large collection of kids learning apps covering various learning needs and topic areas.
Learning Apps for Kids
These are all apps that, through my own blogging experience, have found to be reliable and popular among teachers and parents. From interactive reading platforms to math games, there’s something out there that will meet the learning needs of your kids.
I invite you to check our list of the best learning apps for kids and share with us your feedback. Other equally important kids learning resources include:
1. PBS Kids Games
PBS KIDS Games is a safe and fun way to help children learn. With over 250 educational games featuring beloved characters like Daniel Tiger, Wild Kratts, Rosie’s Rules, and more, kids can explore their favorite topics while learning core skills.
The app is available in both English and Spanish, and players can take the fun offline with downloadable games. The app also enable parents to stay informed on their child’s progress by receiving notifications about game completion and more.
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad); Price: Free
2. Sago Mini World
Sago Mini World is a kid-friendly app filled with 40+ award-winning educational games for toddlers and children ages 2-5. Using this app, kids can explore outer space, meet some dinosaurs, build a robot, become a superhero, and more – all in one whimsical world full of Sago Mini friends.
Subscribers get unlimited access to hundreds of activities and early access to new releases. Sago Mini World is designed to engage toddlers in creative play and spark their imagination at an early age.
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
3. Reading Eggs
Reading Eggs is an award-winning learning program designed by experienced elementary teachers to help children learn to read. It features interactive reading games, guided reading lessons, fun activities, and over 3,500 digital story books.
With its scientifically-based approach and safe environment Reading Eggs can help kids build phonemic awareness and alphabet knowledge, practice sight words and spelling, develop vocabulary, and build comprehension. Reading Eggs is a perfect gift for curious kids ages 2–13!
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
4. BrainPOP JR
BrainPOP Jr is another great learning app for kids and elementary students. BrainPOP Jr offers a wide variety of educational resources covering topics in science, social studies, reading, writing, math, health, arts, technology, among others. These resources include educational activities, animated movies, quizzes, and more.
BrainPOP JR is especially ideal for kids 5-9. “The gentle, humorous, and relatable characters Annie and Moby serve as guides through each topic, empowering kids to form their own ideas. BrainPOP Jr. is designed to cultivate critical thinking skills and encourage children to ask questions and make connections.” To learn more about this app, check out BrainPOP Jr full review.
Compatibility: iPhone/iPad and Android / Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
5. Newsela
Newsela is an educational platform that provides levelled cross-curricular reading materials for for k-12 students. Newsela provides tons of nonfiction texts (and some fiction) resourced from over 100 authority sources in the publishing realm namely: History, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, PBS NewsHour, Scientific American, Smithsonian, World History Encyclopedia, among others. To learn more about this app, check out Newsela full review.
Compatibility: iPhone/iPad and Android / Price: Free, offers in-app purchases.
6. Scratch Jr
A great coding and learning app for kids ages 5-7. ‘By snapping together graphical programming blocks, children can make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. In the process, children learn to solve problems, design projects, and express themselves creatively on the computer.
They also use math and language in a meaningful and motivating context, supporting the development of early-childhood numeracy and literacy. With ScratchJr, children don’t just learn to code, they code to learn.’
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
7. News-O-Matic
News-O-Matic helps kids expand and enrich their social studies knowledge by providing them with reading materials that caters to their learning needs. The app embeds over 10.000 archived articles covering various high-interest topics in areas such as science, sports, world news, technology, arts, and entertainment.
News-O-Matic articles are ideal for learners 6 to 14. They come with numerous interactive features including games, calls to action, interactive maps, the ability to draw and ask questions, share comments and votes, and more.
Other interesting features provided by News-O-Matic include Read to Me story recordings in different languages (e.g., English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Mandarin), audio definitions for challenging vocabulary, citations to improve media literacy skills, and many more.
Compatibility: iPhone/iPad and Android / Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
8. Monster Math
Monster Math is an engaging educational game designed to help children learn and practice simple math skills such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It features an exciting story with voice-over narration, multiple worlds for players to explore, and friendly enemy Troggles and Minions to defeat.
Parents can customize their child’s experience by selecting specific skills to practice and receive reports on how their child is progressing. With Monster Math your child can learn their math basics in a fun interactive way! What’s more, with GameCenter, kids can compete and play with others online for an extra dose of motivation and fun.
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
9. First Grade Learning Games
First Grade Learning Games is a fun and educational app for kids aged 6-8 that helps to develop school subjects like reading, spelling, math, fractions, STEM, science, compound words, contractions, geography, dinosaurs and more.
Through voice narration, colorful images and animations, and exciting music and sound effects, children can learn important concepts while having fun. Start with two games, and unlock additional ones for a nominal fee.
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
10. Wonster Words Learning Games
Wonster Words Learning Games is an interactive educational game that helps children learn essential reading skills. Through drag and drop letter puzzles, kids are introduced to letters, phonics, and basic spelling techniques.
Mini-games and activities keep them engaged as they progress through levels that introduce more complex concepts like vowels, consonant blends, word families, and more.
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
11. Prodigy Math Games
Prodigy Math Games is an educational game designed to make learning fun and engaging. Players create their own characters, or wizards, and go on a journey from level one to level 100.
Along the way, players face off against monsters and other players in battles, answering math questions to progress. As they complete levels, players unlock more areas and gain access to more prizes, pets and goodies.
The game has been designed by educators using research-based methods to ensure that players get the most out of their learning experience. Prodigy Math Games also offers an optional membership service which gives players access to even more features, including extra content packs and unlimited playtime.
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPod); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
12. ABCYa Games
ABCya Games is an educational gaming app for K-6+ learners with over 300 award-winning games, activities, and content. With an optional in-app subscription, users can access six free games each week and unlock over 300 additional activities. The app is ad-free and the content is organized by grade level and skill, with fresh content added monthly. The ABCya app requires a connection to the internet.
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
13. Teach Your Monster to Read
Teach Your Monster to Read, a learning app that is designed in collaboration with leading academics and game designers, is an award-winning educational game that helps children learn to read. It covers the first two years of reading.
The game is suitable for both school and home use, allowing children to progress through three games: First Steps, Fun With Words and Champion Reader. By playing these games, children will be able to improve their reading skills while having fun.
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad); Price: Free
14. Khan Academy Kids
Khan Academy Kids is an award-winning educational app designed to guide young learners from ages 2-8 through math, reading, phonics, writing, social-emotional development, and more.
It includes thousands of lessons and activities that are tailored to the age level, as well as catchy songs and yoga videos to get the wiggles out. Parents and teachers can use the app to find age-appropriate lessons for kids, make assignments, and monitor student progress.
Khan Academy Kids is completely free—no ads or subscriptions necessary! Alos, new content is added all the time from leading educational partners like Super Simple Songs, Bellwether Media, National Geographic Young Explorer Magazine, and Alo Yoga.
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad); Price: Free
15. LeapFrog Academy
LeapFrog Academy is an interactive educational app that provides a comprehensive curriculum to help build key developmental skills for children ages 3-6. With over 2000 learning activities such as eBooks, games, puzzles, videos, music and art available in various Learning Adventures, the app ensures that the content becomes more advanced as each child progresses.
My Learning Lab provides extra activities for additional practice or more difficult challenges, and children can earn rewards such as clothes, accessories, pets or pieces for their collections by completing lessons or collecting marbles.
Parents also have access to a Parent Dashboard to manage profiles and view progress. Most activities can be played without an internet connection by adding them to the Favorites section for offline play.
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
16. Montessori Preschool
Montessori Preschool is a comprehensive and fun-filled app designed to help children aged 3 to 7 learn core skills such as phonics, reading, writing, numbers, colors, shapes, nursery rhymes, coding, and pre-coding activities.
In the math curriculum, children can learn to count, recognize numbers, and even trace them from zero to one million. Introduction to addition and subtraction activities with Montessori materials are also included. The Early Literacy class includes several sound games that help kids identify sounds before putting a name on a letter. They will also work on reading comprehension.
The app also offers pre-coding and reasoning games, as well as nursery rhymes activities such as “Wheels on the bus” and “Head, shoulders, knees & toes”. Additionally, children can learn the names of all shapes and colors in a fun, interactive way!
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
17. Epic
Epic is an innovative digital reading platform designed specifically for children aged 12 and under. It offers a library of over 40,000 popular books and thousands of interactive learning videos to help foster curiosity and boost reading confidence.
The app also features audiobooks, Read-To-Me books, quizzes and multilingual content to cater to children of all reading levels and interests. Personalized recommendations based on each child’s unique reading level and interest are also available, along with 24/7 online access and offline access for on-the-go reading. Epic also offers badges and rewards to help keep kids motivated as they read.
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
18. SplashLearn
SplashLearn is another good learning app for kids. It combines math and reading practice with entertaining, game-based activities for PreK-5 kids. It features 1,900+ math games and activities that are aligned with the curriculum, as well as personalized reading experiences for ages 3-11 including phonics, letter tracing, alphabet, sight words, spelling, reading comprehension, rhymes and books.
With SplashLearn, kids can practice math and reading while playing with adorable characters, build creativity & social life skills in multiplayer battles & activities full of fun learning games!
SplashLearn also offers motivating rewards and rich narrative-driven games and books to keep the learning process engaging. The platform offers anytime, anywhere access, so your child can learn and practice on the go.
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
19. Starfall
Starfall is an interactive learning platform for children from pre-kindergarten to third grade. It offers engaging activities and games tailored to the individual learning needs of each age group, covering reading, math, music, and other social skills.
The reading section includes phonics and fluency lessons, ABCs, 123s lessons, talking library activities, punctuation, parts of speech lessons, and more. In the math section, children can learn numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, geometry, measurement skills, fractions concepts, and more.
The platform also offers holiday-themed activities such as nursery rhymes sing-alongs and an interactive calendar to keep track of holidays and birthdays. All of the activities are designed to be fun, engaging, and intuitive for children. Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
20. DoodleMaths
DoodleMaths is a learning app designed to help children from ages 4-14 build their math skills. Powered by Proxima, an adaptive algorithm, DoodleMaths identifies areas of difficulty and ensures continual progression in the curriculum.
Featuring 40,000+ curriculum-aligned exercises delivered in short, snappy sessions, DoodleMaths allows children to work independently and can be used offline on tablets and mobiles, letting them learn anywhere, anytime. The platform also offers fun games, rewards and virtual badges.
Compatibility: Android/ iOS (iPhone, iPad, Mac); Price: Free, offers in-app purchases
Final thoughts
This extensive collection of learning apps for kids serves as a powerful reminder of how technology can positively influence education. By integrating fun, interactive elements with educational content, these apps cater to various learning needs and preferences, ensuring there’s something for every young learner. Whether your child is beginning to explore numbers, delving into reading, or even starting to code, these apps offer a multitude of ways to engage and educate simultaneously.
