How do you find the best family apps to suit all the different ages and stages of household members? There are a gazillion apps out on the market today and sometimes sorting the good from the bad can be an onerous task. Some offer so much yet deliver so little and others give you way more bang for your buck. Most hear about good apps via word of mouth, so here are just some of the ones that have done well in our household. These are not chosen solely for education value. Some have great learning attached, others are of the ‘chill out, unwinding’ variety. Some have in app purchases so be sure that is turned off in your devices. So here they are, just a ‘few’ of my families favourites that have been enjoyed over the years.
Literacy
Fish School Free. Preschool alphabet learning app (in fact any of the apps by this creator Duck Duck Goose are great ones)
4 pics one word Free. Upper primary and beyond.
Wurdle $2.99 all ages. Fun word finding game.
Numeracy
Alien buddies $4.49 Preschool. Great for little ones learning numbers as well as shapes, colours & letter recognition.
Mystery Maths Museum $5.99 Lower/Middle Primary. Use maths skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division to unlock rooms.
Marble Math $5.99 Middle/Upper Primary. Drag marble through a series of maths puzzles to get through the maze
Science/geography
Human body $6.99 Middle/Upper Primary. Exploring human body and workings of organs and systems.
Dinopaedia $7.99 All ages. A National Geographic app that is a must for any dinosaur fanatics.
Speed Geography $2.99 all ages. Tests your knowledge of countries and race against the clock.
Reading
My very hungry caterpillar $6.99 Preschool. The gorgeous book comes to life.
The Cat in the Hat $3.99 Preschool. Another favourite needs no introduction.
Jonty the Dinosaur Preschool $2.99 A cute bedtime story about….going to bed.
Puzzles
Tozzle Preshoolers. A digital version of the jigsaw puzzle.A free version and a paid one for more puzzles is available. See Review
Flow Free. Simple but addictive puzzle for all ages.
Monkey Preschool Lunchbox $2.99 Preschool. Colour, memory & puzzles that was a family favourite with the little ones.
Storytelling
Junior Storytellers $5.99 Create,animate and share stories. I did a comprehensive review here.
We Publish $5.99 Lower/Middle primary schoolers. A great app allowing kids to write, illustrate & publish stories.
Creative/ art
Tiny Robot $2.99 Preschoolers. Create, save and print your own robots. My 5 year old created lots and lots of these! See review
Drawing Pad $2.99 Primary schoolers. A good creative app offering lots of options to create.
Silly stuff
Snapchat Free. Of course this app is rated 12+ but I have had lots of fun making pictures with the kids using the very funny filters and saving them to my camera roll. (so no, you don’t have to share them with the world and your child doesn’t need an account!)
Chatterpix Free. Lower Primary Schoolers. Making funny pics recording your voice to watch it speak.
Elf Yourself Free. Making funny videos to christmas tunes. Lots of laughs from the whole family!
Would you rather Free. All ages. Answer curly questions and compare your answers. A little bit of a time filler!
Photography
Mix My go to app for all my iphone photo editing.
Snapseed Another favourite iphone editing app.
Old school games
Words with Friends Scrabble for all ages. I love this as you can pick it up at any time and its nice and quick!
Yhatzee all ages. A favourite with hubby and I for a long time.
Monopoly $1.49. All ages. A modern take on the classic board game.
Solitaire Free. All ages One of the first games I think I ever played on a computer!
Music
Garageband $7.99. All ages. A full featured recording studio to create musical masterpieces
Spotify Our music streaming app of choice that allows us to all have different playlists to cater for our varying tastes in music
Sport
True Skate $2.99 One of my sons favourite and one he can play without breaking ay bones!
Fox Sports Pulse Free. This app is really my lifesaver when it comes to checking kids sporting events, times and locations!
Kids viewing
Playkids Subscription based but I love that once shows are dowloaded there is no data usage so great for travelling.
AbcKids iview Free. Preschoolers. Videos on demand that are chosen specifically for kids.
Mindfulness/Meditation
Smiling Minds Free. Probably the most popular app for meditation. Great for beginner and beyond.
Headspace Free. Another great meditation app from the founders of Headspace.
Of course there are many more on my phone at any given time. I think I have over 300 but I do need a good cull as I know I use way less than that!
What about you? Any family favourites that have stood the test of (relative) time?