Best Apps for Two-Year-Olds — Geeks With Juniors
Posted: Monday, July 4, 2016 by Tyler Durden in
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Best Apps for Two-Year-Olds — Geeks With Juniors
Best Apps for Two-Year-Olds
I have three sons: Philip, Noah, and Hugo. When I meet other parents at Philip’s school, they would ask me to recommend them the best iPad apps for their children. So I started noting down children’s apps that I would personally recommend to anyone.
This list contains the best apps for two-year-olds. I have taken the liberty to organize them based on their use cases (a format that we also use in our Best Apps for Kids 2015 list), to make it easier for parents to find the apps they need. Enjoy!
If your child is 18 months old or younger, check our Best Apps for One-Year-Olds list. If your child is 30 months old or older, check our Best Apps for Three-Year-Olds.
Best Counting App: Farm 123 ~ StoryToys Jr
An adorable 3D pop-up book offering mini games with multiple difficulty levels to help kids learn to count. Many of the app’s design elements help reinforce the counting activity. Supports several languages including French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, and Korean.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Alphabet App: Metamorphabet
A truly fantastic app for all ages, Metamorphabet delights players with its tactile user interface and beautiful, organic animations. A diverse vocabulary coupled with surreal imagery inspire a sense of wonder and encourage creative thinking.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Vocabulary App: Zooper ABC Animals
Learning the alphabet should be a fun experience, and Zooper ABC Animals has plenty of fun bits to keep kids engaged in the activities offered by the app. Animations and sound effects are maximized to bring a joyful experience. Worth a look if you’ve been looking for an alphabet app that can deliver more than just a list of animals, fruits, and common vocabulary.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Tracing/Writing App: Writing Wizard
This app trains kids to write more accurately in smaller and longer forms. It features a replay mode and detailed reports to aid parents in monitoring their child’s progress. Parents can create multiple user profiles and add custom words. The latest update has features for accented letters and support for French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best App to Learn about Colors: Intro to Colors, by Montessorium
Inspired by Montessori color tablets, the app uses RYB color model to teach kids about primary and secondary colors and basic color mixing. Kids also learn about shades/gradients with the help of musical tones. The app supports several languages including French, German, Spanish, and Chinese.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Sight Words App: Endless Reader
The sequel to Endless Alphabet, this app focuses on simple sight words like go, house, and in. The funny animations help teach new words that are often difficult to explain, like funny, please, and very. You can unlock more words via in-app purchases.
Link: App Store
Best Phonics App: Endless Alphabet
A silly animated app for constructing words. Each letter makes a phonetic sound in a silly accent to encourage juniors to mimic it. The app is great for teaching “big” words like contagious, juggle, and lopsided. You can download new words each time you connect to the internet.
Link: App Store
Best App to Learn About Shapes: Shape Gurus
Shape Gurus teaches kids to match, sort, and classify shapes and colors. It offers a series of geometric puzzles that come together to tell a story, and get progressively difficult over time. Simple yet brimming with interactions, this beautiful app will delight and entertain small children.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Bedtime Storybook: The Going to Bed Book
This app is an adaptation of Sandra Boynton’s work of the same name. It retains the look and feel of the board book while adding new and fun interactions. Professionally recorded narration and a gentle soundtrack set the app up to be the perfect companion for bedtime.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Interactive Storybook: Achoo Gaboo
A delightful reading experience that will send kids into fits of laughter, Achoo Gaboo tells of an elephant with a sneezing problem. Silly rhymes and clever animations make this imaginative tale engaging from start to finish.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Non-Fictional Storybook (tie): Rounds: Franklin Frog
A child-friendly, non-fictional story that explores the lifecycle of frogs. It is innovative in that the story never ends: once a cycle ends, another begins in its place. This interactive app also features dozens of facts about frogs.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Non-Fictional Storybook (tie): Rounds: Parker Penguin
The second app in the innovative Rounds series, this time centered on penguins. Like its predecessor, the app features bold graphics, rich interactivity, lively narration, and highlighting text to inspire enthusiasm about biology.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Health and Hygiene App (tie): Pepi Bath 2
Our go-to app to teach toddlers about personal hygiene gets a remake with enhanced graphics, friendly new characters, and expanded activities. Well worth the upgrade if you’re a fan of the original, and a fantastic starter if you’re new to Pepi Play’s work.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Health and Hygiene App (tie): Pepi Doctor
An adorable role-playing app where kids can play doctor and cure common ailments. Along the way, they learn about hygiene and first aid. The games are intuitive and text-free, suitable for toddlers.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best App to Encourage Healthy Eating: Yo Gabba Gabba! Party in My Tummy
This vibrant app persuades children to eat healthy meals such as sushi and oatmeal yoghurt. It also teaches kids about the inner parts of the stomach, such as duodenum and colon. The app’s catchy song, intuitive gameplay, and relatable theme make it great for toddlers.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Jukebox App with Original Songs for Kids: Caspar Babypants Music Time!
This jukebox app has over 100 original songs from professional musician Caspar Babypants. Each song includes guitar chords and lyrics to sing along to. The initial download comes with 12 songs, but you can unlock more by buying the full albums from iTunes and uploading them to your iOS device.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best DIY Music App: Duckie Deck Homemade Orchestra
A fun digital toy that allows kids to play with musical instruments made from everyday objects. The open-ended gameplay brings out the creativity in kids, and the DIY elements make it possible to extend learning off-screen.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Toy App: Bamba Toys
In this app, children create toys from scratch. First they select the blueprint, then they assemble the parts. They even get to decorate the packaging with fun accessories. In all, it is a fun app for boys and girls.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Role-Playing App (tie): Toca Hair Salon 2
The sequel to Toca Boca’s bestselling app, Toca Hair Salon 2 offers new tools, accessories, and characters for more hairstyling fun. Kids can also take photos of their work. A great app that encourages open-ended play and creative exploration.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Role-Playing App (tie): Toca Tailor
This app provides kids with an easy way to experiment with different wardrobe designs in a short amount of time. Kids can import photos and external patterns to express their creativity even further. To top it off, they can take augmented reality photographs of the dressed-up characters in real life.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Role-Playing App (tie): Toca Pet Doctor
In this app, children become doctor to 15 little injured pets. They will learn how to take care of common pet problems and feed their pets. Some of the injuries are also applicable to humans, so kids can also learn to take care of themselves.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Role-Playing App (tie): Sago Mini Superhero
You don’t need x-ray vision to see how much fun is packed in Sago Mini Superhero. This vibrant app allows kids to channel their curiosity and discover what being a superhero is all about. With 30 playful animations to discover, the app is sure to delight young kids anywhere.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Role-Playing App (tie): Sago Mini Toolbox
A great role-playing app for kids who love to build, tinker, and fix things around them. It has many tools and construction projects to choose from. It also exposes kids to a variety of materials from wood to cloth. If your child loves to build and take pride in making things, they are going to love this app.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Mini Game Collection: Preschool EduKidsRoom
A cohesive activity suite to hone various skills: color recognition, sorting by colors, shape recognition, counting, memory, and general pattern recognition. Most of the games are unique to the app, providing a fresh digital playground.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Nursery Rhymes App: Sago Mini Music Box
A nice combination of nursery rhymes and an explore-and-discover gameplay. Kids can experiment with musical instruments and tempo using up to 10 fingers. The app brings a new nuance to popular rhymes Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and Row, Row, Row, Your Boat.
Link: App Store | [Our Review and Playing Tips]Our Review
Best Coloring App: Chili Fish
Chili Fish is a creative toy that lets kids create colorful fishes. It features a fun color mixer and a great variety of body parts to make all kinds of creatures. Storytelling opportunity is present as kids explore an interactive underwater scenery.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Doodling App: Sago Mini Doodlecast
A free-play app that lets kids record stories as they doodle to show to their parents and friends. It comes with a variety of templates, plus creative prompts to help kids overcome the anxiety of a blank canvas. Supports up to 16 languages including Bahasa Indonesia and Suomi.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best App to Learn Opposites: Cricket Kids: Opposites
Activities in this app illustrate opposite adjectives such as untidy vs. tidy and broken vs. repaired. Juniors can play infinitely and interchangeably from one adjective to its opposite and back. Supports several languages including French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best App to Learn about Time: Around the Clock
An app that offers a mini game for every hour to help kids learn about time. Features colorful graphics and upbeat music appropriate for young kids. Simple, playful, and rule-free. Also useful for developing fine motor skills.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Nature Exploration App (tie): Sago Mini Forest Flyer
An open-play environment that takes kids on an adventure with Robin the Bird. Her forest is full of surprises that can keep juniors engaged and curious. The animations are smooth and polished, making the playing experience a joyful one.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Nature Exploration App (tie): Sago Mini Ocean Swimmer
An open-ended app where young kids can explore a magical ocean. It offers more than 30 mini activities that featuring an adorable cast of characters. Simple but with plenty of details to discover, it leaves the storytelling part to the players.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Fishing App: Kapu Fishing
A game in which kids get to see what fishing is like. The intuitive gameplay allows small children to play with minimal supervision. However, if you decide to accompany them as they play, you can use the app as a starting point for your next outdoor activities.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Family Photo App: Duckie Deck Family Photo
A lovely app that lets kids create their own family photo. Intuitive and simple, it comes with an extensive library of features to experiment with. Also a great tool for storytelling and remembering new faces.
Link: App Store | Our Review
Best Memory Matching Game: Memomal
Memomal is a fun card matching memory game that can be enjoyed by all ages. The timeless gameplay allows kids to strengthen their short-term memory and figure out how to solve the puzzles in as few moves as possible. If you’re looking for a brain training game for your toddlers, you should definitely try Memomal.
Link: App Review | Our Review
Best Jigsaw Puzzle Game: Wee Puzzles
We don’t deny that there are many jigsaw puzzle apps out there, but Wee Puzzles is still worth looking into. Having 50 puzzles in one app means that you’ll have enough content to entertain your children during road trips, airplane rides, etc. It doesn’t hurt either that the app has nice graphics and background music.
Link: App Store | Our Review