While many of us as parents may feel conflicted about screentime, technology has become a mainstream way to enhance education. There are many applications, both free and paid, to help children learn English, math, foreign languages, science, and history. Educational apps for children generally follow an adventure. The children work through levels to go to another planet or earn a prize. The curriculums are usually colorful and exciting engaging children and are repetitive for retention. Educational apps are a great way to supplement education while also teaching children technology skills. Here are six educational apps that kids will love and help you feel good about screentime.
ABC Mouse
ABC Mouse is a paid application with yearly and monthly pricing. They usually have promotions for annual prices. Subscriptions allow for multiple children’s profiles. ABC Mouse provides curriculum for children ages 2-8. The curriculum is great for supplemental learning. It is a great resource for homeschoolers. The curriculum includes reading, math, science, and social studies. It uses games, stories, and repetition in the lessons. ABC Mouse has a rewards program for the kids as a treat for doing a good job that your kids will love, but can get distracting.
Adventure Academy
Adventure Academy is from the makers of ABC mouse. It is focused on children ages 8-13. This is a paid application with monthly and yearly prices. The curriculum is focused on language arts, math, science, and social studies. It is a great supplemental curriculum for your kids.
https://www.adventureacademy.com
Duolingo
Duolingo is a language learning app with access to 42 different languages. It is a great way to learn new vocabulary and sentence structures. Duolingo has both paid and free versions. The free version is a great way to practice language, however, there is a mistake limit you can make in a time period. This means you can only make so many mistakes before you have to wait to be able to practice again. This can be frustrating when trying to learn a language.
Duolingo ABC
Duolingo ABC is a free application that helps teach children to read. It focuses on phonics and sight words, repeating information many times. At the end of each lesson there is a story that stops to practice word recognition and information retention. It is a great source to help emerging readers.
Khan Academy Kids
Khan Academy kids a completely free learning application. The program is appropriate for children ages 2-8. It teaches math, reading, science, and social studies. Khan Academy Kids teaches children through games, songs, repetition, videos, and stories. This program does offer rewards that children can choose from at the end of units, but are less distracting than in other programs.
Prodigy
Prodigy is a game designed to help children grades 1-8 with math and English skills. Prodigy math is an adventure style game that has your children battle (think pokemon) by solving math questions. Prodigy English is an adventure game that has children answer language arts questions so that they can build their own village. It is a free game, but also has paid options in monthly and yearly subscriptions.
https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/parents
