Look, the reality is that screen time is inevitable in this day and age. That’s why it’s important to ensure your kids are using their screen time wisely by learning something new or honing a skill.
Thankfully, there are some great educational apps out there that can help kids learn a variety of different things, from math and science to reading and writing. The best kids educational apps not only offer a personalized learning plan but also provide engaging content that keeps kids coming back for more. Even teachers like myself can utilize learning apps for kids as a supplement to further aid their students’ development, particularly in virtual learning environments.
Of course, the app stores are flooded with educational content for kids, which can make finding the right app a bit overwhelming. That’s why I’ve put together this list of the best educational apps for kids, covering a variety of different subjects and age groups. I’ve spent months reviewing all of the apps on this list, putting them through the paces, and also having them used by kids to ensure they are fun and engaging while also being educational.
I’ve reviewed and ranked the top educational apps for children available in 2024 based on a number of important factors, including educational value, curriculum quality, fun/engagement, ease of use, and age appropriateness (click here to learn about our entire Editorial Process & Methodology for product reviews).
What are the Best Kids Learning Apps?
Here are our picks for the best educational apps for kids available in 2024:
1. Best Overall: HOMER Learning
HOMER - The Essential Early Learning Program and App for Kids 2-8
HOMER is a personalized learning app designed to help kids fall in love with learning. There are over 1,000 learning activities across all subjects, and the content is tailored to your child's age and interests.
From toddlers to second graders, this educational app is a fit for every eager kid ready to learn something new, especially younger kids early in their development.
HOMER is an early learning software designed to help children develop their critical thinking skills. It helps them build their confidence for the future by leading them on their customized educational journey.
It features a variety of interactive lessons, stories, and activities that are tailored according to the student’s individual skills, age, and interests. Because the lessons are tailored to your child’s interests and abilities, not to mention they’re fun and entertaining, the app keeps their attention and ensures their screen time is productive.
The level of personalization is what really sets HOMER apart from other kids educational apps, and it’s why this is our favorite app for keeping children of various ages and skills engaged and learning at their own pace.
When you’re first setting up a profile for your child, the app asks a series of questions to gauge where your child is in their educational journey, like these:
At the end of the questionnaire, HOMER then recommends a curriculum for your child based on their interests and level of education:
Key Features & Benefits
- Wide range of informative games and stories are available.
- Fantastic for early childhood education.
- Teaches creativity as well as critical thinking and social skills.
- Provides fun learning activities for different subjects like math, reading, creativity, and
thinking skills. - Kids learn at their own pace.
- Library is enriched with a wide variety of genres.
- Stories, games, lessons, and songs are very interactive and interesting for kids.
- App is kid-friendly and a child can easily touch, hold or drag objects with a
simple tap. - Hassle-free app with no advertisements.
- Printables, videos, and expert tips are the resources available for parents.
Pricing
HOMER pricing across its 2 plans is as follows:
- Annual Plan: $79.99 per year
- Monthly Plan: $12.99 a month
HOMER offers a 60 days full access free trial.
2. Best Coding App for Kids: codeSpark
codeSpark Academy
codeSpark is a fun, engaging coding app that teaches kids basic problem solving, critical thinking skills, creativity, and a host of other valuable skills. Kids will enjoy playing on the app, not even realizing how much they're learning along the way as they get prepared for the world of tomorrow.
Want your kids to be prepared for the world of tomorrow? Want them to improve their problem-solving skills?
codeSpark is a popular coding app for kids that includes exciting games and challenges designed to teach children basic coding skills in a fun way that doesn’t even feel like learning.
With an intuitive, word-free interface, kids can learn to code before they even know how to read — talk about getting a head start!
Kids can learn basic coding concepts like sequencing, loops, conditionals, and more through fun, interactive activities and games.
The app is also designed to appeal to both girls and boys with the goal of helping close the gender gap in STEM.
Here are some compelling facts and figures showing just how effective this app is:
- Used by over 62,000 educators worldwide
- Used in over 35,000 schools worldwide
- After 90 minutes of coding with codeSpark Academy, 55% showed increased confidence in problem-solving abilities.
- After 90 minutes of coding with codeSpark Academy, 22% showed an increase in accuracy with moderate sequencing tasks.
- In 2020, kids created 11 million games and stories on codeSpark Academy
Key Features & Benefits
- Teaches kids to code before they even know how to read (great for younger kids!)
- Promotes problem-solving and critical-thinking skills
- Unlimited coding challenges
- Fun, engaging games and activities makes learning exciting
- Tons of creativity-inspiring activities
- Great for young learners 5 and up
- Teaches valuable coding skills that prepare kids for the world of tomorrow
Pricing
Start with a free 7-day trial. codeSpark pricing is then $15 a month or $90 for an annual subscription.
3. Also Great for Kids 8 & Under: ABCmouse
ABCmouse
ABCmouse is one of most popular learning apps for little kids ages 2-8. It includes educational games, books, puzzles, and more to help kids learn in a fun, effective manner.
ABCmouse is one of the best kids learning apps out there for young learners. It was created for educating younger children from ages 2 to 8, helping them learn and master everything from letter recognition to reading to math and more.
The curriculum involves story videos, puzzles, engaging activities, songs, and a lot more in the field of math, science, art, and reading. Parents can always change the level of learning to ensure that the kid is not playing around with the same skills.
ABCmouse offers a fun bonus that will make your kids love every bit of it. They will get a ticket reward on every completed lesson to purchase items for decorating their virtual classroom.
As pointed out in our ABCmouse review, where the app really shines is its Learning Path. While kids can do one-off activities and games, the Learning Path is a specially designed curriculum that takes your child step-by-step lessons and activities to help them learn foundational skills to prepare them for school.
Also, there is a child-friendly environment at ABCmouse so you don’t need to worry about the appearance of pop-ups or advertisements leading to dangerous content.
All in all, ABCmouse is a fantastic education app for younger students.
Key Features & Benefits
- Designed for two to eight years of children (preschool and elementary school kids)
- Curriculum planned by teaching experts
- Offers learning in various range of subjects
- Personalized learning path to keep kids engaged
- Fun educational games and activities
- Different learning programs for different skill levels
- Safe to use with COPPA-verification
- Reward system offers free tickets to kids upon completion of the lesson
- Assessment center to monitor student progress
- Up to three kids’ registration allowed per account
- Available in the form of app and website
- 30-day free trial
Pricing
ABCmouse pricing is as follows:
- Monthly: $12.99 per month
- Annually: $45 per year (up to 70% off the regular price)
Click here to check out the 30-day free trial.
4. Best Educational App for Online Writing: Night Zookeeper
Night Zookeeper
This highly rated online learning program helps kids with reading and writing, and unleashes their full creativity.
In an ideal world, all kids love reading and writing. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case! If you have a reluctant reader or writer at home, Night Zookeeper may be just what you’ve been looking for.
Aimed at children aged 6+, Night Zookeeper makes reading and writing fun and engaging for kids with their innovative approach to learning. The online program offers a full Language Arts curriculum, which is taught through games, challenges, interactive lessons, collaborative projects and creative writing prompts.
Night Zookeeper allows children to have a completely immersive learning experience, as they’ll be introduced to the world of the Night Zoo as soon as they start and will even be in charge of creating their own zoo!
Night Zookeeper.com’s best feature is that users receive personalized feedback from a team of professional tutors, who closely monitor, review and publish all the writing submitted by children on the program.
Parents have access to their own dashboard, where they can track progress, assign specific lessons and manage features. All settings are flexible and there are lots of options to adapt the program to best suit your child’s learning style and pace.
Key Features & Benefits
- Strong focus on developing reading and writing skills
- Personalized tutoring
- Gamified learning approach at the child’s own pace
- No ads – so no distractions!
- Full Language Arts curriculum planned by teachers
- Risk-free 7-day trial
- New content added regularly
- Community features to encourage teamwork
- Easy accessibility through all web devices
- Strong privacy policies
Pricing
Night Zookeeper offers 3 different subscription options. These are:
Monthly: $12.99 per month
Quarterly: $34.99 every 3 months
Yearly: $69.99 per year (50% discount!)
(prices based on a 1-child subscription)
Click here to check out the latest special offers and savings on Night Zookeeper today.
5. Great for Learning to Code: Tynker
Tynker
Tynker is the fun and exciting way for kids to learn coding while developing problem solving skills.
Tynker is one of today’s popular platforms for teaching kids coding. The platform offers a number of courses, activities, and puzzles to help kids learn coding basics while having fun.
Tynker’s mission is to provide every child with solid foundations in Computer Science, computer programming, and critical thinking skills so they can be prepared to build a better future world.
Tynker’s coding curriculum is a thoughtfully designed program of 300 lessons in six levels designed to take your child from a novice to an expert coder. The curriculum is self-paced, allowing children to learn at their own speed and explore the material as extensively as they want.
Tynker even hosts some competitions every once in a while that are open to all users for a chance to win prizes.
Tykner’s unique curriculum makes it so any age or skill level can learn to code starting with simple block coding courses and progressing to a variety of popular text-based languages, including Python, Javascript, HTML/CSS, and more.
Key Features
- Award-winning curriculum in 6 levels with 300 lessons
- 5,000 interactive, game-like learning modules
- Mastery of key coding concepts like loops, conditional logic, and sequencing
- Progression to real languages like JavaScript and Python
- Code Data Science, AI, and Web Dev
- Explore Art and Image Processing
- Earn CS mastery certifications
Pricing
Tynker pricing is as follows:
Individual
- Lifetime ($360 one-time payment)
- Yearly ($16/mo billed at $192 annually)
- Quarterly ($20/mo billed at $60 quarterly)
Families (up to 3 accounts)
- Lifetime ($468 one-time payment)
- Yearly ($15/mo billed at $180 annually)
- Quarterly ($18/mo billed at $54 quarterly)
Click here to try Tynker free today.
6. Best For Online Reading: EPIC!
Epic
Want your kids to fall in love with reading? Epic includes a huge library of 40,000+ books and helps kids progress in their reading, making it fun and exciting.
This incredible kids learning app contains over 40,000 books, audiobooks, and videos for children that can be accessed from several devices like computers, laptops, mobile phones, and others. It is a great platform for educators and homeschooling parents to encourage kids for interactive reading.
Simply put, Epic is one of the most popular learn to read apps for kids.
You’ll be impressed by how user-friendly and easy to navigate Epic is. Kids can sort the library with the help of refined search options like age, reading level, interests, and so on.
Also, those who want to learn a second language can look for multilingual content. These options induce a feeling of personalization and make your kids enthusiastic readers.
Due to the downloading feature provided by Epic, the problem with portability is not a thing anymore. The badges awarded to readers serve as a motivational incentive and make them want to read more and accomplish more.
Also, the parents can track the progress of your children and have an insight into how far their reading interest has developed.
Key Features & Benefits
- Stores 40,000+ library
- Designed for two to twelve years old children
- Great for school and home use
- Easy navigation options
- Kid-friendly application
- Reading incentives like badges and awards
- Offline mode available with download option
- Collaboration with many renowned academic platforms
- Compatible with most android and apple devices
- Up to 4 person accounts can be registered
Pricing
EPIC pricing includes 2 different plans:
- $11.99 monthly payment
- $79.99 annual prepayment
Epic gives access to a one-month free trial for new users. It is completely free for teachers and librarians.
7. Best For Math: Brighterly
Brighterly Math for Kids
Brighterly helps kids learn math in a fun, engaging way with outstanding personalized lessons taught by dedicated experts.
Brighterly makes learning math fun for kids, offering interactive lessons led by expert math tutors with at least 5+ years of teaching experience.
This math tutoring app matches your child to the right teacher for their specific needs. Each lesson is about 45 minutes long and ensures your child gets personalized attention as they learn math using custom Brighterly tools, fun games, and engaging activities.
With guaranteed results in your first month, you can trust that your child will be math-savvy in no time.
Key Features & Benefits
- Guaranteed results in the first month
- Top math tutors with 5+ years of experience
- Gamified learning experience
- Personalized teaching approach
- Help with math homework
- Prizes and rewards to keep kids motivated
- Top-rated, proven math curriculum
Pricing
Brighterly offers a few different packages to choose from:
- 6 classes for $33/lesson
- 16 classes for $30/lesson
- 25 classes for $28/lesson
Click here to get a free lesson with Brighterly.
8. Best For Phonics Learning: Starfall
Starfall is a digital learning app for kids that teaches letters, words, and sounds to children in an animated language. Thumbs up, the free version of this app is quite remarkable with access to a number of useful resources!
However, the paid version involves premium access to arts curriculum that helps children in mastering fundamental math skills and social science skills.
From allowing your kids great memorization to having fun while learning, Starfall knows how to make the most of their screen time.
This app uses a fantasy-based approach to learning for creating curiosity in children to get more knowledge.
Children bond with the Starfall characters in their virtual classroom as they play games, listen to stories and songs, and take part in other fun activities.
All of these activities are built on the same concept and introduce a new challenge and excitement as you move on to the next level. Parents can monitor the pace of progress simultaneously.
Starfall’s teaching method focuses on the development of phonemic recognition, systematic phonics, words, communication, and comprehension. It is a great way to homeschool kids and make them learn without supervision.
The entertaining graphics and vibrant colors of the website ensure that children stay engaged throughout the lessons and learn to navigate the site.
Key Features & Benefits
- Made for children of 2-5 years
- Offers interactive learning program
- Helps with language learning skills
- Easy to filter through content
- Ideal for home and classroom use
- Supported by android and apple devices
Pricing
Starfall offers free service to users. However, it can be upgraded to one-year membership costing $35 per year for accessing premium features.
9. Best For Language Learning: Duolingo
Are you contemplating getting your child to learn a new language? Well, it may seem a daunting task at first, but the advent of online kids learning apps such as Duolingo has made it easier.
Duolingo is one of the most raved about free language learning apps. It is great for kids who have just started speaking or may have a language deficiency. All preschoolers and school-aged children can benefit from this app’s seamless learning approach.
Duolingo consists of more than 34 languages! And for now, we’re just counting the ones that use English as the base language. They are plenty of other base languages along with their subsequent language courses. Overall, it’s like an enormous library!
The best part is Duolingo’s well-targeted and organized lesson plans. Each course has a set of modules, which includes lessons for each level. Once you pass a certain number of modules, the other module will be unlocked.
At first, kids will have to attempt a placement test to gauge their current understanding. Next, the app will devise appropriate lessons based on the user’s skill set.
Also, the lessons progress in chronological order, but kids have full liberty to go back and revise a particular lesson if they want.
Key Features & Benefits
- Each lesson takes three to four minutes to complete
- 20-minute podcasts available to listen and learn from native speakers
- Strengthens reading, writing, and speaking skills
- Option to access regular practice exercises
- Ability to track daily progress
- Sleek, easy-to-use interface
Pricing
Although Duolingo is free for everyone, it offers one paid plan if you want more advanced features that starts at $6.99 per month.
10. Also Great For Learning Coding: Hopscotch
We all know how difficult it is to learn programming, right? And when we are talking about programming for kids, it is no easy task for sure!
However, with the great user-friendly interface provided by Hopscotch, it makes coding far easier to learn for kids than generally assumed.
It is based on open-ended learning to stimulate the logical thinking ability of children. They are completely independent to experiment with and personalize their program or even formulate their own projects.
The animation and gaming options are a great way to keep children engaged while learning. The rich range of avatars is another entertaining thing about this app. And you know what’s more? Kids can also interact with their friends and the whole Hopscotch community by sharing their programs.
Key Features & Benefits
- Great programming app for beginners
- Specifically for children of 10 to 16 years
- Encourages to think intellectually
- Designed to be an open-ended platform
- Easy to navigate the site
- Variety of avatars to choose from
- Allows kids to personalize their program
- Promotes interaction with fellow users
- Compatible with only Apple mobile devices
Pricing
Hopscotch gives free access to all users. However, there are many in-app purchases available to make programming even more fun for children.
11. Also Great For Learning Math: DragonBox Math
Mathematics is a difficult subject to both learn and teach.
But it is now absolutely fun to learn with DragonBox as it teaches kids with the help of games and exciting activities. There are no quizzes and assessments so they don’t even realize that they are being taught. They just keep enjoying their screen time while their mind grasps mathematical skills and the concepts stay there lifelong.
This innovative math app for kids has the most eye-pleasing graphics and motivating techniques to keep the children hooked throughout the lesson. A couple of simple directions are given to learners on each level for their better understanding of the game. They can delve deeper into the basic and advanced concepts and explore as much as they want.
Key Features & Benefits
- For children of four to nine years old
- Five geometric and algebraic learning apps
- Award-winning teaching platform
- Easy to follow instructions at every step
- Level-based and age-based learning
- Allows for creativity and experimentation
- Captivating graphics for an interesting experience
Pricing
DragonBox offers a number of different paid plans to choose from.
12. Best For Personalized Learning: Khan Academy Kids
An all-in-one educational app for kids of all ages. Khan Academy Kids provides all the resources for free and is successful in providing every person with in-depth study material. It’s among the best free educational apps out there.
Khan Academy Kids provides practice problems, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard, allowing students to study at their own speed. It has a library of thousands of educational videos on hundreds of topics and additional resources like practice questions etc.
Khan Academy Kids consists of a variety of subjects at different levels like math, science, arts, and humanities as well as AP courses. Test Preparation like SAT, GMAT, and IELTS are also inclusive of their study material.
Key Features & Benefits
- Provides thousands of videos and explanations for different courses.
- Uses high-quality images, videos, and other illustrations, making the learning journey easier
and more interesting. - From core courses like math, science, economics, and history to different languages, many
courses are offered for free. - Over 50,000 practice questions provided with step-by-step guidelines and instant feedback.
- Download all the study material, from videos to entire topics, and access it easily anytime
and anywhere. - Keeps track of student work and lets you pick up from where you left off.
- Easy to set up and use.
Pricing
Khan Academy is free for all and does not need the creation of an account as well.
A Final Word
Traditional learning methods can often be dull and repetitive, creating a barrier to your child’s creativity.
But now the tables have turned with the best educational apps providing an engaging way of enhancing their skills!
Not only do these tools help boost confidence, but they also foster critical thinking – making sure that each interactive moment is fun-filled and beneficial for kids.
Have any questions about the best learning apps for kids? Comment below and we’ll help.
