Top Learning Apps under $5 USD

Description: Duolingo is an effective language-learning platform offering more than 30 languages for kids to explore. Through its bite-sized lessons, kids experience the joy of learning a new language at their own pace, making the language-learning process accessible and enjoyable.

Editor’s Top Tips: Duolingo offers an effective way for kids to learn and practice new languages. It offers quick and focused 10-15 minute learning sessions.

Cost: Free

Awards won: Mom’s Choice Award

Subject: Language

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Description: Khan Academy Kids is a versatile learning program that caters to children's diverse needs. Its comprehensive offering includes books, videos, exercises, reading, and math. It encourages creativity-building activities and fosters the development of essential social-emotional skills.

Editor’s Top Tips: Parents can guide children, especially younger ones, to new areas of interest and keep learning fresh and engaging. Includes content from National Geographic.

Cost: Free

Awards won: Parents' Choice Award, Children's Technology Review Award

Subject: Educational games, Books

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Description: Moose Math is a fun, interactive educational game that offers kids five different activities to enhance their skills in counting, addition, subtraction, connecting dots, and sorting. These tasks introduce children to important concepts through sorting shapes and colors, and performing simple mathematical operations.

Editor’s Top Tips: With an engaging, user-friendly interface, kids will love navigating through the app as they discover math basics, starting with counting and problem-solving.

Cost: Free

Awards won: Parents’ Choice Award, Children’s Technology Review Award

Subject: Math

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Description: ABC Kids Tracing Phonics is a playful and vibrant app that provides a fun introduction to letters and sounds for young children.

Editor’s Top Tips: The ABC Kids Tracing Phonics app is a fun and interactive way for younger children to familiarize themselves with the alphabet and phonics. It has an engaging musical component that will captivate kids. Some children could find the experience a bit overstimulating. We recommended monitoring kids' engagement and adjusting their set time limits accordingly.

Cost: Free

Awards won: Google Play's Best Game Award

Subject: Learning ABCs, Tracing, Phonics

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Description: RelationShapes is an excellent educational tool for young children to establish a strong foundation in spatial relationships and mathematics. This engaging game presents children with an assortment of shapes that they must match by dragging and dropping, providing an interactive way to learn fundamental math concepts.

Editor’s Top Tips: Through intuitive drag-and-drop exercises, children build skills and confidence by matching shapes and creating imaginative designs. The simple, colorful interface is easy to understand, allowing kids to grasp the concept and have fun exploring.

Cost: Free

Awards won: Common Sense Media “Best Of” Lists: Best Geometry Games, Apps, and Websites for Kids; Multiplayer Apps; Top Puzzle Apps & Must-Have Apps for Family Travel, Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner & Parents’ Choice Awards® epic™ LIST (2017), Best PreK / Early Childhood Learning Solution (2017)

Subject: visual-spatial reasoning & creative expression

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Description: The Cat in the Hat Builds That app is playful and educational. It asks kids to participate in challenges such as matching, sorting, and constructing objects using shapes. It allows kids to develop problem-solving and spatial awareness skills. This is a companion app to the PBS kids STEM-series, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That.

Editor’s Top Tips: The challenges in this app keep kids engaged as they complete tasks such as building ramps and following verbal instructions. With levels that progressively increase in difficulty, kids can improve their problem-solving and listening skills.

Device: iPhone, iPad, Android, 

Cost: Free

Awards won: Webby Award, Cynopsis Imagination Award, Canadian Screen Award

Subject: Science

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Description:  Kids can challenge themselves with a classic puzzle game featuring a variety of intricate physical puzzle rooms that must be solved in order to advance to the next level.

Editor’s Top Tips: This game does incorporate elements of horror. It is designed for mature kids who can handle it without being frightened.

Cost: $1.99

Awards won: Apple's Best of 2013 Awards, nominated for BAFTA 2014, PocketGamer iOS Game of the Year, CNET Editor's Choice

Subject: Puzzle

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Description: Bugs and Bubbles is an exceptional educational game. It features stunning graphics and provides engaging exercises for children to enhance their color recognition and listening skills. With a high-quality design, Bugs and Bubbles offers a fun and interactive way for kids to practice following instructions and matching colors.

Editor’s Top Tips: Bugs and Bubbles fosters creativity. It helps kids enhance their fine motor skills through innovative exercises like bug racing games that challenge kids to understand and follow visual instructions.

Cost: $2.99

Awards won: App Store Rewind, 2012 Reader's Choice Awards

Subject: Cognitive skills

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Description: The National Science Foundation presents a comprehensive educational app that explores a wide range of scientific topics including biology, chemistry, robotics, and engineering. Utilizing videos and scientific explanations, it offers an engaging learning experience for kids and adults alike.

Editor’s Top Tips: Kids get to discover and learn different topics in science, including biology, chemistry, robotics, and engineering. The app may take a bit of time to load due to its vast content, but every video and scientific explanation is educational and provides kids with an exciting opportunity to explore the world around them.

Cost: Free

Awards won: The Best Mobile App Awards Gold award

Subject: Science

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Description: Step into the world of Lexi and unleash your imagination. With Lexi's World, kids create their own unique environment by spelling the names of animals and plants.

Editor’s Top Tips: This innovative app utilizes a keyboard so kids can practice writing words. The app provides helpful guidance to prevent frustration from mistakes. It's perfect for young learners who are just starting to read and spell.

Cost: $2.99

Awards won: Children's Media Awards, Kiri prize 2019 from Digital Ehon

Subject: Wordplay

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