The iPad makes an exceptional gift for children and can be a great tool for learning. In fact, with kid-friendly apps that cater to a broad range of interests, from learning numbers and letters to brushing up on history or exploring science and even brushing teeth! These apps are designed to keep ’em learning, engaged, and entertained.
Table of Contents
Best Apps For Ipad For 5 Year Olds
- Endless Alphabet
Best ABCs App
Endless Alphabet is a great educational app for 5-year olds.
Endless Alphabet teaches vocabulary by challenging kids to deconstruct words and put them back together in the right order.
The way it works: your child picks a word from the monster’s mouth, sounds it out phonetically and puts it together. Then they can watch a video to learn the word’s meaning.
Pros
This app teaches kids unique, more advanced words that aren’t commonly found in apps for five-year olds, like “gargantuan” and “quarrel.”
Cons
The name may be a bit misleading, as it’s more focused on vocabulary than teaching ABCs.
Price: $8.99
Available on iPhone or iPad or Android
- Toca Life: After School
Best Interest Exploration App
Took After School teaches young kids about extra-curricular activities.
Toca Life: After School lets kids try out a wide variety of after-school and extracurricular activities through virtual play.
Your child can simulate each activity by moving their characters around the screen to different rooms to try activities like dunking a basketball, riding a skateboard and painting a picture.
Pros
This open-ended play app offers kids an exciting overview of afterschool activities they can take part in, including sports, dance, music and art. The parent portal offers advice on how parents can join in on the fun, too!
Cons
Some kids who struggle with fine motor skills might have difficulty moving the characters around on the screen.
Price: $3.99
Available on iPhone or iPad or Android
- Flashnote Derby
Best Music App
Flashnote Derby is a fun educational app for 5-year olds.
This interactive flashcards game introduces kids to musical notes. Kids can choose which notes they want to practice and answer questions about each one. A correct answer moves the derby horse forward. Incorrect answers are saved for future study.
Pros
This game is super simple and even includes a short instructional video to help young kids quickly grasp the concepts. The app also offers customizations so older kids can learn more complex note sequences.
Cons
The graphics are a little old fashioned, so might not be as exciting to some kids.
Price: $4.99
Available on iPhone or iPad or Android
- Busy Water
Best STEM App
Busy Water is one of the best kid’s apps for 5-year olds.
Uh-oh! A mischievous cat has unplugged the fish tank, and someone needs to save the fish!
Kids will have a ton of fun coming to the fish’s rescue, solving simple physics problems to help return it to safety.
The app offers 100 levels of play, with challenges like repairing pipes and using wheels, rotating planks and other simple machines to help get the fish back into the tank.
Pros
previous levels to brainstorm new solutions, and even build their own levels. With multiple solutions in this game, there are few wrong answers.
This is a great app for learning cause and effect, as well as cognitive reasoning and fine motor skills.
Cons
The first few levels aren’t very difficult, which may bore kids looking for more of a challenge early on.
Price: $3.99
Available on iPhone or iPad
- codeSpark Academy
Best Coding App
CodeSpark is a great coding app for young kids.
codeSpark Academy is a coding app that’s both visual and story-driven. Little monsters roam city streets avoiding hazards like police officers, garbage trucks and construction sites. Kids must drag and drop code and commands to help the monsters pass. Kids advance to the next level once they successfully and safely reach their destinations.
Pros
With amazing graphics and an engaging story, this app challenges kids to solve puzzles by finding the best possible solution, rather than just one correct one. While kids are encouraged to solve them on their own, codeSpark makes a solution guide available in the parent portal to guide kids when they feel stuck.
Cons
While empowering for some kids, the emphasis on solving puzzles for themselves might be frustrating for other kids.
Price: Free
Available on iPhone or iPad or Android
- DIY.org – Creative Challenges
Best Creativity App
DIY Creative Challenges is a great project app for kindergarteners.
DIY.org is a STEAM-approved app chock-full of instructional videos, featuring topics on simple machines, coding, crafting and building. On the app, kids can learn how to draw, cook, build simple machines, create science experiments and more.
Pros
Kids can choose from dozens of projects, ranging from photography to cooking and science experiments. Each project includes an introduction, a how-to video and a challenge.
Cons
While strictly kids only, it does offer an internal social media component, encouraging kids to upload photos and videos of their creations and comment on those of others. Not necessarily a “con,” but as with anything online, you’ll want to be mindful of your child’s activity.
Price: Free-$19.99/month
Available on iPhone or iPad or Android
- Thinkrolls: Kings & Queens
Best Strategic Thinking App
Thinkrolls: Kings and Queens is a great problem-solving app for 5-year olds.
The smart problem-solving fun of Thinkrolls takes on a magical note with Thinkrolls: Kings & Queens. This app teaches kids strategic thinking and science skills through a fantastical fairytale themed narrative.
Your child can solve challenges in eight scenes and hundreds of levels using flying potions, ghosts and mirrors, magical harps—and of course scientific thinking.
Pros
This app lets kids try out different strategies and come up with their own solutions to solve problems, without penalizing them for wrong answers.
Cons
Some kids might get frustrated over the lack of instruction and hints.
Price: $6.99
Available on iPhone or iPad or Android
- Gimble the Happy Tree Frog
Best Math App
Gimble the Happy Tree Frog is a fun kids’ app.
Gimble the Happy Tree Frog teaches kids math in the form of an interactive digital storybook. The story follows Gimple as he uses math to plan a pizza party, and your child can choose to either have the story read to them or read along on their own.
Through challenges like counting guests and estimating the cost of the pizzas, they’ll be introduced to a wide variety of math concepts.
Pros
What makes this app stand out is the use of applied learning through storytelling to help young children “learn by doing” to pick up math fundamentals.
Cons
Some parents have reported design flaws (such as inconsistent use of animation) that can take some kids out of the experience.
Price: $2.99
Available on iPhone or iPad or Android
- Who Am I?
Best Social Awareness App
Kindergarteners love the Who Am I app.
Who Am I: The Race Awareness Project is an app that helps kids develop an awareness of race, ethnicity and culture. Developed by a Harvard professor and an award-winning producer, it introduces kids to themes like tolerance and diversity ahead of their first day of school.
It’s also a great conversation starter for parents and kids talk about multiculturalism and gender ambiguity.
Pros
This app provides a safe place for parents to launch important conversations about diversity that they may not have had to before. Parents can learn how to talk to kids about these subjects while examining their own attitudes. Kids also learn how to ask parents tough questions they might not feel comfortable asking their classmates or teachers.
Cons
Some parents may not feel their kids are ready for the subject matter covered in this app.
Price: Free
Available on iPhone or iPad
- Thinkrolls
Best Physics App
Thinkrolls is a fun kids’ learning app.
You can’t have a kid’s app list that mentions Thinkrolls without including the original! In this app, kids explore the galaxy with the help of an alien or robot themed Thinkroll character. To get to intergalactic dimensions, kids must solve logic and physics puzzles and maneuver through mazes, wind tunnels and, yup! Even cheese.
Tasks include flipping crates and dragging objects to complete puzzles.
Pros
As kids advance to higher levels, they use trial and error to work their way through more and more difficult challenges, keeping them on their toes from start to finish.
Cons
This app doesn’t offer hints, so young children may get stuck on more difficult levels.
Price: $3.99
Best free ipad games for 5 year olds
- Sago Mini Friends
This sweet-natured set of mini-games encourages creativity, dexterity, and puzzle solving. It starts with you selecting a colorful character, who then explores a neighborhood of cartoon houses.
Knock on a door and you’re invited inside for an animated, entertaining playdate. This might involve dress-up, hammering nails into a birdhouse, or enjoying a tasty snack.
Everything’s bright and cheerful, and the game promotes empathy, with one friend looking glum if spoils aren’t evenly shared.
Get Sago Mini Friends for Android and a paid version exists for iOS. A Windows PC version is also available. This game has no IAPs/advertising.
Lego Tower
(Image credit: NimbleBit/Lego)
- Lego Tower
In all honesty, we’re sure most parents would be happier seeing kids playing with real Lego rather than virtual bricks on a tablet. But when the real thing isn’t an option, this game’s a nice substitute.
The game invites you to build and operate your very own dream Lego Tower. You’ll create apartments and businesses in which Minifigure residents can live work and play as well as visit the towers of friends to trade items and help them build. There are thousands of pieces to collect and plenty of characters and items to unlock.
Get Lego Tower for Android and iOS. IAPs are present but are entirely optional.
Best Free Games for Kids
- Toca Kitchen 2
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If your child regularly uses a tablet, you’ve likely already installed some Toca Boca games. They’re a smart mix of education and play, and Toca Kitchen 2 is no exception.
As you’d expect, Toca Kitchen 2 is all about cooking. This game invites you to create meals – however you prefer. Devise your own recipes and foist your creations on a colorful cast of characters, whether you’ve carefully constructed a burger, or decided to throw a watermelon into the microwave and cover it in sauce.
Get Toca Kitchen 2 for Android. This game has no IAPs/advertising. A paid version exists for iOS.
Best Free Games for Kids
- Llama Spit Spit
Llama Spit Spit is an oddball shoot ’em up, featuring a flying llama blasting crazy cartoon enemies with a mix of spittle and high-powered weaponry.
The controls are incredibly simple, meaning even younger players can get on board. Power-ups and collectable llamas (with their own background imagery) keep things interesting over the long term.
The one snag is it’s the spit of Shooty Skies (Android/iOS), which is the better (and more surreal) game – although the lack of ads and IAP means the llamas get the nod for this particular list.
Get Llama Spit Spit for Android and iOS. This game has no IAPs/advertising.
Crossy Road
(Image credit: Apple)
- Crossy Road
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Crossy Road cleverly reworks Frogger, with blocky characters hopping across chunky endless landscapes, trying to avoid a dunk in a river or getting flattened by a train. But the masterstroke is a raft of unlockable characters.
Over 100 characters are there to be found, and although IAP lurks you really don’t need them to enjoy the game.
Get Crossy Road for Android and iOS. This game features advertising, and has non-essential IAPs.
Best Free Games for Kids
- Frisbee Forever 2
You’d think flinging a plastic disc about would make for a rubbish video game. Fortunately, Frisbee Forever 2 is more akin to a set of rollercoasters, with you guiding your disc through gates, collecting stars along the way.
There’s a hint of Nintendo about this breezy arcade experience, with its vibrant visuals, smart level design, and a basic control system suitable for all. And although there are freemium underpinnings, you’re rewarded with in-game currency for every second played – even if an attempt at a level ends in failure.
Get Frisbee Forever 2 for Android and iOS. This game features advertising, and has non-essential IAPs for more rapidly unlocking discs and zones.
Best Free Games for Kids
- Fruit Ninja
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In the fast-paced Fruit Ninja, your digit becomes a virtual sword, hacking pieces of fruit lobbed on to the screen in two, and attempting to avoid cutting into game-ending bombs.
It’s ideal fodder for a tablet, since you can make pleasingly large swipes across the display. But also the game offers local multiplayer, so two kids can zealously pit their fruit-slicing skills against each other.
Get Fruit Ninja for Android and iOS. This game features advertising, and has non-essential IAPs for purchasing in-game currency.
Best Free Games for Kids
- Mekorama
With its tiny isometric worlds you spin with a finger, and landscape-flipping mechanics, Mekorama brings to mind Monument Valley. But this game has no Escher-like optical illusions; instead, it concentrates on straightforward pathfinding as you help an ambling robot reach its goals.
It’s a charming, thoughtful, tactile experience, and on a tablet is suitable for parent/child play, with you working through the puzzles together. Once you’re done with the 50 built-in levels, you can download more from the internet, or make your own.
Get Mekorama for Android and iOS. This game features optional IAP for tipping the developer.
Best Free Games for Kids
- Super Stickman Golf 3
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For many kids, golf won’t excite. But the Super Stickman universe doesn’t partake in normal golf. Instead, you’re thwacking balls across larger-than-life side-on courses – massive castles; laser-strewn bases; floating islands.
Even though it’s fun to play by yourself, and makes full use of bigger screens (by letting you see more of each course and therefore aim more precisely), it also has fantastic multiplayer game types. You can play turn-by-turn matches with friends, or try your hand at frenetic, madcap ‘race to the hole’ skirmishes.
Get Super Stickman Golf 3 for iOS. This game features advertising, and IAP for unlocking a premium upgrade (more courses and slots for turn-based multiplayer) and in-game currency.
Best Free Games for Kids
- Spaceteam
If you’ve several kids with devices, Spaceteam’s a delightfully bonkers way to have them all yell at each other in a vaguely productive manner that in theory helps them work as a team. Specifically, a ‘spaceteam’ in a ship trying to outrun an exploding star, with control panels designed by a sadist.
Once devices are connected, instructions appear on your screen – but the controls may be on someone else’s. So you’ll have people yelling nonsense like “someone turn on the dangling shunter”, while figuring out if their own screen has a ‘spectrobolt’ slider. Just like in Star Trek.
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