Update: read our 50 best Android apps for kids from 2013 year-end feature!

August was a good month for Android-owning parents, with a noticeable upswing in the number of high-quality children’s apps – not to mention the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Kids, an Android tablet just for children.

Here’s our list of our 10 favourite Android apps for kids from last month, and we’re hoping to run a similar best-of post every month from now on, alongside our traditional one for iPhone and iPad.

Toca Kitchen
“As on iOS, Toca Kitchen sees your kids cooking for four cartoon characters, who have no hesitation in showing exactly what they think of the food – for better or worse… There are 12 ingredients to cook with, no in-app purchases or third-party ads, and even the hope that playing with the app will encourage your children to try some new foods in real life.”
Get it now or read our article

CBeebies Playtime
“Captain Barnacles and his Octonauts crew are joined by the Alphablocks, Tree Fu Tom and Justin Fletcher’s Something Special in the new (and free) BBC CBeebies Playtime app… Each show gets its own game within the app, while us parents get a ‘Grown-Ups’ area with educational info and an option to record daily audio messages for our children to listen to within the app.”
Get it now or read our article

Mr Shingu’s Paper Zoo
“It gets kids to create their own zoo full of colourful paper animals, teaching them origami as they make each virtual beast by folding paper on-screen, then painting them bright colours and keeping them happy with toys and items. As on iOS, there are no in-app purchases: you pay once for the app, and then kids earn its virtual currency by playing rather than paying.”
Get it now or read our article

Skylanders Cloud Patrol
“A colourful action game involving shooting the mischievous troll characters, and amassing loot as your children progress through the levels and unlock new characters. They can also scan in the Skylanders toys they already own, to play with in the game.”
Get it now or read our article

Lego Duplo Train
“Based on Lego’s younger-but-still-bricky sister brand Duplo, the app gets kids to drive a train: ‘choosing and loading wagons, building bridges, stopping at crossings, refueling and laying new tracks around pesky rocks’. It’s aimed at toddlers and pre-schoolers, with the promise of no in-app purchases or advertising.”
Get it now or read our article

FableScapes 2
“The app describes itself as ‘a virtual puppet theatre to play with’, getting children to choose characters, scenery and then expressions to tell stories. There are 30 characters and 15 objects – all animated – with three different scenes to use them in: pirate adventures, knights and wizards, and space journey. Scenes can be saved to play with again later, and you can also save screenshots to send to friends and family.”
Get it now or read our article

Wombi Math
“As you may have guessed from the title, it’s all about the sums: a wall of equations and answers, with your children tasked with matching them correctly. The app covers addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, with kids able to mix and match the different categories however they like. Simple to use, and flexible enough to appeal to different skill levels, it’s good educational fun.”
Get it now or read our article

On Beyond Zebra!
“The 46th and final Dr. Seuss app… The story sees Conrad Cornelius o’Donald o’Dell looking beyond Z in the alphabet, making up letters and animals to go with them. As with previous Oceanhouse Media apps, there is word highlighting and voice narration.”
Get it now or read our article

Fraggle Rock Game Day
“It focuses on pig-tailed fraggle Red, and her efforts to rescue friends Boober, Gobo, Mokey and Wembley after they get captured by the mischievous Junior Gorg. The app takes a familiar storybook format, with animations, a selection of mini-games, digital colouring and stickers, and the option for children to hear voice narration or simply read it by themselves.”
Get it now or read our article

Shrek Alarm
“An alarm clock based on DreamWorks’ cuddly cartoon ogre, with all the features you’d expect from an alarm app including vibrate and snooze modes. The app can wake you or your children up with Shrek sounds or music from your iTunes library, but aside from the clock aspects, it’s also an interactive character app: Shrek can be poked and tickled.”
Get it now or read our article

That’s our pick of August, but please do let us know what your kids have been playing on Android devices recently by posting a comment.