Playful is our catch-all category for apps for kids that don’t neatly fit into education, games, stories or creative slots. It’s also one of the most fun.
We’ve been rifling through our monthly best-apps roundups to compile a top 20 for the year, as part of our wider 100 Best iPhone and iPad Apps for Kids of 2013 feature. Here, you can find the results, with links to get them from the App Store, as well as to our original articles.
Sago Mini Forest Flyer (iPhone / iPad)
“When it comes to entertaining toddlers, certain things work: simplicity, sounds and lots of bright colours. Sago Mini Forest Flyer has all of those things in spades. It sees a bird named Robin flying through the forest, finding different animations and activities as he goes. There’s no storyline, as such: just fun exploration for young children.”
Get it now or read our article
Toca Cars (iPhone / iPad)
“An app of two halves: one that gets kids driving a car around a town knocking things over, and one that gets them to actually create that town from scratch by placing its buildings and objects. And then knock them over.”
Get it now or read our article
Hopster (iPad)
“‘Hopster is the brand new TV app that you can feel good about giving to your kids – it’s packed with all their favourite TV shows, plus stimulating games, in a totally safe, ad-free world,’ explains its App Store listing. Favourite shows? Among the “hundreds” of episodes are shows like Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom, Paddington Bear and 64 Zoo Lane. You get a few of them for free, but the idea of Hopster is that you subscribe to the full service for £5.99 via in-app purchase.”
Get it now or read our article
Petting Zoo: Animal Animations (iPhone / iPad)
“The work of an author and illustrator (yes, Christoph) who’s created 21 hand-drawn animals, who are beautifully animated inside his app… It’s playful and very tactile: we’ve found ourselves sneaking goes when the children are nowhere in sight.”
Get it now or read our article
Gigglebug (iPhone / iPad)
“Laughter is infectious, and never more so than in the case of Gigglebug, an app that asks kids to help the eponymous hero cheer up his grumpy animal friends by tickling them. That means simple touchscreen gestures to make the various animals wiggle, giggle and chortle. It’s based on a set of characters who are starring in their own five-minute TV show episodes. We’re looking forward to seeing more of them.”
Get it now or read our article
Sago Mini Pet Cafe (iPhone / iPad)
“Aimed at 2-4 year-olds, it puts them in charge of a colourful cartoon cafe with three customers: a cat, a dog and a bird… Three interactive activities, each with a light educational theme. One sees your child mixing colours to make a milkshake (and then getting the animals to drink it, changing colour in the process). Another gets them to count to 10 and sort items by colour, and another is a shape-matching mini-game using tilt or touch controls.”
Get it now or read our article
More Trucks from Duck Duck Moose (iPhone / iPad)
“Four different mini-games to play, each with their own big-wheeled vehicle to explore. Your children will be driving a fire engine around San Francisco; bumping monster trucks over hilly terrain; building structures with a crane then knocking them down with a wrecking ball; and towing cars to the junkyard with a flatbed tow truck.”
Get it now or read our article
Justin’s World – Jigsongs (iPhone / iPad)
“This is a combination of digital jigsaw puzzles and songs. Four of each, in fact, with children having to solve each puzzle in order to watch Justin singing the song it relates to. The four songs are well-loved nursery rhymes: Old Macdonald, One Two Three Four Five, Twinkle Twinkle and The Grand Old Duke of York.”
Get it now or read our article
Sago Mini Sound Box (iPhone / iPad)
“This describes itself as a “21st century rattle” – aimed at toddlers, it’s a collection of cheery sounds triggered by tapping and tilting the device. It’s very playful, encouraging kids to explore the different sounds rather than relying on their parents to tell them what to do.”
Get it now or read our article
Nick (iPhone / iPad)
“The app offers a mixture of videos, animations, polls, games and full episodes of popular shows. Those featured include SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sam & Cat, Monsters vs. Aliens, Fairly Odd Parents, Victorious and iCarly, among others.”
Get it now or read our article
Sago Mini Ocean Swimmer (iPhone / iPad)
“It’s a bit like one of the company’s previous apps, Sago Mini Forest Flyer, except while that involved a bird flying around a forest, this is about a fish called Fins swimming through an underwater environment. ‘Guide Fins through the water and discover dozens of fun surprises. Dive into sunken treasure, meet mysterious monsters and enjoy a treat at an underwater ice cream stand,’ explains its App Store listing.”
Get it now or read our article
Bloomsbury Pirate / Princess Activity (iPad)
“We’re cheating slightly here, including two apps for the price of one. This pair of apps both came from book publisher Bloomsbury, and offer similar formats: puzzles, digital stickers, colouring and other mini-games, based around pirates and princesses respectively. We’d love to see an app combining both pirates and princesses, but whichever your child prefers, they’ll find much to enjoy here.”
Get Pirates now, Get Princesses now or read our article
Dr Panda’s Handyman (iPhone / iPad)
“Focuses on home improvement. The virtual kind, meaning your kids won’t be bashing at your walls with hammers and nails… The app includes 13 different activities for 2-6 year-olds, each introducing a different tool and/or job. Kids can also mix up their own digital paints to give each project a splash of their own colour.”
Get it now or read our article
Little Zebra Shopper (iPad)
“Described as ‘the first scanner cash register app for kids’, Little Zebra Shopper works with (pretend) physical products, which your children can scan using the iPad’s camera. Pretend? Well, there is some work for you to do as a parent: downloading a free PDF file from the developer’s website, printing out its products on ‘sturdy’ paper, and then cutting/folding/sticking them together to make items for sale.”
Get it now or read our article
Dr Petplay (iPad)
“Puts kids in the role of a vet for their own toys. The app gets them to choose the type of their animal: dog, cat, rabbit and horse through to monkey, bear, elephant and, ahem, brontosaurus or Tyrannosaurus Rex. Then they take a photo, type in their name, set their birthdate and weight, then record the ‘symptoms’ of their current illness. There’s an X-Ray mode to see how their bones are looking, complete with the ability to zoom in or scribble notes.”
Get it now or read our article
Color Uncovered (iPad)
“We’re still enjoying the Sound Uncovered app that San Francisco museum the Exploratorium released in February. Now it’s followed up with another app focused on colours. The aim is the same: a digital book with interactivity, animation and videos about a specific topic – colour, in this case.”
Get it now or read our article
Cartoonitos and the Beanstalk (iPhone / iPad)
“Cartoonito is another pre-school TV channel with plenty of fans in the UK as well as elsewhere. Its first official app is based on Jack and the Beanstalk, except here it’s the Cartoonitos characters climbing up to the giant’s lair, discovering 15 mini-games along the way. It’s cute, colourful and very fun, with light educational elements too: shape-matching and symmetry recognition for example.”
Get it now or read our article
Jetpack Journeys (iPhone / iPad)
“It’s pitched as a way for kids ‘to explore and experience our solar system in a fun and imaginative way and be inspired about the wonders of Space for the very first time’. It’s not a dry educational app, though. It’s more about galactic exploration: choosing a character (from five available), building a spaceship then flying between the eight planets to see what surprises they have in store.”
Get it now or read our article
Mini-U: The Kitchen (iPad)
“Mini-U: The Kitchen is a collection of six mini-games based around shape recognition, colour mixing and sorting into groups. With colourful illustrations and friendly characters, there is lots here to keep kids entertained. Aimed at kids aged between three and seven years old, this is apparently the first in a series that will soon include My Home and Bathroom versions.”
Get it now or read our article
Fun Town (iPhone / iPad)
“The work of developer Touch & Learn, whose founder is a film production designer who’s previously worked on movies like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory… That big-screen background looks to have translated well to a small-screen children’s app. Kids can make hamburgers in the town’s restaurant, build bikes in its bike shop, sort fruit in the grocer’s and scan and pack shopping in the supermarket, among other activities.”
Get it now or read our article
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APPS PLAYGROUND’S 100 BEST APPS FOR KIDS OF 2013
• 20 best creative iPhone and iPad apps for kids of 2013
• 20 best educational iPhone and iPad apps for kids of 2013
• 20 best story iPhone and iPad apps for kids of 2013
• 20 best iPhone and iPad games for kids of 2013