CBeebies star Justin Fletcher released a series of four excellent Justin’s World apps for iPhone and iPad in 2013, but now all four have also been released for Android devices too.
The four apps share several features: clean, accessible design; no in-app purchases or ads; and (of course) Justin himself, performing songs and telling stories with his familiar willingness to dress up, sing and play slapstick for laughs.
The apps are (with their titles as links to the Google Play store):
Justin’s World - Goldilocks. This is the famous fairytale retold with a mixture of animation and video, with Justin telling the story and jumping into character as Goldilocks and all three bears. The app also includes mini-games based around matching, sorting and counting. It costs £1.99.
Justin’s World - Lettersounds. This focuses more on the first phonics that children learn at school: the letters s, a, t, p, i, n, m and d. Again, Justin appears in video form to explain how it works, with simple drag’n’drop mini-games to help kids learn them. It costs £1.49.
Justin’s World - Jigsongs. This app promises “jigsaws with a special musical twist” as children fit the pieces into place, then watch Justin sing one of four nursery rhymes: Old Macdonald, One Two Three Four Five, Twinkle Twinkle and The Grand Old Duke of York. It costs £0.69.
Justin’s World - Animal Sounds. This app only just came out for iPhone and iPad before Christmas, but it’s swiftly made the leap to Android. It’s a collection of Justin’s animal impersonations: horse, duck, cow etc, encouraging kids to give it a try themselves. It’s a free download.
The four apps coming to Android is big news, because we know a lot of parents who bought their children Android tablets over Christmas – Tesco’s HUDL was hugely popular here in the UK for that purpose, for example.
Some bad news on that front: initially, the Justin’s World apps are only available for Samsung Android devices as well as Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX tablet. We’re sure others will follow quickly though. Note, if you’re on the Kindle Fire HDX, you’ll need to search on Amazon’s app store for the apps.
Read our 50 best Android apps for kids from 2013 feature for more recommendations.