It’s that time of the month again where we round up our favourites from the last few weeks. We’ve done the best Android apps for kids from October, and now it’s time for the best iPhone and iPad apps.

This month’s roundup is a mixture of familiar brands, new developers, and genres spanning maths, colouring, reading and… nose doctoring? Yeah, you heard: nose doctoring.

Apps marked as ‘freemium’ are free to download but use in-app purchases: we’ll have explained in our original article how much they cost and how they work. Read on for this month’s recommendations!

Toca Mini (iPhone/iPad – £1.99)
“The app is all about creating characters: little 3D avatars that start as a blank white doll, and can then be painted and have eyes, mouths noses and eyebrows added, along with a host of other digital stamps to decorate them… The Mini characters are animated – including their facial features – and jig about while your kids are creating them.”
Get it now or read our article

Room on the Broom Games (iPhone/iPad – £2.99)
“This isn’t a digital book version of Room on the Broom, the book about the airborne adventures of a Witch, dog, bird and frog. Instead, it’s a collection of eight mini-games based on the story and characters. Aimed at 3-7 year-olds, the games include drawing pictures in the sky, catching flying objects, retrieving items that the Witch has dropped, helping a dragon eat his favourite food, and catching letters in the sky.”
Get it now or read our article

Marvel Creativity Studio (iPad – Freemium)
“It features an array of famous Marvel heroes and villains, including characters from Avengers Assemble, The Ultimate Spider-Man and Hulk and the Agents of Smash. The app is pitched as an ‘interactive art studio’ split between the drawing, colouring and animation sections. It promises to teach children how to draw the various characters, as well as constructing scenes with digital stickers and sound effects, and digital colouring pages.”
Get it now or read our article

Dragon Shapes: Geometry Challenge (iPhone/iPad – Freemium)
“Shapes are the perfect subject for a children’s app: whether early shape-recognition or more complex geometry, these topics lend themselves well to the touchscreen… It’s a game that challenges kids to ‘solve math puzzles and unlock the legend of the Shape Master’ over four difficulty levels, with four animals providing the structure: butterfly, turtle, mountain goat and dragon.”
Get it now or read our article

Tiggly Stamp / Tiggly Draw / Tiggly Safari (iPad – Free)
“The company’s first three iPad apps are out now: Tiggly Stamp, Tiggly Draw and Tiggly Safari. They’re free to download and use with limited features, but to unlock the full apps you’ll need the Tiggly Shapes. They’re currently being sold online for $29.99 for the pack of four shapes: a star, a circle, a triangle and a square. Tiggly says they’ll soon be in Apple stores and other retailers though, aimed at children between 18 months and four years old.”
Get them now or read our article

Miss Elephant’s Gerald (iPad – £1.49)
“One of our favourite music apps for kids in recent memory is Mibblio, which got children playing along to songs using virtual instruments. Now it’s got a Halloween spin-off. The new app is called Miss Elephant’s Gerald, and it went live for iPad this week. It’s based on a single song – the title – by Grammy-nominated band The Pop Ups.”
Get it now or read our article

Light-bot (iPhone/iPad – £1.99)
“A ‘programming puzzle game’, aiming to make learning the basics of coding fun rather than a dry experience. ‘Light-bot lets players gain a practical understanding of basic control-flow concepts like procedures, loops, and conditionals, just by guiding a robot with commands to light up tiles and solve levels’.”
Get it now or read our article

US Geography by Mindsnacks (iPhone/iPad – £1.99)
“Aimed at ‘beginning and intermediate geography students’, it offers facts and figures about all 50 US states, delivered through eight fun-looking mini-games. ‘Our engaging games go far beyond state capitals, teaching you the fascinating ins and outs of each state, from famous citizens to major landmarks to state mottos,’ explains its App Store listing.”
Get it now or read our article

Dinorama (iPhone/iPad – Free)
“A game that puts kids in charge of their own dinosaur park: ‘Everything from buying food and habitats for their dinosaurs to selling popcorn and hiring employees.’ There’s an education aim behind this: to teach children about careful planning, and even about saving money: ‘Parks are filled with unpredictable events like rainstorms that lower ticket sales, crop shortages that raise food prices, and flat tires that maroon valuable tourists,’ explains the App Store listing.”
Get it now or read our article

Stack Rabbit (iPhone/iPad – Freemium)
“You might not have heard of Tim FitzRandolph, but your kids may have heard about his last game: addictive puzzler Where’s My Water? Now he’s got something new on the app stores: Stack Rabbit. It’s a free-to-play puzzle game starring a rabbit named Ben. And yes, there’s some stacking involved.”
Get it now or read our article

My Sock Monster (iPad – £2.99)
“My Sock Monster is a lovely new story-book app for iPad by author and illustrator Lorna Freytag, helping to answer the question that’s been puzzling parents for years: ‘Where do all the odd socks go?!’ It tells the tale of the Sock Monster, who gobbles and munches his way through dozens of socks wherever he finds them – in a drawer, on the washing line, or even straight from the washing machine!”
Get it now or read our article

Mystery Math Museum (iPad – £1.99)
“A game that gets children to explore rooms and collect dragonflies by solving sums. This time, they’re doing it in eight museums rather than houses: each one with a different theme from sports and Wild West to ancient history and music. As your child works through the game, they unlock talking portraits to hang in a virtual gallery, which is a nice symbol of progression.”
Get it now or read our article

Medieval Math Battle (iPhone/iPad – Freemium)
“Learning math facts has never been so dangerous! Use your brain and brawn to defeat dragons, goblins, trolls, and many other treacherous beasts. The faster you answer, the stronger your attack. Knowledge is power!… The game increases in difficulty as your children play, with the suggestion being that kids spent 15 minutes or more a day practising their skills.”
Get it now or read our article

Nose Doctor (iPhone/iPad – Freemium)
“It sees kids taking on the role (and tweezers) of an “unorthodox nose doctor” with a range of cartoon patients. ‘Using your tools you can trim, pluck and suck those pesky nose hairs away. Use your dirt busting abilities to get your patients nostrils as clean as a whistle,’ explains its App Store listing.
Get it now or read our article

North Pole – Animal Adventures for Kids (iPad – £1.99)
“Developer Fox & Sheep has published some of our favourite children’s apps, including Nighty Night, Little Fox Music Box and Petting Zoo. We’re all ears for their latest app, then… An animated guide to animals of the Arctic, with more than 40 to investigate. It’s a digital book for kids to swipe through, tapping on animals to find out more about them.”
Get it now or read our article

Mini-U: The Kitchen (iPad – £0.69)
“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

Goodnight Mo (iPhone/iPad – £1.99)
“Aimed at children aged between 15 months and 3+ years, it’s the work of StoryToys, whose pop-up apps for fairytales and Chuggington alike we’ve enjoyed a lot. This one’s different: “a magically sleepy and comforting bedtime book” starring a monster named Mo… they will delight in gently sending various animals to the land of nod, popping bubbles in a bath, brushing Mo’s teeth, and rocking the little monster to sleep.”
Get it now or read our article

Have You Heard (iPad – £1.49)
“Rhys Darby? Who he? A comedian and actor from New Zealand best known (and loved) in the Apps Playground household for his role as band manager Murray in Flight of the Conchords. Now he’s trying something new: voice narration for a children’s app. He’s the voice behind Have You Heard, a new iPad storybook-app from developer Yoozoo Books.”
Get it now or read our article

Wombi Tower (iPhone/iPad – £1.49)
“Developed by Wombi Apps, it blends Tower Bloxx’s block-dropping action with Jenga’s turn-based structure for several players. “Piece by piece, players take turns adding building sections to create a larger and larger tower,” explains its app store listing. ‘Don’t let the badger construction manager distract you with his nervousness as you place each shape on top of the last’.”
Get it now or read our article

B.O.B.’s Super Freaky Job (iPhone/iPad – Freemium)
“It sees kids invited to join Team Monster, guiding the B.O.B. character on a “gravity-defying quest”. That involves rotating the world around him to solve challenges, including getting the better of wormholes, lasers and ejectors. Why? You’re finding spare parts for Dr Cockroach, who’s building a range of gadgets with them. Rooms are rotated by sliding a finger on the screen, with B.O.B. sliding according to gravity, collecting rubbish and gelatin gloops as he goes.”
Get it now or read our article

Princess Drawsalot and the Dragon (iPad – £1.49)
“The idea: your children take part in an adventure with ‘Oscar, Josephine and the Doodle Dragon’, with their drawings becoming part of the 17-page story, complete with colouring. It’s aimed at a wide age range – 3 to 10 – and ties in to the Fingerprint parents’ network, which lets you see how your kids have been progressing, while recommending new apps that they may like.”
Get it now or read our article

The Illusion Maker (iPad – £2.99)
“Its hero is a boy called Eric who lives in a ‘sad and gloomy city’, but who suddenly meets a clown called Pirouette and an elephant called Peanut. ‘This meeting will not only change the course of his life but also the lives of all those who live in the city. Find out how Eric and Pirouette are going to bring color back to all of the gloom with the help of a strange device…’”
Get it now or read our article

Moose & Zebra: Sweden (iPad – £0.69)
“We’re guessing a moose would feel pretty comfortable in Sweden, but a zebra would be more flummoxed. Yet that’s the setup for a lovely-looking new kids’ app called Moose & Zebra: Sweden… It’s billed as an interactive magazine, with a mixture of interactive fun aimed at developing logic, maths, memory and fine-motor skills for children.”
Get it now or read our article

Saint Nick and the Space Nicks (iPad – £1.99)
“We’ve not read the book Saint Nick and the Space Nicks, but we want to, now we’ve seen the characterful book-app version for iPad. Released by developer Stubborn Pixel, it’s a 32-page interactive tale about St Nick (i.e. Santa Claus) meeting Venick from Venus – ‘a strange purple creature with long purple hair’ who’s dressed just like him.”
Get it now or read our article

Ariel’s Musical Surprise (iPhone/iPad – Free)
“Disney is bringing its big-screen musical experience to smaller screens, starting with Ariel, the star of The Little Mermaid. Her new iPhone and iPad app is called Ariel’s Musical Surprise… Colour the fish and teach them to sing, and then conduct a concert with your undersea band.”
Get it now or read our article

Want more best iPhone and iPad apps for children? Read our roundups for September, August, July and June.