From music to drawing, filmmaking to storytelling, there were some marvellous creative apps for kids available for Apple’s iPhone and iPad in 2013.

We’ve been combing 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.

Toca Builders (iPhone / iPad)
“Have you ever seen or played a game called Minecraft? You could describe Toca Builders as a Minecraft for kids. Or rather a Minecraft for younger kids, because Minecraft is hugely popular among older children already. Toca Builders isn’t a clone though: it’s as inspired by sandbox construction toys like Lego, providing a colourful virtual world where everything is made out of blocks.”
Get it now or read our article

Night Zookeeper Teleporting Torch (iPad)
“Draw pictures and write stories about magical animals… Enter a world of Spying Giraffes, Time Travelling Elephants and scary Fear Monsters… Kids will get new missions every day (“like a never-ending activity book”), with the idea being that giving them an idea about what to draw will stimulate their creativity more than a blank screen would.”
Get it now or read our article

Toca Mini (iPhone / iPad)
“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

Drawnimal (iPhone / iPad)
“The joy of Drawnimal: the device becomes an animated face for each animal, with your children drawing the rest on paper around it… A simple idea, beautifully crafted. And of course, the fun comes when your children realise they can add their own embellishments to their drawings.”
Get it now or read our article

SquiggleFish (iPad)
“It appeared from nowhere on the App Store, but SquiggleFish delighted us last month. It gets your children to draw fish with real pens on real paper, colour them in, and then scan them into this app using the camera, to swim around a virtual aquarium. There isn’t any gameplay, as such, but the fun comes from kids creating a variety of colourful fish (or, indeed, any object they’d like to see bobbing about).”
Get it now or read our article

FriendStrip Kids (iPhone / iPad)
“Comic strips are fun, but how about comic strips starring your own children? That’s the inventive idea… more than 85 comic strips to choose from, with speech bubbles already written. The twist: your child has to point the device at siblings, friends and/or family members to complete the frame.”
Get it now or read our article

Toca Hair Salon Me (iPhone / iPad)
“A reworked version of the developer’s popular Toca Hair Salon hairdressing apps with the twist that it’s your children in the barber’s chair. Well, your children, or anyone else they can take a photo of: mum, dad, nan, grandad, even the family dog (if they’ll stay still long enough for a decent snapshot).”
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Sago Mini Doodlecast (iPhone / iPad)
“Aimed at 2-6 year-olds, it’s still about drawing, speaking and combining the two in videos. However, this time round it comes with 30 ‘drawing prompts’ – questions to spark kids’ imagination when deciding what they’re going to create… The videos are automatically saved for later viewing, and can be exported to your device’s Camera Roll.”
Get it now or read our article

Dipdap (iPhone / iPad)
“The app matches the cartoon in its focus on drawing… aimed at 2-6 year-olds, who we think will love the freeform aspect as much as the missions. It’s also part of a mini-trend we’ve seen for kids’ drawing apps to provide prompts to spark their young audiences’ creativity.”
Get it now or read our article

Mibblio (iPad)
“Described as ‘the first interactive musical/storybook app of its kind’, it contains a series of what its developer is calling mibblets: ‘illustrated story-songs that invite children to read an adorable illustrated story, listen to a catchy song, and jam along on a variety of instruments, all at once’… there’s lots of fun to be had experimenting, for parents as well as children.”
Get it now or read our article

Easy Studio – Animate with Shapes (iPhone / iPad)
“The idea: ‘Kids will discover the magic of animation and they will be rewarded by their own creations’. Specifically, this means creating objects on-screen using different shapes, then animating them. There are two difficulty levels: Easy and Expert, with the former suitable for younger children who need help with the patterns, and the latter better for older children who want more control over their creations.
Get it now or read our article

Great British Chefs Kids (iPhone / iPad)
Persuading kids to eat a varied range of meals can be tricky at the best of times. Great British Chefs Kids might just be able to help though. Launched alongside an existing app for adults, this offers 105 recipes designed to be not just eaten by children, but cooked by them too (with the help of parents, obviously). Photographs, video clips and clear step-by-step instructions are included.
Get it now or read our article

Mister Maker – Let’s Make It! (iPhone / iPad)
“A creativity app aiming to help children ‘get creative and experiment with hundreds of different colours, patterns, papers, things to glue, funny faces, bits & pieces and stickers from the Doodle Drawers using 8 different tools and special effects’. Characters from the show feature prominently, including the Shapes, Tocky and Mister Maker himself.”
Get it now or read our article

Makies Doll Factory (iPad)
“The work of UK-based company Makielab, based on its Makies toys – ‘customisable 3D-printed action figures’… Now there’s an app for that. You use it to tweak hair, eye, clothing and colours to make your perfect doll (male or female), and can then order a real-world version using a credit card.”
Get it now or read our article

Puppet Workshop – Creativity App for Kids (iPad)
“Select a glove or sock from one of the 20 different options, then bring it to life with more than 150 accessories such as buttons, ribbons, pegs, zips and so on, to make a truly unique character. Give your puppet a name, then select a background – there are 18 provided, or you can use one of your own photos. Finally, take a snap-shot of your masterpiece using the camera icon.”
Get it now or read our article

Color Band (iPad)
“At its simplest level, your child draws pictures on the screen by swiping or tapping their finger on the pixels. They can choose from more than 80 colours, with each one representing a different musical sound. Once they’ve drawn their picture, they can play it – either by touching the screen, or by using the iPad’s front-facing camera to move their fingers in mid-air, and trigger the different sounds.”
Get it now or read our article

InfiniScroll (iPhone / iPad)
“An ‘open-ended storytelling tool” that “breaks the rules of linear storytelling”. It’s designed to be used by parents and children together, although once you’ve played with it for a while, we daresay kids will also be able to handle it themselves. The app works by scrolling down a collection of characterful drawings, with children ‘locking’ the ones that they like, then recording their own voice for each to tell a story.”
Get it now or read our article

Gocco Zoo ( iPhone / iPad)
“A zoo full of animals to paint and create. Kids get to feed the various creatures to instantly transform their colours, or take more time with a digital brush, stamps and patterns, then take snapshots of the finished articles. It’s very playful, and easy to get to grips with even for preschool children.”
Get it now or read our article

Toy Story: Story Theater (iPhone / iPad)
“Yep, Buzz, Woody, Jessie and other characters from the Toy Story films are ready to star in your kids’ stories. The idea being that they choose a setting, characters, props and actions, then record their own voiceover explaining what’s happening.”
Get it now or read our article

Toontastic Jr. Shrek (iPhone / iPad)
The Toontastic Jr. apps get children making up their own stories with virtual scenery and characters. We’ve liked them for a while, but this latest app ropes in some famous characters for the adventure. It includes 12 scenes from the Shrek films as well as Shrek, Fiona and Donkey to act within them. Children record their own voices reading out their stories.
Get it now or read our article

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