Check out our picks for the best apps for preschoolers!
While tablets and smartphones are no match for the power of facetime when it comes to healthy learning and development for your preschooler, research shows that the right content can be incredibly beneficial in moderation. We agree!
We’ve been checking out the most popular apps out there, on a mission to find out which ones are the most valuable for your kids.
Check out this list of the most fun, enriching, age-appropriate apps for preschoolers—all four stars and above on Common Sense Media.
Best Apps for Preschoolers
1. Alphatots
Best Beginner’s App
At the top of our list of best apps for preschoolers is Alphatots!
Alphatots is a great way to give your little one a head start on reading.
This ABCs app teaches young kids to sound out letters by interacting with active verbs. For instance, your child can “cut” through the letter C or “eat” the letter E.
Pros
This app is extremely interactive, with engaging animations that make the experience feel less like they’re being “taught” and more like they’re playing a game.
Cons
Kids need to press down on each letter for several seconds to activate the animations, which could cause some kids to lose interest and give up after one or more failed attempts at selecting a letter.
Age Range: 3+
Price: $2.99
Available on iPhone, iPad or Android
2. Fruit Punch Music
Best Music Streaming App
Fruit Punch is like the music-streaming apps you’re used to, but it’s just for kids! Your child can choose from a variety of kid-friendly stations with themes that span a variety of genres and decades.
Since it’s designed specifically with children in mind, it comes with nifty parental controls like letting you set time limits and block stations you don’t feel are right for your child.
Pros
Not only is the app safe, but since it offers music for all ages, it grows with your child. As soon as they graduate past the “baby” stuff, they can move on to new stations. Plus they can set their own music preferences by liking favorite songs and skipping others. Each song in the app is carefully vetted and approved by a responsible adult—not an algorithm.
Cons
Since the app is also designed for parents to enjoy, not all songs are appealing to young kids. The good news is that parents can set filters to exclude those songs from their kids’ playlists.
Age Range: 3+
Price: Free-$24.99 a year
Available on iPhone or iPad
3. Monkey Preschool Lunchbox
Best Matching App
Monkey Preschool Lunchbox teaches preschoolers basic skills that’ll help them prepare for kindergarten and beyond. Working through a variety of fun activities , they’ll learn things like matching and counting.
Whenever they succeed, the app’s titular character, the monkey, claps and does flips to celebrate their accomplishments.
Pros
This fun app offers enough variation to keep kids coming back for more. It also encourages them to get off the app and apply what they’ve learned in the real world, such as by asking kids to look for math and color patterns in their day-to-day surroundings.
Cons
The activities are selected randomly, with no option for parents to select the best activities for their kids.
Age Range: 3+
Price: Free-$1.99
Available on iPhone, Pad or Android
4. PBS Kids Games
Best Mini-Games App
Shows like PBS have already shown to improve cognitive, linguistic, and social outcomes for children three to five years of age, but research shows preschoolers who consume PBS content in more interactive ways, such as in games benefit even more.
One of the best apps for preschoolers, it features the beloved PBS family of characters and offers more than two-dozen mini-games based on PBS TV shows.
Pros
This is another app that offers enough varied content to grow with your child. As an added bonus, kids will recognize their favorite PBS characters, from Daniel Tiger to Wild Kratts, only adding to the fun.
Cons
Some users feel the activities are too straightforwardly educational, with the fun factor taking a back seat. But for the most part kids seem to find it entertaining.
Age Range: 3+
Price: Free
Available on iPhone, iPad or Android
5. Sesame Street
Best Interactive Streaming App
This is exactly what you’d hope to get when downloading a Sesame Street app: a selection of clips from the show, with a lot of fun, quality games based on favorite characters added in for good measure.
Pros
Sesame Street fanatics will love the characters, games and videos in this app. The experience is kid-friendly in every way, from the content selection to the large icons. Each video focuses on different preschool skills, including vocab, reading and math.
Cons
Kids can’t create playlists for their video clips, but they can add favorites to their libraries.
Age Range: 3+
Price: Free
Available on iPhone, iPad or Android
6. Wheels on the Bus
Best Sing-Along App
Wheels on the Bus is a sure hit with the millions of preschoolers who can’t get enough of the popular song. It adds an interactive touch by letting kids tap and swipe the device screen to make the bus roll along the road, open the doors and even make the windshield wipers go “swish” as they sing along.
Pros
Parents love this welcome variation on the classic, and young children enjoy having the interactivity. Kids can even record their own voices as they sing along.
Cons
Having your preschooler’s favorite song on demand so you can preserve your vocal chords for other things? What’s not to love?
Age Range: 2+
Price: Free
Available on iPhone, iPad or Android
7. Hungry Caterpillar Play School
Best Shapes and Colors App
Eric Carle’s hungry caterpillar is back with an appetite!
The Hungry Caterpillar Play School app brings the celebrated author’s beloved characters to your child and teaches them shapes and colors through five fun areas of activities. Activities include songs, counting and matching sequences.
Pros
Each section includes a video that shows you how to apply the concepts introduced in the app in the real world for your kids. Fans of the famous Eric Carle books will love watching the Hungry Caterpillar come to life in the how-to animations showing how to complete each activity.
Cons
The painting tool doesn’t allow for much accuracy, which can be frustrating for young children still working on their fine motor skills.
Age Range: 2+
Price: $5.99/mo. membership; $39.99/year
Available on iPhone or iPad
8. LEGO Juniors Create & Cruise
Best Building App
This building app encourages kids to create their own virtual LEGO vehicles before driving and flying them through fun courses and collecting coins along the way.
Fans of LEGO blocks have a blast, with tons of cute parts to choose from, as they build their creations.
Pros
A guaranteed hit with LEGO fans, it’s a fun, free high-quality app for any preschooler who likes to build.
Cons
While this app is popular with four-year-olds, it may not be challenging enough for older kids, who might find the games boring.
Age Range: 4+
Price: Free
Available on Android
9. Homer Reading: Learn to Read
Best Learn to Read App
Homer Reading helps preschoolers get an early start on learning to read, focusing on eight areas of skill. Created by literacy experts and advisors, and tested in Head Start classrooms on 82 students, the app is a great way for kids to pick up skills like print awareness, letter sounds and phonics.
Pros
The app offers so many activities, kids won’t easily get bored. Your child can explore stories, and record their own voice as they read and answer questions. It also offers positive feedback to encourage their progress and keep them engaged.
Cons
Some parents have found it difficult to cancel their subscription after the free trial, and the app can take up a lot of device memory.
Age Range: 3+
Price: Free-$7.99 a month
Available on iPhone, iPad or Android
10. Khan Academy Kids
Best Creative Learning App
You might recognize the Khan name from the popular adult education app made by the same organization.
The kids’ version offers early-learning activities from Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework and Common Core standards. Activities include subjects such as math, creative expression and creative learning.
Pros
This app offers a huge variety of educational mediums, such as videos, songs and games.
Cons
It’s extremely highly rated with parents and experts, with no apparent complaints.
Age Range: 3+
Price: Free
Available on iPhone, iPad or Android
11. Elmo Loves 123s
Best Math App
Another solid contribution to the Sesame Street family of educational apps for preschoolers, Elmo Loves 123s introduces kids to numbers with the help of fan favorites Elmo and Abby!
After choosing a number, kids can trace it on screen before being rewarded with a classic Sesame Street video clip incorporating their numbers. Each number includes three videos and activities, including puzzles and games.
Pros
Elmo and Abby praise and coach kids through each challenge, and each round offers a variety of videos and puzzles, keeping them both encouraged and interested.
Cons
Because kids need to choose a new category before moving on to another activity, they could end up playing the same games over and over again and getting bored. Parents also can’t track progress unless their child completes an activity, which can be challenging given little ones’ short attention spans.
Age Range: 4+
Price: $4.99
Available on iPhone, iPad or Android
12. Hopster Coding Safari
Best Coding Logic App
Hopster Coding Safari offers young children an awesome introduction to “pre-coding,” without needing any previous coding knowledge to get started.
For instance, kids start out by using logic to place a bear in a cave through horizontal and vertical paths.
The beauty of this app is that it can help your child learn basic coding logic with little to no reading skills.
Pros
While the app doesn’t teach kids how to code, it does teach the basics with a fun, step-by-step approach, starting with the logic needed to create a cognitive basis for learning future coding skills.
Cons
The interface can create the mistaken impression that users have lost all their progress when tapping on the link to reach the second level, which can be frustrating.
Age Range: 4+
Price: Free
Available on iPhone or iPad
13. Thomas & Friends Minis
Best Augmented Reality App
With the Thomas & Friends Minis app, kids can build their own trains. They can let their creativity flow as they choose between premade and DIY layouts and a wide variety of trains and landscapes. And when the track is finished, they get to ride the train from the perspective of the conductor.
Pros
The highlights of this app are its amazing graphics and endless building opportunities. Kids have tons of tracks styles, landscapes and decorations to choose from, and the augmented reality perspective allows kids to feel like they’re actually riding their creations.
Cons
One major downside is that kids can still see the content you have to pay for alongside the free stuff, and you could succumb to more than a few adorable little pouts imploring you to give in.
Age Range: 4+
Price: Free-$13.99
Available on iPhone or iPad
14. Daniel Tiger’s Grr-ific Feelings
Best Emotional Education App
Brought to you by the early learning geniuses at PBS, Daniel Tiger teaches kids to identify their emotions, process them and express them in a healthy way.
Kids are asked to dissect their emotions and then name them. They can even take pics of their faces to help them work out how they’re feeling.
The games, photo activity, songs and art communicate that expressing your feelings is a good thing.
Pros
This is a great way to teach kids that it’s okay to express your feelings, good or bad, as long as you’re respectful to others.
Cons
Some users report difficulties with the install process, but otherwise, this app seems to be a hit with parents and kids.
Age Range: 3+
Price: $2.99
Available on iPhone or iPad
15. PBS Kids
Best Streaming App
The PBS Kids app for preschoolers offers the same high-quality video programming that the network is known for.
Preschoolers can stream their favorite episodes of Daniel Tiger, Sesame Street and other favorites right on their devices.
Pros
The best apps for preschoolers offer entertainment and educational value. Luckily, PBS offers both.
Cons
This app streams continuously, meaning videos will start automatically after one has ended, which could lead to unintended “binging.” As with any streaming app, make sure you set appropriate limits and avoid allowing screen time to interfere with healthy offscreen activities. Check out these AAP guidelines for more on establishing positive screen-time habits with your kids.
Age Range: 3+
Price: Free
Available on iPhone, iPad or Android
16. Epic
Best Reading App
Speaking of … ahem … the best apps for preschoolers, have we mentioned that we have thousands of high-quality, age-appropriate books and videos for preschool-aged kids?
Your child will find a wealth of fun, engaging and educational stories on Epic! to help sharpen those early reading skills ahead of kindergarten.
Pros
Kids can’t get enough of the content and love the freedom to choose from thousands of entertaining options. Parents love knowing their children are learning and enjoying screen time in a safe and healthy way.
Cons
Your kid may not want to stop reading. If you’re on board with that, you’ve got nothing to worry about!
Age Range: 2+
Price: Free-$7.99 a month
Available on iPhone, iPad or Android
More good news! Many of these apps for preschoolers are also fun and educational for kids kindergarten-aged and older, so feel free to try them out with your older kids.
Looking for more fun, safe apps for preschoolers and older? Check out our post: 13 Best Educational Apps for Kids.
