At Tecca, we love finding the best games and apps for your gadgets. You’ve probably seen our picks for iPad and iPhone, as well as the best games to play on consoles like Xbox and Wii. To complete the lineup, here are our picks for Android devices.
If you love Android and find it awesome, chances are your child is twice as enamored by it. We can’t escape the digital age, and like it or not, our children are the ones who will thrive in it as they grow up in this brave, new world.
1. 0-10 Numbers Baby Flash Cards
Download: 0-10 Numbers Baby Flash Cards
Price: Free
This is a very basic, voice-assisted counting app for toddlers. It’s a set of flash cards illustrating the numbers from one to 10. The illustrations start with the actual numbers, and another round of counting shows people, animals, or things according to the number it specifies (i.e. five monkeys, nine girls dancing). For a personal touch, you can record your own voice instead of using the default one.
2. Famigo Sandbox
Download: Famigo Sandbox
Price: Free
Famigo is a website that recommends the best educational games and apps for children. Its Android app, however, acts as a digital sandbox that limits access to your phone by showing only kid-friendly games and apps. This can be real handy for preventing little ones from exiting a game and wreaking havoc on your phone. Just take a few seconds to create a security lock, and you should be good to go.
3. Classic Simon
Download: Classic Simon
Price: Free
If you need your child to be calm but occupied, this classic memory game is your best choice. It may be void of the cute graphics and fancy animation, but it’s just as engaging.
4. iStoryBooks
Download: iStoryBooks
Price: Free
This great collection of classic and contemporary children’s books is a handy little app that will keep your little reader occupied for some time. Titles include “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Three Little Pigs,” and “Cinderella.” Be ready to clear up space in your phone for saving more books.
5. Color & Draw
Download: Color & Draw
Price: 99 cents
Color & Draw boasts of a realistic drawing experience for kids. The app lets you follow finger strokes accurately to fill in areas, unlike other drawing apps where you only need to tap an area to automatically fill it with color. Voice instructions encourage kids and suggest how they should proceed with their artwork. The app is both a drawing pad and a coloring book with 50 drawings, including animals, places and people.
6. Kids Animal Piano
Download: Kids Animal Piano; Kids Animal Piano Pro
Price: Free; $1.99
Music and animals unite in this cute and funny app. Choose an animal and then choose a song, and you get a unique rendition, like a cat meowing to “Baa-baa Black Sheep.” Awesome!
The free version offers three songs and four animals, but you can unlock more by rating the app in the Play Store. To unlock all of them, purchase the Pro version.
7. Amazing Alex
Download: Amazing Alex
Price: 99 cents
Amazing Alex is another physics game made by Rovio, the same company that gave us mega-hit Angry Birds. If your kid is showing signs of being the world’s biggest physicist, this game is for him.
Alex cleans up his messy room and fights alien robots by positioning objects such as benches and balloons, then letting physics take its course. This game is for better suited to older kids, preferably those with enough patience to go through the more challenging stages.
8. Where’s My Water Free
Download: Where’s My Water Free
Price: Free
Instead of slicing or slinging, this physics-based game simply needs you to tap and let water flow so Sparky the alligator can take a nice, long shower. The animations and clever game design makes for a fun way to test your child’s problem-solving skills. If you have problems explaining gravity, this is your game.
9. Fruit Ninja
Download: Fruit Ninja Free; Fruit Ninja
Price: Free; $1.22
Here’s an engaging, fast-paced slashing game that can do wonders for a restless child. Fruit Ninja is perfect for eager hands that are hungry for some swiping action. We love that it’s an action-packed game without any form of violence, other than mercilessly opening a few watermelons.
10. Cut The Rope
Download: Cut The Rope Free; Cut the Rope
Price: Free; 99 cents
We got addicted (for a short while) to this game when it first came out, so we can imagine how kids can get hooked to this pretty quickly. The premise is simple: Cut through the rope and drop some candy to feed the game’s cute creature, Om Nom. Beware of the difficult levels, though — it might frustrate kids, who then might need your help.
Passing on the fun
One of the good things about Android is the wide selection of games and apps for everyone — especially kids — and most are free to download. If you’re not sure how these games and apps work, you might want to be there when your kids play them for the first time. And although these games can be played solo, it’s probably more fun if you’re there to play along!
This article was written by Kim Barloso and originally appeared on Tecca.
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