Endless Alphabet
Best For: The Kid Who Wants to Ride a Thesaurus The Game: The Endless Games series has made a slew of innovative, cute games for young children who are learning, and developing their skills to read and speak. Alphabet stands out because it gives kids 100 different words to play with and teaches the definitions in playful ways. The game feels urgent despite not having a scoring mechanism, which makes the whole thing feel a lot less stressful. It’s a word game in the most traditional sense. It’s purely playful. Android Buy Now $0 iTunes Buy Now $0 RELATED: The 9 Best Tablets for Kids
PBS Kids Games
Best For: The Kid Who Feels for Others The Game: PBS has a great wealth of educational and development apps based on their shows, notably Nature Cat and Daniel Tiger. Their games app combines the wide range of popular PBS Kids characters into one app through various mini-games. It’s more of a PBS theme park (something someone should definitely build) than a game, but it immerses children in the PBS ecosystem. That’s a good thing. Screen time may not be great, but PBS screen time at least teaches kids to be empathic. Android Buy Now $0 iTunes Buy Now $0 MORE: This Pint-Sized Treadmill Wears Out Kids with Video Games
Toca Lab: Plants
Best For: The Kid Who Talks to Cacti The Game: Another great tablet games developer, Toca Boca creates engaging gender-neutral games and stays clear of in-app purchases and third-party ads. Everything they make is appropriate for all ages, candy-colored, and profoundly fun. Toca Lab: Plants isn’t substantively better or different than the other games. It’s just worth mentioning because it involves plants and the world is full of those. When kids get excited about plants, they tend to stay excited. There are worse things than raising a budding horticulturalist. Buy: Google, iOS Android Buy Now $3 iTunes Buy Now $3
Where’s My Water
Best For: The Dirty Kid The Game: Swampy is an alligator who wants to take a bath, and it’s up to kids to help the reptile find clean water for his bath. By solving puzzles and separating water from dirt, oil, and other types of gunk, kids will have to gather every drop for the filthy gator. The game is notable for having both great mechanics — it’s easy but still fun — and a really solid lesson: Getting clean is fun and important. This is a lesson many parents will happily endorse. Android Buy Now $0 iTunes Buy Now $2
Sago Mini World
Best For: The Kid Who’s Always Ready for the Next Thing The Game: Sago Mini World is the hub app for all 24 Sago Mini Games. Players can choose any Sago game individually or get access to the entire library for $36 through the World app. It’s a bit pricey, but that’s definitely the way to go because the games are fun, easy to learn, and plentiful enough that they don’t become deeply boring. From giving puppies a bath to controlling a flying super bunny solving problems, or a driving a dump truck with a hamster, you can’t go wrong with any Sago game. Android Buy Now $0 iTunes Buy Now $0
Monument Valley
Best For: The Weird Artsy Kid on the Make The Game: It’s a popular game with adults for a reason. Monument Valley is beautiful, difficult, and endlessly surprising. The game asks players to explore optical illusions that feel both very real and hauntingly uncanny. For a determined kid or a kid who enjoys spatial reasoning, the game is a blast. The only issue is that it has few natural breaks and will, therefore, have to be wrenched forcefully from the player’s hands. Android Buy Now $4 iTunes Buy Now $4
Sesame Street
Best For: The Kid Who Aspires to Be a Tall Bird The Game: Kids can sing with music clips, learn the alphabet, count, or just watch clips from Sesame Street in this expansive app that can entertain your toddler while you get those dishes done. It’s like an extension of the series, thanks to original mini-games and clips that you can pull up without having to search YouTube. (Truth be told, it’s less of a tablet game than a multimedia experience, but it’s on here because it’s excellent.) Android Buy Now $0 iTunes Buy Now $0
Drawing Pad
Best For: The Kid Who Ruined the Drapes The Game: This traditional Drawing Pad app lets your kid unleash their art skills without ever leaving a huge mess. Choose from crayons, color pencils, construction paper, brushes and so many more art tools to create works of art. Plus, you can store and share every doodle instantly through the app. Buy: Google, iOS Buy Now $2 iTunes Buy Now $2
