It’s no secret that travelling with toddlers can be awfully tough!
Travelling with young children can be challenging, especially during layovers or long road trips. Toddlers tend to get bored quickly and need activities to keep them occupied. Unforeseen delays, such as traffic or flight cancellations, can add to the frustration of parents and make summer vacations seem daunting.
Thankfully, parents have a lot of choices when it comes to entertainment for toddlers while travelling. If you’ve gone through all their favourite travel toys, then you may well be considering using a smartphone or tablet. But what types of apps can toddlers easily access and safely use on their devices?
This post is part of our Toddler Travel Advice Series
If you’re looking for apps to keep your toddlers busy while travelling this summer, here’re our five top choices:
1. YouTube Kids
YouTube sometimes gets a bad rap due to inappropriate content geared towards kids. Many parents don’t know that a children’s version of the app filters content to make it safer for kids.
While YouTube Kids has had its share of hiccups early on, the app has fixed many of the issues and contains a host of worthwhile content that kids can watch.
Parents can use privacy settings to choose how content is curated on the app and monitor what children are watching.
For a more educational experience, steer toddlers and young children towards videos that review educational concepts, video songbooks, and how-to videos that teach kids easy arts and crafts.
2. Kids Academy – Talented and Gifted
Kids Academy’s Talented and Gifted is an all-in-one learning app for ages 2–10 that gamifies early education to make it fun by offering interactive learning activities.
The app features lessons on subjects from across the curriculum through videos, games, quizzes, and interactive worksheets that can be played both on- and offline!
Children engage in playtime with games and puzzles and develop important skills like phonics, reading, writing, math, science, and more. Notably, this learning experience is designed to adapt to your child’s progress, ensuring a continuous growth journey that extends beyond your trip’s duration.
Parents can subscribe to start their kids during travel but carry on with it after they get home, keeping tabs on their child’s learning through a progress tracking tool and weekly emails!
3. Hungry Caterpillar Play School
Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a classic children’s book that all kids adore, and there are a variety of apps based on the book to help children learn.
Hungry Caterpillar Play School is one of the best, and it includes a variety of games and puzzles that help kids practice foundational skills, such as counting, sorting, reading, and writing. Interactive characters and beautiful illustrations motivate kids as they work through the app, learning as they play!
4. Starfall ABCs
The Starfall ABCs app is unique because it is absolutely free and made available thanks to supporters. This app reinforces early literacy skills while motivating children through discovery and play.
Children play games and interact with letters and sounds to help bolster early reading skills. Not only will children love playing the games, but they will be building foundational reading skills as they learn to recognize letters and their sounds.
5. Elmo Loves 123s
A great early starters app for learning numbers in a playful way with every toddler’s Sesame Street favourite, Elmo. Elmo Loves 123s has a free and premium version with little videos, tracing games, colouring and more.
Over to you, what are your favourite toddler apps for phones and tablets to keep little kids entertained when you’re on the move?
You May Also Be Interested In:
- Our top tips for road-tripping with a toddler
- Perfect road trip toys for a 3-year-old
- Fabulous 4-year-old travel toys they’ll love
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