Smart, Fun, and FREE (or very cheap) Apps for Kids and Parents

Smart Phones, Tablets, Nooks—they’re everywhere, and kids (including young toddlers) are often more adept at navigating them than their parents. Here are some smart, fun, FREE (or very cheap) apps for kids and parents.

Brain Quest! – For 20 years, Brain Quest® has been beloved by kids, trusted by parents, and approved and used by teachers. Since content reflects national and state curriculum standards, it’s both a great review tool and a preview of what’s coming next. Grade levels 1-5.

Canvsly stores your children’s artwork online. This free app lets you throw away the stacks of your kids’ artwork and instead upload them to a secure server. You can share the art with friends and family, organize it chronologically, and even convert the artwork into keepsakes and gifts!

Disconnect Kids - a fun and unique educational app that teaches children (and their parents) about online privacy. Disconnect Kids also actively blocks requests for data about your web-browsing and in-app activity from the biggest mobile tracking services. It’s the first (and only) iOS app that stops this personal data from ever leaving your device.

Dollar Up:  Money Learning Aid for Special Needs Education  - teaches users the life skills needed to handle paying with cash. It teaches them to be able to identify how much money they have, to listen and determine how much money to pay, to compare prices, as well as other money skills needed in life.

Find My Kids for the iPhone and GPS Tracker Pro for Google Play are free apps that keep track of your kids through their phones. You can even set up alerts that let you know the second they leave the neighborhood.

Good Food Near You is great for finding healthy food on road trips. When you don’t want to feed your kids another meal of fast food, this free app finds you healthy restaurants nearby. If fast food is your only option, you can also use it to find the healthiest items on the menu.

KidsFlix - Kids YouTube Playlist (Music, Videos, Cartoons, Songs) - By Safe Fun Kids, LLC. – a YouTube filter that takes some of the worry out of letting your kids have some freedom on your iPad. With more than 2,000 hours of great, safe content, children can stay entertained and you can know they are protected.  Additional parental controls make this an ideal tool for monitoring your kids’ viewing habits.

Learn States – an educational interactive book that is designed to provide an easy access to important information regarding the 50 states of the United States.

Mad Libs – a multiplayer game where one player calls out a noun, adjective or whatever the blank space calls for. The responses of the second player (or players) are then added into each blank space. Once all blanks have been filled the players have a crazy funny story for everyone to enjoy.

MamaBear not only tracks your kids’ whereabouts, but alerts you when they’re tagged in a photo, use bad language, or are being bullied online. It can even tell you when they’re speeding!

Mom Maps helps you find things to do with your kids when you’re away from home.

Smart-ICE4family stores all of your family’s critical medical information. It will even alerts EMS in the event of an emergency.

Give your kids an advantage with FamilyMint's Money Management Certification Program. The program combines a 60-page step-by-step workbook with a fun online money management application for kids.  Kids that complete the 2-month program develop key money habits that will benefit them the rest of their lives.

Do you or your kids have a favorite fun or educational app, or one that makes your life easier to manage? Share the information with Family Mint and we’ll share it in one of our future blogs or newsletters.