Check Out the 10 Best Free Educational Apps for Kids

Living in a digital age, it's already a given that today's youth has a likelihood of being glued to their electronic devices. The means of constantly being connected to our phones, tablets, laptops, televisions, and so on have become part of everyday living for some.

Children, in particular, have attached themselves to their screens. While that trend shows no sign of slowing, here are 10 free educational apps for kids.

The Khan Academy Kids app is a frontrunner and one of the best free educational apps for kids. This free app touches on subjects such as science, math, reading, social studies, and more fundamental areas of study through a platform that supplements traditional learning methods and helps children develop important skills in a fun and engaging way. This app is recommended for those ages 2–5 as it targets early learning skills.

The Khan Academy Kids app is incredibly child-friendly and promotes positive interaction with the app. There are no in-app purchases necessary, as it's free to download across iOS and Android devices.

The PBS Kids Games app provides free games for children that encourage learning as they play along with their favorite PBS characters. The app hosts more than 100 games that cover different subjects and educational topics. The games will entertain kids and teach them about math, science, other creative skills, and more. PBS Kids Games gears itself towards reaching those ages 2–8 through easy-to-play games filled with valuable lessons.

PBS Kids Games is free to download across multiple electronic devices. You're able to download it on Apple and Android-branded electronics.

Coolmath Games is perhaps one of the most dated and recognizable education apps for kids. The app has earned its popularity and standing as a favorite. Its similarity to the website of the same name (and brand) offers an easy transition from playing games on laptops or PCs to taking them on the go. Coolmath Games primarily targets math and critical thinking skills for children ages 9 years old and above.

Coolmath Games is a more mature approach to educational apps compared to its counterparts that limit themselves to younger audiences. This app is free to download on Android, iPhone, iPad app stores.

Multilingualism has become more of a necessary skill on an international basis, whether it be for fulfilling an educational credit, being raised in a multilingual family, or enhancing personal skills by taking on another language. The Duolingo app targets beginner language courses for an older audience, but their Duolingo ABC sister platform makes language learning accessible to a younger demographic.

Duolingo ABC is free to download on Apple and Android phones or tablets. It provides hundreds of language-based lessons tailored for young minds through assisted reading, sentence decoding, letter tracing, introducing sight words, and more. Children 4 years old and up can engage with Duolingo ABC's reading comprehension features, phonics, and more.

Phonics Genius is a flashcard game designed for older children that break down the mechanics of phonics, word relationships with letters and their pronunciations, and sound designation. This app is created for kids in elementary school who are learning the means of phonics and can use customizable flashcard games to practice their in-class lessons. Phonics Genius offers thousands of words broken into over 200 subcategories for endless learning.

The app is only available on the Apple iPhone and iPad, but it's free to download. Those as young as 3 years old and as old as 11 years old are welcome to use the app when learning more about phonics, especially when it comes to distinguishing words by sound.

BrainPOP's app structure bases itself on traditional presentation-and-reflection mechanisms. Much like the videos of the same name, the BrainPOP app will play a short animated video and then offer a short quiz at the end that tests the child on the topic. These tests aren't challenging but do measure how kids interact with the educational clips being shown before them. BrainPOP reaches those from kindergarten to high school with diverse topics and quizzes.

The app has been free to download in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. BrainPOP hoped that remote access to education without pay can continue to supplement lessons that would be taught face-to-face. The BrainPOP app was also made free to download on school devices for classroom use. It can be found on iOS and Android electronics.

The Bee-Bot App for iPhone and iPads is a step up from applications designed to cover the simpler forms of education. Instead the app takes the means of introducing the basics of coding to older children. Exclusive to the iOS App Store, the Bee-Bot app is created to teach pre-teens the foundational aspects of programming and coding. The app translates the complications of programming and coding into interactive games, turning the robot it was based on into an even more hands-on learning experience.

While the app itself is free to download on Apple mobile devices, there are forms of in-app advertising on the app. Although there are ads present, users aren't asked to pay for the application itself. Bee-Bot App is recommended for those ages 7–11 years old.

This free augmented reality app is one of the few astronomy apps for young scientists curious about what space has in store. Found on the iPhone and Android App Stores, users point their smartphone cameras at the sky to reveal stars, planets, constellations, and other forms of celestial bodies that can't always be seen in great detail by the naked eye alone. SkyView Free is a counterpart to its sister application, SkyView, which comes at a premium of $2.99 on the app store.

In addition to being accessible through handheld devices, the SkyView Free application is downloadable on PC, Mac, and laptop computers. While anyone is welcome to use SkyView Free, it's recommended for children ages 12 and up.

A+ Spelling Bee English Words for iPhone and iPad is a great app for kindergarteners who are learning to spell. This app focuses on the application of spelling words in the English language through playing bright, colorful games. A+ Spelling Bee English Words features multiple levels of difficulty that allow children at play to challenge themselves. Drag-and-drop gameplay rewards children with vibrant animated graphics for each word they spell correctly.

A+ Spelling Bee English Words can be downloaded for free on the iOS Apple App Store, and while there isn't an initial cost to you, there are opportunities for in-app purchases to be made.

Slice Fractions is an Andriod-exclusive interactive math game that keeps its players entertained while focusing on fractions. The app has been praised for its game design, gameplay features, and educational elements. Children are asked to slice through Ice Age geographical elements while creating fractions of rocks and ice to clear a path for the Mastadon. It's a non-textbook approach to interacting with fractions outside of the traditional means of tests or quizzes.

There are no in-app purchases necessary to play Slice Fraction, and the app is recommended for gamers ages 5–11.