Favorite Tech Tools By Age
By Kristen Powers
February 7, 2024
Parenting children in the age of technology can be daunting and exhilarating. There are many educational opportunities, but navigating the complexities of life online can be challenging and isolating. To that end, we have cultivated a list of our favorite tech tools for children of all ages.
Littles
Quality technology is key for our littlest learners. At this age, technology should be introduced with parent/caregiver present as an engaging activity with about a 20 minute time limit. Is your young child interested in songs and games? How about art? Here are some apps to pique their interests that you and your child can play on together.
Busy Shapes And Colors Learn colors and shapes alongside your little one with this fun and engaging app based on the Montessori child-led learning paradigm. This app provides young users the chance to explore sorting and problem solving by classifying colors and shapes. Additionally, the app is intuitive and brings children back to areas where they struggled to ensure they learn the content.
Beck and Bo A great way to encourage pretend play and make-believe, Beck and Bo gives littles the chance to manipulate settings by adding in new characters and objects, and having characters interact with one another. They can also change settings from typical places like the library to exotic locations like the jungle. Even better, they can tap on the different parts of their scene and learn vocabulary words.
Elementary
The elementary years are a pivotal time for teaching children how to use technology in a safe and appropriate way. Here are some apps and websites that foster learning and skill development in an engaging, safe, and fun way.
Mussila Music Got a budding musician on your hands? Mussila Music is a great way to introduce music basics such as instrument sounds, tempo, beat, rhythm, and even reading scales. It is also adaptive so the elements and games grow more complex as your child masters more musical content. Have fun exploring the world of music and how music connects to other content areas!
Seek by iNatural Enjoy nature with your child with the image recognition technology of Seek. Simply open the app, scan a plant or animal and the app will identify the species and provide basic information including the scientific name, range, and habitat. Users earn badges by identifying different species such as reptiles, amphibians, and birds. This is a great app for families seeking to spend more time outdoors together.
Middles
By middle school, many children will have personal devices by this point. Now is the time to be extra vigilant in monitoring tech use as kids are exploring and some are engaging in social media. That being said, there are many engaging and educational uses for technology- here are some of our favorites.
NASA Visualization Explorer Take advantage of the incredible science from NASA with the visualization explorer app. This provides users with cutting edge stories of space exploration and even real time updates from the International Space Station. Users can also travel around the galaxy and see the Earth as never before. The photographs and visuals are astonishing and will keep the attention of even the most intrepid middle schooler.
BrainPop Short digital videos led by likable characters, BrainPop presents academic content into bite sized content. From math, to grammar to social studies, BrainPop covers it all in videos under seven minutes long. The website provides full access to all the videos organized by academic content, and the app delivers an added bonus of new weekly videos for viewing on the go. Bonus- signing up for a year long membership includes a 33% discount for new users.
Teens
High school students are well aware of technology and hopefully have established healthy usage boundaries. Now that teens are old enough, apps can be included in their daily life for organization, learning new skills, and staying connected with family and friends- especially for post graduation.
Happy Not Perfect High school life is stressful; with endless expectations and time demands, it can be difficult for teens to unwind and relax. Happy Not Perfect is a mindfulness and meditation app with over 400 sessions users can complete in 10 minutes or less. This is a great way to encourage teens to decompress and make mental health a priority. The guided meditations give users space to simply tune out the world and focus on inner peace and tranquility.
Evernote Organizing notes, assignments, and upcoming projects is easy with Evernote. This app helps users keep all their tasks and deadlines in one place for easy access, and works with both home school and traditional school students. As an added bonus, this app segways nicely for college bound students as well. With intuitive features including checkboxes and assignment reminders, Evernote keeps teens on track as they juggle content for their classes.
For more on this topic and others, join us in the TPL App