My youngest two boys and I have been lucky to be able to play with the KidloLand app in the last month or so. And we have really enjoyed exploring the sheer amount of educational and entertaining content that this app as to offer!
Our children and digital devices
First things first, a quick note from me on using digital devices in our homes. We are not ‘pro-technology’ as such when it comes to encouraging the children to use it (they need NO encouragement after all!). But we do allow them to either use our phones from time to time to watch nursery rhymes, cartoons or to play age-appropriate games on an old smartphone.
It’s fair to say that we go through phases when we’re a bit more lenient and don’t monitor usage as obsessively. But at times, when we notice that screen time is occupying too much of their afternoons (if we let it), we end up banning devices for a while. But of course I’d be lying if I said that they have never set eyes on one!
Exploring the KidloLand app
So I was quite happy to look into the KidloLand app with them, and I must say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an app with so much content! They have over 300 activities and all the nursery rhymes you can ever think of… and more!
What I mostly like about the app is that it’s educational. While the children are playing and having fun, they are learning something. From nursery rhymes, to the letters of the alphabet, all the way through numbers, colours and shapes, they can listen to songs about anything that takes their fancy, and yet, they’re learning something that’s age-appropriate for them.
What my children mostly liked about the app is that the most of the songs are (what I call) ‘interactive’. This is something we personally haven’t come across on other apps.
So while you’re listening to a song there are little arrows moving on the screen, which suggest that you can tap on a particular animated object or character. Once you do, they make an unexpected, funny sound or movement, and that’s when the infections giggles come in!
My youngest son, who’s 2 and a half, absolutely loves this. It’s just a little twist on your traditional nursery rhymes – a surprise, something cute and unexpected, and they love it!
My 5-year old on the other hand enjoyed a fair share of puzzles in the Activities and Games. He also used the ABCD songs quite a bit to (proudly) show me how well he is at recognising his letters. He is, after all, in Reception!
Learning and having fun at the same time
But it’s not just about the interactive nursery rhymes. Let me tell you about what other sections from the KidloLand app we tried.
- Stories – you can read them to the children or the child can read for themselves, if they’re old enough. You get Christmas stories, Ocean tales, Thanksgiving stories, Halloween stories, and Adventures of Moo.
- Phonics – you can tap on one of 26 ice lollies (one for each letter of the alphabet) and listen to an interactive song about different familiar objects or animals that start with that letter.
- ABCD songs – similar to the above, you tap on a letter, and you get a song with 4 different objects or animals that start with that letter.
- Games – this is a category of 22 fun games to play with your child (if they’re still little) or something that they can try on their own if they’re a little older. You get puzzles and sorting games, for examples. These are good for my little one, who needs to develop his fine motor skills a bit more. Dragging and dropping to precise spots is a great exercise for him!
- Activities – joining the dots, sorting items by colour or size etc.
- Dinos – for the dinosaurs fans out there, there’s a special set of 10 songs with cute baby dinosaurs as the main characters.
- Old McDonald songs – 6 different Old McDonald interactive songs with a different spin to them. You get the traditional ‘Old McDonald had a farm’ (obviously), but also a jungle, circus, bird park, zoo and aquarium! Why not? And in the meantime your little one learns a lot of vocabulary!
- Row, row, row your boat songs with 4 interactive different spins to it. And I can tell you this is a firm favourite in our household!
- And there’s a lot more – trucks, vehicles, animals, fruits, animal sounds, birds, vegetables, insects, shapes, lullabies, water animals, days of the week, months of the year, numbers 1-100, colours and finally, Christmas songs and Christmas carols – another favourite in our household!
Quick tip for parents
One tip I would give to other parents using the KidloLand app is to invest some time in downloading all the songs and games first. Depending on your child’s age, they might not have the patience to wait until something they click on has fully downloaded. If something doesn’t start straight away, they’ll press the back button and move on to something else!
Downloading all the content will pay off. Once you’ve done that, all the content becomes accessible offline. And you can literally use it anywhere. And you know how handy that is when you’re on a plane. Or when you have a little one you need to keep busy during your other children’s football practice!
What else do I need to know?
The KidloLand app is available on iOS, Google Play Store and the Amazon Appstore. It’s free to download, and it has a couple of free songs in each section.
However, to access all of the above content, you can subscribe for 1 month at £3.99, for 6 months at £18.99 or for 1 year for £29.99. This works out at £2.50 per month, which is less than a Starbucks latte!
And if you want to try the full version, take advantage of their free 7-day trial option. This gives you access to the entire app. I’d say that if your little one enjoys it, it’s definitely good value for money. You get a huge amount of content for quite a small price.
*We would like to thank KidloLand for giving us a free 6-month subscription to their fantastic app in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own (and my children’s).
What do you think? Have you tried or would you try the KidloLand app?