What are some good edutainment games/apps for grade schoolers?

January 17, 2022 9:43 PM

I'd love to find some ipad games/apps for my kids (2nd grade and K) that have genuine educational value but are more fun than, say, Khan Academy. I know this is very subjective and debatable, but I guess I'm thinking of stuff like what I used to play as a kid - arcade-style games that involve solving math problems, or fun trivia games, things like that. I know apps like Minecraft and Tynker are often used in classrooms but I'm thinking more in terms of the "traditional" school subjects. Thanks!
posted by malhouse to Education (7 answers total)

Teach your monster to read and Math Tango are good.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 2:41 AM on January 18, 2022

Stack the States and Adventure Academy. The latter requires a monthly subscription. Both are fun, have some educational value, and don't have the negative, overstimulating, addictive qualities of most modern games.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 5:43 AM on January 18, 2022

Agree on Stack the States. There’s also Stack the Countries. Also, my daughter loved Presidents vs. Aliens—you are quizzed on presidential facts and pictures, but there’s enough interspersed arcade-style fun to keep kids interested.
posted by msbubbaclees at 7:10 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

My kids both leapt forward in reading while using Teach the Monster. They were also both recommended by their teachers to play the math game Prodigy. One warning about Prodigy is that there is a membership that costs money, and some items are only available if you pay for that membership. My kids are very susceptible to advertisements and suggestion, so they beg for the membership and other in-game real-world currency purchases a lot. They totally don't need those things to have fun with the game though.
posted by Night_owl at 10:11 AM on January 18, 2022

FWIW, Apple II emulators are out there. You could grab one of those and some disc images and go to town with the old Apple educational games.
posted by kathrynm at 2:40 PM on January 18, 2022

My kids (1st and 3rd grade) love Starfall, and it's educational enough that it's been the primary "curricula" we've used in our unschool/homeschool.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 5:10 PM on January 18, 2022

Prodigy is a math based RPG.
posted by pyro979 at 5:09 AM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]