The Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids (2023) is our top choice for the best kids tablet, and with good reason. It's inexpensive enough that you don't have to spend your days constantly worrying about your kids destroying it, and even if your kids do have that special knack of destroying most of their nice things, the tablet is robust enough to handle most things that kids can throw at it.
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The Kindle is a great reading device. Here's how to make it perfect for your children to use.You even get a year's free subscription to Amazon Kids+, which gives you access to a huge number of apps, books, games, videos, and more. However, Amazon Kids+ isn't the only source of great kids apps for your Fire tablet. There are plenty of fun and educational apps out there that you can use to help your kids build skills, or just to keep them quiet for half an hour. Here are some of the best Fire tablet apps for kids, including entertainment, education, and game apps.
1 Disney+
Tablets are a great way to keep your kids entertained, especially if you're going on long journeys. If there's one movie studio that's guaranteed to keep your kids quiet for an hour or two, it's Disney. Disney+ gives your kids access to a huge number of classic Disney movies, from classics like Snow White and The Jungle Book to popular modern movies such as Frozen and Wreck-it Ralph. You also get access to Pixar movies, too, including the Toy Story movies and newer classics like Inside Out.
Disney+ isn't just about movies, however. There are hundreds of great series and documentaries your kids can watch, too, covering everything from the Mickey Mouse Fun House to PJ Masks. You can set up a 'child account' so that your little ones can only access age-appropriate content, but adults can also enjoy all the adult content, such as the Star Wars and Marvel movies, and popular series such as The Bear.
- Download Disney Plus (free with in-app purchases)
2 Amazon Prime Video
If you're using an Amazon tablet, you probably have an Amazon Prime subscription. If you do, you get access to tons of additional content on Amazon Prime Video. While it may not serve up the sheer quantity of classic kids films and shows that Disney+ can, there's still a lot of great movies and shows for kids on the streaming service. You can also set up a kids account to ensure that they only see content that's suitable.
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The best tablets for kids are durable, educational, and entertaining.There are entire series of popular shows, such as Blaze and the Monster Machines and Thomas and Friends, and there are even some Amazon originals, such as LOL Winter Disco if your kids are into LOL Surprise toys. There are also plenty of great kids movies for them to watch, such as Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted and The Grinch. Best of all, it's free if you're already a Prime member.
- Download the Prime Video app (free with in-app purchases)
3 Netflix
Another great streaming option for kids is Netflix. There's a whole heap of great content for kids, including popular movies such as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the Harry Potter movies, Matilda the Musical, and more. There are also plenty of great series, including Lego Masters, Peppa Pig, PAW Patrol, and the highly addictive and absurd, Is It Cake?
There are also some excellent original Netflix shows and movies too; if you haven't seen Vivo, the animated musical written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, then you need to check it out, because the songs are genuinely awesome. There's also Netflix's own sequel to the stop-motion animation Chicken Run, which is definitely worth a watch. As with Prime Video and Disney+, it's possible to set up a kids' account that they can access themselves, which includes only age-appropriate content. You can then sign in to your own profile when you're ready to binge Squid Game: The Challenge (which you really need to do).
- Download the Netflix app (free with in-app purchases)
4 Minecraft
In the 1995 novel Microserfs by Douglas Coupland, a group of programmers create a program that's a little like a virtual version of Lego, allowing you to create anything you want from smaller parts. In 2009, Minecraft burst onto the scene, and in many ways made that fictional program a reality.
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Finding the best Minecraft creations is a bit of a job, but Pocket-lint has rounded up some of the most incredible examples. Straight from the overactiveMinecraft is a hugely popular sandbox game that's available across a huge number of different platforms and allows you to build incredible creations by mining raw materials and using them to build structures. You can build everything from a simple wall to an entire castle or even a whole city. Since the game has a strong creative element, you may not feel quite so bad about your child spending a lot of time on the tablet playing it.
- Download the Minecraft app ($6.99)
5 Subway Surfers
Subway Surfers is an endless runner game in which your character keeps running forwards, and you must jump, slide, and surf around the obstacles that appear in your path. You'll need to avoided buses, trains, and other barriers while collecting coins to boost your score. The controls are really simple and child-friendly (all you need to do is swipe left, right, up, or down on the screen), so even younger kids can play it without too much difficulty, and it definitely has that 'just-one-more-try' addictive repetition that all the best games seem to have.
- Download the Subway Surfers app (free with in-app purchases)
6 Crossy Road
Some games are so simple they seem like they simply can't be any fun, but then turn out to be not only great fun, but also incredibly addictive. Tetris, anyone? Crossy Road definitely falls into that category. You're a little chicken with one mission: to cross the road without getting squished. The trouble is, there are cars, trucks, trains, and more waiting to turn you into chicken soup.
If you ever played the classic arcade game Frogger, you'll find this game very familiar, and probably spend a good few hours playing it yourself trying to show your kids up with your vintage skills. Once again, the controls are very simple, so even younger kids can play it without much explanation.
- Download the Crossy Road app (free with in-app purchases)
7 Khan Academy Kids
The Fire tablet isn't just a great way to entertain your kids, it's also a great way to encourage independent learning, too. There are some excellent educational apps available, and Khan Academy Kids is definitely worth a look. It's a spin-off from the non-profit educational organization that offers online lessons and exercises for older students.
In Khan Academy Kids, you can learn basic skills in areas such as mathematics and languages which can help prepare kids for school or be used as a supplementary tool to their schoolwork. There is a wide range of games that help kids improve their reading or mathematical skills; the app is aimed at kids aged 2-8 and isn't really something that older kids will have any interest in.
- Download the Khan Academy Kids app (free)
8 Duolingo ABC
Duolingo is a hugely popular language learning app that uses gamification to encourage people to learn a little bit of a language each day. Over time, you can learn quite a significant amount of vocabulary and grammar just by doing a little a day. Duolingo Music also uses short lessons to help you learn the rudiments of music. Duolingo ABC takes the same concept of both apps and applies it to reading.
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The best kids' laptops are durable, budget-friendly, and powerful for both work and play.In short lessons that you need to complete every day to keep your streak going, you're taught the skills that you need to be able to read, but also get practice at writing too. The touchscreen of the tablet is a great way to practice forming letters by tracing the examples with your finger. When you complete lessons, you can access stories which can help with reading skills.
- Download the Duolingo ABC app (free)
9 Teach Your Monster to Read
Teach Your Monster to Read is another fun app that can assist your children in their reading journey. It's a phonics-based game in which you play minigames to earn prizes by correctly completing the phonics challenges. It can help your child to learn the sounds of letters, how to blend sounds together, and how to recognize letters.
The app is from the Usborne Foundation in the UK, and so everything is in a British accent, but the plus side is that you get the voice of Simon Farnaby, which you may recognize from the incredible series Horrible Histories, and who also co-wrote (and appears in) the new Wonka movie.
- Download the Teach Your Monster to Read app ($8.99)
10 Toca Lab: Elements
If you're looking for something outside the worlds of reading, writing, and arithmetic, Toca Lab: Elements can help you get your science fix. This app introduces you to all 118 elements from the periodic table, by having you perform experiments on a cute little character, such as freezing them with dry ice, or heating them up with a Bunsen burner.
The experiments change the properties of the character and transform them into a different element. You can turn a solid into a gas by heating it, for example, or a liquid into a solid by cooling it. The technical science animations may not be 100% accurate, but it's still a fun way to learn and introduce early chemistry terms and concepts to children.
- Download the Toca Labs: Elements app ($3.99)
11 codeSpark Academy
AI is coming to take all of our jobs, but maybe not your kids' future careers if they're interested in coding. The codeSpark Academy app can set your child on their way to an early interest in logic, design, and coding. Who knows, they could one day create the AI that saves humanity. Or destroys us all on whim. Just saying.
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The best headphones for children have wireless designs and volume limiters for a safe listening experience.The codeSpark Academy app may not be ideal for teaching kids that proper nouns should start with capital letters, but it can teach the rudiments of coding to kids as young as four. And if you don't know one end of a mouse from the other, don't worry; the lessons are intended to teach kids the key concepts of coding, without any input from grown-ups. Eventually, your kids can create their own games in the app and even share them with others. The skills that they learn should help them when they move on to coding on a laptop. The app is free, but when they grow up to be tech billionaires, you might want to convince them that you paid for it.
- Download the codeSpark Academy app (free with in-app purchases)