The shu box was recently talking about how she lets her two year old watch limited tv these days.
Even with our first baby (as opposed to our second whatever keeps hir from destroying things baby), screen time has been a part of our kids’ lives. DC1 used to nurse to Comedy Central and showed a distinct preference for Stephen Colbert over Jon Stewart.
We just give the IPad to our 20 month old and have been doing this for quite some time. We have a little box that ze can press to get all the apps we’ve downloaded specifically for hir, though ze also plays in the main section with some of daddy’s games (we just deleted Pitfall because ze kept getting irritated when it would ask hir to buy diamonds since ze doesn’t have the password to do that) and also the photo center.
Ze finds PBS kids on hir own. Ze’s not much for watching complete episodes of anything (other than Curious George, oddly, which isn’t what I would have picked out as being attention keeping) but does enjoy theme songs. And the “How did I ever get into this mess” intro of one of the shows. My favorite new themesong is Peg + Cat. (Nah nah nah nah nah.) Sometimes at work I find it on Youtube because I have the earworm.
Fisher Price also has some good free interactive IPad stuff that you can go to their app store and download. That’s probably the best of the free stuff. Other apps that ze has liked include: The wheels on the bus by kids game club, Funny animals, G’night Safari, EduRoom, KidsDoodle, and Magic Piano.
With the Ipad ze isn’t, say, climbing up DC1’s closet shelves in an effort to get the crayons and markers we took away from hir the last time ze drew on the walls. It gives us a chance to clean up the last mess ze made without hir making a new one!
What are your favorite IPad apps (or what are the favorite apps of someone you love)?
Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 
April 22, 2014 at 5:38 am
My nephew was obsessed with watching YouTubes of trash trucks. (Yes, there are huge numbers of them.)
April 22, 2014 at 5:45 am
My boys love the Duplo games, mainly with trains, Thomas the tank engine app (the little one is gaga for Thomas), and Peekaboo (or cacaboo, as my youngest calls it for some reason…). The older one is very good with puzzles, he can do puzzles for 1-2 year old more than his actual age, and so puzzlingo is one of his favourite apps, and the source of learning car parts in english.
Right now they love watching Yakari, a Belgian cartoon very popular in Germany, and Wicki und die Starke Männer. It is on at 7, after the 10 minutes of Sandmännchen on the public Kika German channel, one channel we very much agree to, since the cartoons are nice for young children, without too much violence. They also love 64 Zoo Lane and Chuggington (trains must be genetically written in little boys genes). In the films dept, we used to watch Cars a lot, but not anymore, since it was replaced with Wall-E. Or Wa-ee, since they both are yet to acquire L and R in their repertoire. :-) And although he has seen it at least fifteen times by now, my oldest, who is four in August, still gets teary when Wall-E first meets Eva and shows her everything he’s got. And when we go to the recycling spot, and he can come along, he swoons and talks of Eva. :-)
April 22, 2014 at 5:52 am
Oh, and there is on youtube, if one searches for “excavator”, a song by twentytrucks, that both my boys LOVE. All songs by twentytrucks are 80s cheesy catchy songs, but the excavator one is DA BOMB. Considering it has a few million vews, I think there are other three families who watch it on repeat as we do. :-) Seriously, it is such an earworm, I wake up humming it, even there is no child around to remind me of it. I was in the supermarket, looking at dairy, and humming out loud “’cause that what an excavator does, nah, nah, nah, nah…” WTF?!?!
April 22, 2014 at 9:40 am
We’ve all been there, don’t even worry. The worst is when the kid is all grown up and in college and you still remember the tune….
April 22, 2014 at 12:52 pm
We LOVE the TruckTunes videos along with the TwentyTrucks documentary. We also watch lots of YouTube videos of garbage trucks, trains, etc. Have you checked out the “Mighty Machines” videos? We stumbled on those and are really enjoying them – 30 minute documentaries that are aimed at kids but are interesting to me, too.
April 22, 2014 at 8:07 am
All the kids I’ve babysat for have really enjoyed watching youtube videos of various animals. I’ve always been lucky and not had anything awful happen. My favorite is one little girl who only signs; when she sees me, she insists on watching the dancing horsies (dressage).
April 22, 2014 at 9:41 am
That’s adorable!
(probably any videos you source from Cute Overload won’t have horribleness :-)
April 22, 2014 at 2:52 pm
octopuses putting themselves into and out of things was a favorite around here.
April 22, 2014 at 2:54 pm
That is popular here at grumpy rumblings as well! https://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/octopus-is-the-new-black/
April 22, 2014 at 11:10 am
My little one’s top three free apps were 1 – all the Fisher Price ones, particularly Laugh & Learn Animal Sounds (okay, yes, since FP makes lots that’s technically more than 3 right there but hey); 2 – The 3 Little Pigs by Zubadoo, & 3 – My ABC Train by LoeschWare. Oh, and the free version of Farm 123 Free StoryToys Jr, is nice too. In the not free category, there’s one called Duckie Deck Robo Buddies that’s for older kids (preschool) but she enjoyed it even when she was around 2.
April 22, 2014 at 11:13 am
FP makes AWESOME free apps.
April 22, 2014 at 11:16 am
#2: i made a mistake
a mistake I say
I clicked a link
NOW my head is all “Peg plus cat…”
darn you!!!
nah nah nah nah nah
April 22, 2014 at 11:16 am
Welcome to my world!
(You’re the best!)
April 22, 2014 at 12:56 pm
We’ve been enjoying the “Monkey Preschool” apps (there are a few). The name is ridiculous but they were developed by educators for effective learning and engagement. They are really fun for my 3 year old and just challenging enough. The quick rotation amongst tasks means that even if he finds a certain one frustrating, he quickly moves on to something he likes which encourages him to keep trying. They reward with virtual stickers and a monkey doing backflips that says things like “super cool, nice job”. My kiddo has learned addition/subtraction, letters, number/quantity relationships from playing these games. They’re not free but reasonably cheap and since we’re using a Kindle, can be purchased with collected app rewards from Amazon (e.g. free-ish).
April 22, 2014 at 1:54 pm
My kids (ages 6.5 and 4.5) have enjoyed: Star Walk, Stack the States, Slice It!, Rocket Math, Memory Train, and Montessori Crosswords.
I find MyFitnessPal, HBO Go, and the Netflix apps all very useful. DH enjoys Duolingo.
April 22, 2014 at 2:54 pm
around 3 or 4 (whenever he was just getting proficient on the balance bike) my son absolutely loved freerunning, gymkid, BMX jump & flatlander, and skateboarding videos. There are a lot of them on Youtube.
The only problem was watching close enough that he didn’t get to the really gory accident ones too often. Often enough to keep him a little realistic about what he should try at home, not often enough to scar him.
April 25, 2014 at 7:16 am
I love the iPad for our 3.5 year old son. We like to play games on it together,and YouTube is awesome too for anything we want to show him!
Some of the apps he likes are Thomas the Train, drawing apps, puzzle apps, Toopy Binoo, Candy Crush, Tiny Tower, 60 Seconds (not sure if that’s the name, but it’s a fun game to pay together), Snakes and Ladders.
I’ll be watching this thread to get new ideas!
November 3, 2017 at 1:50 am
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