Irony alert: I don’t let my kids play video games and I limit their TV screen time, but I’m usually willing to hand over my iPhone to pass the time.
I realized that I was a huge hypocrite on a recent flight from San Francisco to Cleveland when we let Holden (now 4) watch the entire Toy Story movie on the airplane, then we let Milo (precious little 2 1/2) watch the movie next.
Milo and Holden using the iPhones
Afterward, we felt a little better worse mixed-up about tossing the iPhone into the back seat during long car-rides around town. But we did it.
Free apps he likes:
iWrite Words (Lite version is FREE): Letter tracing with fingers. Making him smart.
Do Not Press: Drives me crazy but Rookie Dad Alec and Holden like it. Little jokes about not pressing a red button.
Bloons: The kids’ first shooting game. Nice.
Paid apps he likes:
iPlay n Learn (from Parents Mag): 3 modes to allow various pre-literacy and literacy fun, letter finding and tracing.
Wheels on the Bus: silly interactions to a favorite song with self-recording mode. A Rookie Dad Ryan fave.
iChalky (has the distinction of being my first paid app): cool program where stick figure dances and can be stretched. Both kids like it.
Reader recommended apps:
@luckyduck21 says: Blowfish (FREE). Our twins love it. No idea why…
@Keonismama says: fav apps Look Baby! (FREE) and sesame street podcasts my 1 yr loves them both
@selfmademom says: Tozzle, Scoops, Flight Control ($.99 but we’re gonna check it out!). Uhm, not that we sit on the ipod all day 
@Magpiemusing votes: Ducky Derby
@grace134 says: There’s a get the pee in the potty on that my son LOVES, not sure the name. (I couldn’t find it, you gotta tell us the name!)
@wcopley says: Try the “Up” game. Balloon popping fun for free.
Please share some other favorite games and tricks for amusing your toddlers and preschoolers on the iPhone!
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Disclosure: Parents magazine sent me a free copy of their new app. He liked it. He really liked it.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I loaded a handful of Pixar movies and shorts onto my old iphone (phone part is dead, but everything else works). I have shamelessly given the phone to my toddler when I’ve had to torture him with endless errands or the 2 hour wait at the DMV. I felt slightly guilty, but I figured it’s not much different than the DVD players in the back seats of cars.
Love the ideas for the other apps above. I think my son would love the tracing one.
Wow. Thank you for this post. I 100% feel the same way — the irony has not escaped my husband and I, either. No TV, but the iPhone is the only thing that kept our 14 month old from screaming his head off for the last 2 hours of a flight home from Maui last week. Aside from a few of those mentioned above, our son loves two others created by the same company as Wheels on the Bus. They are Itsy Bitsy Spider and Old McDonald. Truly hours of entertainment and my saving grace when I was about to pull my hair out on the plane.
This is awesome – I just had a friend on Twitter today ask for recs for apps to entertain her 3 yr old. Perfect! I’ll pass this on.
Oh, I forgot to say my favorite FREE kid-friendly app is DoodleBuddy. Just how it sounds – an app for drawing (and it’s got stamps of all different shapes) AND (here is my favorite part) you can import pictures and doodle/stamp on them. So great for a free app.
Check out Hatch! by phodder. It’s a free app where you crack an egg by tapping it and an animal appears with a boing noise. It can be muted.. it’s super simple.. my 2 year old loves it. It was designed by my husband’s friend for his 2 year old daughter. It’s a favorite around here.
Hahaha! This is nice to see that other parents solve their young kids problems the same way. I have a son (3) and a daughter (8) and when it came to potty-training my daughter she was a breeze. My son however was a pain until…we gave him a Nintendo DS game system. Yes imagine a 3 year old seated on the porcelain throne playing video games while he does his thing. Believe it or not it worked for us. It took two weeks after he turned 3. Done. No more diapers. If you even try and strap one on him he would freak out. So if anyone out there is trying to potty train their little boy think Nintendo DS. It worked for us.
Dan
Oh forgot to mention in my above post that the DS was a handy me down from his big sister. We did not go out and purchase one just to try. We had one just lying around. =)
Also forgot to mention that a great place to find cool iPhone apps is at Appolicious.com. They have a pretty good selection.