The best learning apps for kids aged 6 to 12 in 2026

Search "educational apps for kids" and you get thousands of results, most of them with a cartoon owl and five stars. The label means almost nothing. Anyone can put an app in the Education category. So before the list, the test.

How to tell if a learning app teaches anything

Researchers led by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek describe four pillars of how children learn. An app supports learning when it hits them, in service of a clear goal¹:

1. Active. Your kid is thinking ("minds-on"), not just tapping.
2. Engaged. They stay focused on the learning, with no pop-ups, rewards or noise pulling them away.
3. Meaningful, in the researchers' word. It connects to their life and to what they already know.
4. Socially interactive. It gives them something to talk about with you, a friend or a character.

When the same team scored the most downloaded educational apps for young children, 58% came out low quality. Free apps did worse, because of distracting features². A separate study found advertising in 95% of apps for young children, and in 100% of the free ones it tested. The "educational" apps had just as many ads as the rest³.

You don't have to pay for everything. But check who makes the app, and how it makes its money.

Our picks at a glance

Prices change a lot. Check the official page before you subscribe.

Best free learning apps

Khan Academy Kids

Made by the nonprofit Khan Academy, with input from the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Thousands of activities and books for reading, phonics, math and social-emotional skills. Completely free: no ads, no in-app purchases⁴. It tops out around age 8, so it fits the younger half of the 6 to 12 range.

PBS KIDS Games

Hundreds of curriculum-based games with PBS characters. Free, with no ads or purchases, in English and Spanish, and it works offline⁵. Great for 6 and 7-year-olds. Older kids grow out of it.

Khan Academy

Free practice and videos from kindergarten through high school, sorted by grade and skill. Less playful than the two above. Still the best free way to fill a specific gap. Its AI tutor, Khanmigo, costs $4 a month for families¹³.

Best math apps

Beast Academy

From Art of Problem Solving. Comic-style lessons and hard puzzles, for roughly ages 6 to 13. It's the one I'd pick for a kid who is good at math and getting bored, or one who loves a challenge⁷. Paid subscription.

DragonBox

Puzzle games that build number sense, and even algebra intuition before kids know they're doing algebra. Now sold as Kahoot! by DragonBox, on its own or as part of a Kahoot!+ family subscription⁸.

Prodigy Math

A fantasy role-playing game for grades 1 to 8, where you win battles by answering curriculum-aligned questions. Kids love it, and the math is free. The catch: paid memberships open up pets, gear and new areas, and the game promotes them to kids while they play⁶. Agree on an answer as a family before the first "can we get membership?"

Best reading apps

Epic

A huge digital library of children's books, audiobooks and read-to-me titles for kids 12 and under. Teachers use it free in class during school hours. Families pay for unlimited access at home⁹.

Reading Eggs

A structured, step-by-step reading program with games and rewards. Strong on phonics for early readers. Around $70 a year, or bundled with Mathseeds, its math sister app¹⁰.

Best coding apps

ScratchJr and Scratch

Both come from MIT's Lifelong Kindergarten group, and both are free. With ScratchJr, 5 to 7-year-olds snap blocks together to make characters move and talk¹¹. Scratch, for 8 and up, is a full creative coding tool with millions of shared projects. Few apps hit all four pillars this well. Kids make things, share them and talk about them.

Best for creative play

Toca Boca World

A digital dollhouse the size of a city. Kids build scenes and play out stories. No goals, no scores, no ads¹². There's no curriculum, and the in-app purchases need a conversation. But Toca Boca's apps were among the top scorers when researchers rated popular kids' apps for learning quality², because kids spend the whole time creating.

Best for curiosity-led learning

Marble

Full disclosure: we make this one. Marble is an interactive learning world for kids aged 6 to 12, on iPad, Mac and iPhone. Kids explore an island, go on quests, craft, draw and talk with characters. It follows what your kid is curious about and turns it into quests set just past what they've already mastered, mapped to school curriculum frameworks. There are no ads, and only a parent can set up the account. After each session you get a short note: what they did, what they learned, and what to ask them about. We built it for kids who are bored by worksheets, and for parents tired of picking between screen time that's fun and screen time that's good.

How to choose for your child

• Start from what your kid needs. Behind in reading, a reading app. Bored by math, Beast Academy. Wants to build things, Scratch. Curious about everything, something open-ended.
• Try it yourself for five minutes. Count the ads, the pop-ups and the purchase prompts.
• Watch your kid play once. Are they thinking, or tapping until something shiny happens?
• Ask them about it at dinner. If they can tell you what they did, it stuck.
• Keep it to one or two. A folder of 15 learning apps is a folder of 15 ways to avoid the hard one.

Want a second opinion on a specific app? The Marble Index scores kids' apps out of 100, for free.

Questions parents ask

What is the best free learning app for kids?

Khan Academy Kids and PBS KIDS Games, both for ages 2 to 8. Both are completely free, with no ads and no in-app purchases. For older kids, Khan Academy is free from kindergarten up, and ScratchJr and Scratch from MIT are free for learning to code.

What is the best math app for kids?

Depends on the kid. Beast Academy, from Art of Problem Solving, is the best for kids who like a challenge, roughly ages 6 to 13. DragonBox builds number sense through puzzles. Prodigy is popular and free to play, but it markets paid memberships to kids inside the game, so agree on the rules before they start.

Are educational apps really educational?

Often not. A 2021 study of the most downloaded educational apps for young children rated 58% as low quality on the four pillars of learning: is the child active, focused, connecting it to their own life, and interacting with someone. Free apps scored lower because of distracting features. Watch whether your kid is thinking or just tapping.

How much time should kids spend on learning apps?

There is no magic number for ages 6 to 12. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends consistent limits that protect sleep, physical activity and family time, and paying attention to what kids do on screens, not only how long. Twenty focused minutes in a good app beats an hour of tapping through a bad one.

What app is best for a curious kid who gets bored of worksheets?

Something open-ended, where your kid sets the direction. Scratch for kids who like to build. Toca Boca World for younger kids who like to play out stories. And Marble, an interactive learning world for ages 6 to 12 that turns whatever your kid is curious about into quests mapped to school curriculum frameworks.

Sources

1. Hirsh-Pasek et al. (2015), Putting education in educational apps, Psychological Science in the Public Interest
2. Meyer et al. (2021), How educational are educational apps for young children? Journal of Children and Media
3. Meyer et al. (2019), Advertising in young children's apps, Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics
4. Khan Academy Kids
5. PBS KIDS Games on the App Store
6. Prodigy membership plans
7. Beast Academy Online
8. Kahoot! Big Numbers by DragonBox on the App Store
9. Epic for educators and families
10. Reading Eggs pricing
11. MIT News: ScratchJr brings coding to kindergarten
12. Toca Boca World
13. Khanmigo pricing