Best App for Toddlers

Tot Games for Handheld Devices

• What: Wheels on the Bus App by Duck Duck Moose
• When: 6 months and up
• Why: Entertain them during confinement
• Where: Any app store

 Stuck at the emergency room with nothing to entertain your kid but your phone? Lucky you, there’s an app for that. If you haven’t played anything from Duck Duck Moose, run over now to check out all their apps for kids of all ages.

We started with Wheels on the Bus and it went downhill from there. We used the apps on electronic devices on our eight to ten hour plane flights (usually followed by a 6 to 13 hour drive) when our two oldest kids were both under the age of two. I would’ve paid serious money for these things, because they worked. They require zero literacy skills, and just about any infant who can pick up a toy can randomly hit the screen and make something fun happen.

The Wheels on the Bus version, for instance, features the usual verses as well as some less well-known inclusions, like the fish on the bus, and the baker on the bus. I had one kid who laughed about that baker for weeks afterwards. Kids can touch the bus to make the wheels roll, or the chicken on a sign to make chicken noises, or even poke the pigeon. It works well to teach them a variety of motions commonly used on handheld electronic devices.

I haven’t met a Duck Duck Moose game my kids don’t adore yet. My youngest still requests these games over anything else, and we’ve come a long way since our first international flight with two lap kids.

Each app has a ton of languages to choose from. I like to switch it up from time to time to see if I can catch any words. You can also go word free and get the instrumental versions, in case you can’t handle hearing the wheels go around even one more time.