11 best iPhone apps for kids

"And what happens if I press Delete All?"

Give up. You can put it on high shelves, lock it in drawers or keep it on your person 24 hours a day but sooner or later your kids will get their hands on your iPhone. It’s too shiny and too important to you for them not to. The easiest plan of attack is to accept that they will spend all their waking hours waiting for a chance to nab it, and so you must control their relationship with this marvel of the modern age.

In the wrong hands, an iPhone is little more than an expensive toy. But used correctly it could actually do your kids some good. Make it into a treat, something they can play with for ten minutes if they eat all their dinner.

That way you can monitor their use of it and maybe, just maybe, they will learn something or develop a skill at the same time. Obviously it’s a long shot but here are a few apps that are proven to work, don’t cost too much and (crucially) don’t require internet access. So, download these apps and then prepare yourself to put your iPhone on airplane mode, give it a farewell wipe on your cardy and hand it to your offspring with a fearful lump in your throat.

Apps for learning

Pocket Phonics (£1.99, iTunes). This is basic, simple and a great use of the iPhone touchscreen. It has a dozen different games for learning the alphabet from tracing the shape of the letters to recognising their sound. Ideal for three to five-year-olds.

Splash Math (£1.99, iTunes). There are different skill levels available for this number-learning app depending on where your child is at, developmentally. It has a few Americanisms in the programming (‘make these coins add up to a dollar’ etc) but not so many that it becomes annoying. It’s certainly fun enough to get your kids adding, subtracting and dividing without realising they’re learning maths.

Slice It (69p, iTunes). This is primarily a puzzle game (and an addictive one, at that) which imparts knowledge of shapes, angles, division and other often harder-to-grasp notions. Lots and lots of levels for your money and adults get as much fun out of playing it as the kids.

Apps for dexterity

Pickn Stix (free, iTunes). Basically the old game of Jack Straws but on an iPhone. It sounds too simple to hold the attention for long but it’s been known to keep kids quiet for hours at a time while improving their dexterity.

Toki Tori (£1.99, iTunes). An enormously popular platform game where you guide a duck (or is it a chick?) past various obstacles and enemies to unlock some eggs. It requires manual dexterity, concentration, patience and problem-solving skills. Not to be sniffed at. Be warned, though: it is highly addictive.

Apps for art

Brushes (£2.99, iTunes). No less a living legend than David Hockney himself knocks out a picture a day using this app. Fortunately you don’t have to be a pop art genius to get to grips with it or to start expressing yourself. Draw from scratch using pens and brushes of different sizes, any colour or texture you want or take an existing photo and add your own touches to it. Quite brilliant.

Line art (£1.49, iTunes). It’s difficult to describe exactly what this app does. You put your finger on the screen and thousands of whirly lines swirl round it, reacting to your movements. That doesn’t sound too amazing but wait till you see your kids with it. They’ll love it. Even babies react to this app. There’s just something hypnotic about it.

Apps for fun

Splode (£1.49, iTunes). A wonderfully designed app. Everything about it – the music, the graphics, the concept, the game play – is wonderfully simple but attractive and addictive. Some have read it as an allegory for the spread of infectious diseases but that’s phooey; it’s just pure, simple, harmless, relaxing fun.

Cut the Rope (69p, iTunes). From the same school as Angry Birds but with the benefit of having an element of learning, albeit tenuous. Players have to problem-solve and consider the affects of physics to get sweets into frogs’ mouths. Alright, it’s not that educational but surely we can include one app that’s just fun?

Apps for health

Geocaching (£6.99, iTunes). You’re probably thinking ‘£6.99? For an app?’ and, while it is one of the more expensive, it is also one of the most innovative uses of an iPhone yet invented. For those who haven’t come across the Geocaching phenomenon, think hi-tech treasure hunt. People leave things in places, log the location with the app, and then other people use the app to find the things they’ve left. It gets you out and about, as a family, seeing places you would normally drive straight past. No bad thing. This one does require internet access but younger kids won’t play with it so you should be OK.

Kids Closer to Nature (free, iTunes). Very simple and free app to find fun activities to do outdoors. Enter your location and the app finds things nearby – green spaces or activities from the Forestry Commission’s database. Very useful indeed for those times you reach the museum your kids didn’t want to go to in the first place, and discover it is closed for renovation.