1000s of Kids Activities in Your Phone

Life is incredibly busy. There are days I wish I could hit a pause button on my to-do list to sit down and play with my kids.  One of the things that stops me from doing this is that I don’t have the energy to think of something to do and then make sure that we have everything we need to do it. Update:  This app has just rolled out even MORE fun with a new name, Knoala!  The iTunes link remains the same. I need something quick and easy. Family time for us is often little moments squeezed in between a load of laundry or sitting at the kitchen counter while I empty the dishwasher.  Those little moments add up and I don’t want to miss any of them!

The Little App is now Knoala

The Little App  makes it really simple to find quick and easy activities that just take 5 minutes.  Some of the ideas don’t take any props or ingredients.  Some of the ideas use a few common items that you won’t have to run to the store to get. You set up the app with your child’s name, gender and age.  It then gives you suggestions 5 cards at a time.  There are two activity suggestions, two age-appropriate videos and a story prompt on each page.

Activity Suggestions

We took the first suggestion The Little App gave us to mix oil, water and food coloring in a bottle and see what happens. I sent Rhett off to find the oil while I filled an empty bottle 3/4th the way full of water and he added some color and about a 1/2 cup of oil. We noticed that the oil was sitting on top of the water.  He shook and shook the bottle and then would let it rest until the oil would settle back on top. He then decided he needed to add some additional colors.  He would add a color and then shake it again.  He repeated this several times until our water was a lovely shade of gray! The oil kept rising to the top of the grayish mixture and we wondered how we could get it to blend better.  We added a few squirts of dish soap and shook it. The murky mixture stayed combined. Success.

Short Age-Appropriate Videos

The videos are short {most I have seen are under 3 minutes} skits or songs from favorite shows.  We watched a funny story from Sesame Street and a song from Micky Mouse Clubhouse. They would be great to hand to a child who needs just a few minutes of entertainment either at home or on the go. Because the apps load within the age guidelines, I felt good knowing my child wasn’t just surfing YouTube.

Story Prompts

These are a lot of mixed-up fun.  We got prompts like this:

• Tell a heroic story about a white house who dives deep into the sea.
• Tell a story about a secret mission with a sad queen who has special powers.
• Tell an adventure story about a polk-dotted kangaroo who needs a lot of sunblock.

Rhett and I had a big time telling a story about an angry queen who takes a lot of baths.  I overheard him telling his brothers later at bath time about it.  He was laughing so hard he could hardly get words out to explain it to them.

Plans for The Little App

Right now the The Little App is geared toward kids under the age of 5 with these fun things. In the future they are working on letting parents filter activities based on their preferences, showing activities only suitable for the local weather {how cool!}, let parents connect with each other, and let parents share photos of their kids doing the activities along with tips and comments.

Download the Free App

Yep, The Little App is FREE.  You can download it on iTunes.  If you search the store, I had better luck finding it quickly by searching “The Little App”. The cool thing about The Little App is that these are REALLY things that you can do on the spur of the moment.  And like our oil, water and color experiment they often lead to more discovery than I expect.  It really makes those little squished-in moments easy to fill with quality family time. Thanks so much to The Little App for sponsoring this post and supporting Kids Activities Blog.  All opinions expressed are mine.  My uncompensated kids are already regularly flipping through The Little App finding more things to do!