Khan Academy Kids is an educational app from the famous digital learning specialist. In this case, learning is specifically tailored for younger users, with a more accessible and simple interface to help beginners.
The app features many colorful and fun characters and cartoons to make learning warm and welcoming. But don’t underestimate that for anything other than sheer professionalism, as this comes from a team from Khan Academy, Duck Duck Moose, and Stanford Graduate School of Education.
As such, you can expect a learning experience designed to prepare little ones for the future, with content aligned to the Common Core State Standards for children beginning in preschool.
Crucially, all of this is offered for free and comes in the form of an app for iOS, Android and Amazon devices, making it very attractive and accessible to many young learners.
What is Khan Academy Kids?
Khan Academy Children is an educational app that uses interactive learning to help engage and teach children from pre-K through second grade.
Packed with resources, it’s ideal for kids to use on their own, with parents, or with teachers. Recently added teacher-specific tools and printables are available as ways to help enhance learning with support for the app itself.
Topics cover math, ELA, logic, and SEL, are aligned to the Common Core State Standards, and address learning themes from the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework. These run in a variety of forms including books, videos, and games, as well as some creatively expressive options.
More and more support for teachers is being added, making this a viable tool in the classroom, as well as something to prepare students for further learning and mastery.
How does Khan Academy Kids work?
Teachers can log in and set up Khan Academy Kids simply by providing an email address. From there, educators can add student accounts with their name, age, and avatar. Students can then log in with a unique class code that allows them to start using the app on any supported device.
Khan Academy Kids uses animal-friendly guides to help students progress on learning tasks, and they are tailored to that student’s age and previous activities, as well as performance.
Complete an activity and students will receive a prize that they can add to their animal companion’s collection. There is the option of visiting the house of each animal where they can dress up with these prizes.
A feedback feature for teachers allows them to use this app in conjunction with set goals and outcomes, as well as to instruct using selected content as needed.
What are the best features of Khan Academy Kids?
Khan Academy Kids allows teachers to search based on Common Core or Head Start standards, making this a viable teaching tool to use alongside standard classroom instruction. It can also help make this a great way to offer additional learning outside of class time.
Both students and teachers have the option to search by topic or type of activity, with the ability to set a level of difficulty. This creates a great selection of options that should allow you to tailor the experience to different class abilities.
The feedback section allows teachers to see how students have done on their assignments. This allows you to see, at a glance, if a student has mastered a subject area, ideal for finding problem areas for individuals or a class that need to be addressed in lessons.
The learning path mode takes the learner on a tailor-made journey of content. The library comes with all the content ready to be browsed or searched. A combination of the two can be a fun way to teach and reward students within the app and the learning journey.
Varied content is key here, allowing students to stay engaged on multiple levels. For example, they might be doing a math or logic challenge and taking time to play within that, before moving on to the homework side – a smart balance between learning and playing.
How much does Khan Academy Kids cost?
Khan Academy Kids is totally free wear. All you need as an educator or parent/guardian is an email address to start using the app. You’ll need a device running iOS, Android, or Amazon Fire OS to access it.
Critically, there are no ads and no tracking beyond educational progress in the app. And since students don’t need to give any real information, it can be anonymous to anyone who uses it, helping to protect your privacy online.
Top Khan Academy Kids Tips and Tricks
leave it to them
One of the main draws here is an adaptable and independent learning platform, so let the students do it, allowing even the least confident kids to build their independence.
sing for real
Take a song from one of the games and sing it as a class to bring the games to life for group social fun.
master concepts
Teach a new concept, perhaps in math, before letting students try that area in the app until they master it, before trying it again as a class on the board.
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