Hopster Kids TV and Learning App Review

Hopster is a children’s development app (ages 2-6). It combines streaming award winning TV shows, fun & educational learning games, audio & ebooks, plus music – all in a safe and ad-free app for £4.99 per month.  Whilst I am all for outdoor play, I also think that children do need to have their ‘down time’.   Missy loves to watch TV and play games.  I wanted her to have an app that met these demands and supports my children’s learning and development, somewhere that was safe, offering a variety of educational activities, stories and games.

Some people may disagree, but I am pretty relaxed when it comes to screen time.  Some parents may put rigid rules in place, but I find that being a little less strict allows my children to know when enough is enough and to be honest, if the iPads are out of sight, they are also out of mind in our home. As Missy falls into this age category, for the past few months Missy and I have been trialing out the Hopster App using both my mobile phone and the iPad.  As Hopster’s mission is to support a child’s development, I felt at ease knowing that this would be most suitable for her.

What does Hopster offer?

Hopster offers it’s user an arrange of different activities.  Keeping little ones entertained can be tough.  They need variety, sometime exciting, colourful and useful.  On offer is:

-TV shows

-Books

-Games

-Music

-Create

-Grow

-Exploring Space

What we love about Hopster

There is a huge selection of shows, stories that can be read to the child or independently, and an array of games.  Some of W’s favourite shows are included on here such as Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom.  This section does have to be accessed online but you can have the option to downloads this shows too.  There is also a library full of children’s classic stories such as The Tiger Who Came To Tea, which was refreshing to see.  Missy really loved perusing the titles and recognising the illustrations from some of her favourite books. Again, all of these wonderful books can be downloaded to be read off-line.

Learning should be fun, especially at that age!  This is why I was particularly drawn to the create element of the Hopster app.  Here, Missy can draw, design and create whatever she likes.  It’s inventive and always encourages her to think outside the box.  She’s come up with some masterpieces let me tell you!  What she loves the best is that she can take selfies and include these into the pictures she has created.  The entire create section can also be used offline too.  Genius!

The games section is also great, offering approximately 10 games.  Some of the games included matching, counting and making music.  Missy enjoyed using these games and didn’t find them too hard to navigate.

Finally, I want to mention about the Grow section of the Hopster app .  This is where your child can pick a seed and grow their own plant.  From this, it has really encouraged Missy to think more about plants and we’ve even brought her a real life plant to grow as she asked so many questions about it!

Parents information

The Hopster app gives parents the option to access the app in a secure way.  You can gain access to a helpful Q&A section and detailed explanation around Hopster’s content and how its supports your child’s learning and educational growth.  The Hopster App also links up to Apple TV’s, and if you do have one then you can set up restrictions on screen time too.

Our final verdict

Missy has now finished preschool and will be attending reception in September.  The 6 weeks holiday looms ahead, and whilst its great for the children to have a break, I do feel its a long time to not have that educational stimulation.  This app, for me, will surely provide her with some of that during the month of August.  I feel confident that she can keep up to speed with her phonics, numbers and reading in a safe environment and somewhere that she thinks is fun too!  Its’ graphics are bright and it’s definitely  easy to navigate your way around the app.  I do love how it has a parent section too.

We are really loving the Hopster app and knowing that it is educational and supports my child’s learning journey gives me peace of mind.

You can find the Hopster app available in the AppStore and Google Play.  It’s available on phone and tablet apps as well as on Apple TV and Amazon Fire Stick TV. Hopster is now  launching on the Amazon Fire Tablet.

*This is a collaborative post.  We were given 12 months subscription in exchange for this post.  As always, all words and opinions are my own*