Ricochet Kids Review

There are a number of different categories of apps available in the marketplace for children: Games, just for fun. Educational, like 123’s. Music, singing and dance. Art, coloring and sketching. And, stories for reading and listening. Then, there are apps such as RicochetKids, which are a compilation of games, stories or, in this case, videos.

The parents who built this app for three- to eight-year olds, decided it was much safer to find some of the best YouTube videos and put them on an easy-to-use app than having your children online where they could stumble upon some not-so-kid-friendly sites. So, they reviewed a slew of kid-friendly videos and handpicked the best ones for their app. Each one is safe, so you can download the app on your iPhone or iPad, hand it over to your child without any fear of seeing anything inappropriate.

This is a great app for driving in the car or at the end of the day when things are winding down and it’s time to sit and relax for a few minutes. There are a number of different categories, so your children can easily pick what’s of interest: Animals, Cars & Trucks, Cartoons, Dora, Music, Movies, Transformers, and WB Kids to name a few of the 22 different channels available. New free videos will be added regularly. Actually, I found more on this list than I do when going through my 100s of cable TV stations! (No surprise!)

Which brings up another point: Some of these videos on RicochetKids are for the kids to sit and watch. Other ones, however, you can snuggle right up with your child and play, read, or learn along. This is especially the case, of course, with the larger iPad screen. You can enjoy some good old “Dr. Seuss,” “Clifford” or “Franklin,” sing along with some of the songs, learn about different animals or letters, or laugh at some of the just-for-fun quick hits.

I do think that the age of eight is stretching it a bit. Personally, I would say most of the videos are more for the younger kids. The only other question, and again, this is just my quirkiness: Why did they choose an “R” for the app icon? I know the name is “Ricochet,” but “R” now does often equate to adult-rated movies. I said it was “quirky”! I would have designed it differently, so that parents can automatically know it is a kid-friendly app that has a lot of fun “G” videos for viewing.