Best Creative Tools for Kids

Kids love to make and create to demonstrate what they’re learning. However, teachers know that the creative process isn’t just about having kids demonstrate what they already know; it’s also about getting children to construct mental models and learn through experience. By making things, they build meaning, work through problems, and acquire new knowledge and skills in context. There’s a built-in challenge to creation that gets students thinking in new ways while building their confidence.

Best Creative Tools for Kids

With this in mind, we’ve compiled this list of terrific tools for tech creation that offer a wide variety of engaging end products kids can create, from stories to animations to music to games. Here’s the list of the 7 best creative tools for kids.

1. Book Creator

Focus: Motivates kids to create books
Age: 8 years and above
Price: Free
best creative tools

Book Creator is a digital book-making tool with limitless options, suitable for students of all grade levels. I’s one of the easy creative tools for kids. It’s available for both iPad and the web (including Chrome, Safari, and Microsoft Edge). Students join the class library using a code, and then any books they create can be accessed by the teacher and added to the class library to share with classmates. 

Book Creator offers a number of features to make it widely accessible. It’s available in 10 languages. If your browser is set to one of the supported languages, Book Creator automatically appears in that language. There are options for text-to-speech, closed captions, screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, and more to support learners of different abilities. And multiple users can work on the same book across multiple devices, which can support remote learning. There’s also a large support library.

Subscription Options: 

  • Free: Create 1 library and store up to 40 books
  • $10 per month: Unlimited libraries and storing up to 1000 books 

Check out the various options here.

2. Easy Studio – Stop Motion Studio

Focus: Empower kids to create animated scenes
Age: 6 years and above
Price: $3.99

The next on the list of creative tools and components for kids is Stop Motion Studio. Stop Motion Studio is one of the best stop motion apps for Android and iOS users. This cross-platform app is equipped with a versatile set of stop-motion animation tools that grant you complete control over all camera settings. You can adjust the white balance, ISO, and exposure manually, while this stop motion app also allows you to choose if you want to use manual or autofocus. Furthermore, Stop Motion Studio offers animation guides that enable its users to move the objects in the shot with more precision, while the app’s timeline makes it easy to navigate through large numbers of frames.

Stop Motion Studio lets you create stop-motion animated movies instantly and anywhere on your mobile phone with no computer required. Changing backgrounds, applying visual effects, or creating soundtracks are just a few of the numerous options Stop Motion Studio offers. Even though installing Stop Motion Studio on an iPhone, iPad or Android Smartphone won’t cost you anything, you must make in-app purchases if you want to export your projects in 4K resolution or import images into the app.

3. Sago Mini Doodlecast

Focus: Encourages kids toward art
Age: 2 – 6 years
Price: $2.08 per month
best creative tools

With the Drawing Pad app, students were able to draw with crayons, paints, and markers to make original artwork that could be shared with the world! 

Crayons. Markers. Colored pencils. Paintbrushes. Drawing Pad gives kids realistic digital versions of these tools and more. It’s available for iPad and Android tablets.

Subscription options:

  • Weekly: $2.99 per week
  • Monthly: $8.99 per month (free for first 3 days)
  • Yearly: $2.50 per month

4. Autodesk

best creative tools

Autodesk is yet another one of the best creative tools for kids. This powerful app is great for older kids who want to create with professional digital tools. They’ll get brushes, customizable pencils, pens, markers, and more, plus features like layers and pressure sensitivity. You can try the free Sketchbook Express to sample some of the tools before buying. Autodesk Sketchbook is available for desktop, iOS, Android, and Windows devices. 

Autodesk Sketchbook is a professional-level digital sketching tool for serious digital artists.  Coming from a digital art background, many of these “sketchbook” apps over the same experience, however, this one hits the nail on the head from a learning standpoint. Used in many of my fine arts studio classes as an alternative to regular sketchbook assignments, students that were interested, downloaded the app and created their weekly sketches on their mobile devices.

Images were saved and then turned in digitally through email or social media posts. There is a bit of a digital learning curve, and those users who may not be familiar with the universal “image editing” vocabulary, may need to be brought up to speed. However, Autodesk Sketchbook does a great job of not overwhelming the user with too many bells and whistles and puts the important tools right in the palm of the user’s hand.

5. Toca Life: School

Focus: Develops storytelling skills in kids
Age: 5 years and above
Price: Free
best creative tools

Toca Life: School is a fun game that’s part of a suite of apps designed to give children educational lessons with mini-games and engaging tasks. It’s an easy creative tools for kids. Toca Life: School is available to download on iOS, and Android. Toca Life School is a fun and engaging app for early learners of all abilities. If your child is a Toca Boca fan, they will LOVE Toca Life School. Users can teach a class, pick a locker and even have a food fight in the cafeteria. With five locations and 32 characters, children love creating their very own school adventures. 

Toca Life: School has five unique locations for telling stories about life at school. It’s time to head to school with Toca Boca. However, this school is a lot different than the schools your children may be familiar with. In this school, they have free reign. They can walk from building to building, go out to recess whenever they want, and even start a food fight in the cafeteria.

6. StoryBird

Focus: Lets kids make visual stories
Age: kids of all ages
Price: $4.99 per month
Monthly: $8.99 per month
Yearly: $4.99 per month

Check out the various options here.

7. ToonTastic 3D

Focus: Empowers kids to draw, animate, narrate and record their own cartoons
Age: 6 – 12 years
Price: Free

3… 2… 1… ACTION! With Toontastic 3D you can draw, animate, and narrate your own cartoons. It’s as easy as play. Just move your characters around onscreen, and tell your story, and Toontastic records your voice and animations and stores it on your device as a 3D video. Toontastic is a powerful and playful way to create interstellar adventures, breaking news reports, video game designs, family photo albums, or anything else you might imagine!

Toontastic 3D has all the fun features with new scenes and 3D characters. Kids choose a scene and characters — or design their own — and are then given some basic guidance on constructing their own animated stories. Each scene can record up to 60 seconds of voice narration and movement.

FAQs

What are the best creative tools for children?

There are a few very good creative tools for children. Some of these are Book Creator, Stop Motion Studio, Sago Mini Doodlecast, Autodesk, Toca Life: School, StoryBird and ToonTastic 3D.

What creative things can kids do?

Here are some ideas to get your child involved in dramatic creative activities:
a) Make simple puppets and put on a puppet show.
b) Take turns to make up a story
c) Video a play or performance

Conclusion

During a typical day, kids and teens check out YouTube, watch TV, play video games, scroll through social media feeds and listen to music. Overall, they’re passive consumers of the content they love, which is fine. But with a little nudging and the right tools, they can be using that time to build creative skills while sharing their stories, opinions, and ideas.

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