We all feel that parental pressure to admonish screen time. But let’s face it—technology is a huge part of our kids’ lives. So let’s take a collective sigh of relief knowing we can cut ourselves some slack and embrace screen time to cultivate learning.

With educational apps that are fun to play, kids get their digital fix while we breathe easy. It’s a win-win! Power up their brains and their devices with these awesome educational apps for kids.

Busy parents can’t always be there to help their kids with homework. But thanks to the growing number of educational apps, children are able to get assistance from anywhere, anytime. These apps are designed for ages 4-12 and feature content that is appropriate for these age groups.

I’ve written about educational apps before , but this time, I’ve found eight new apps that deserve a mention.

1. Nasa’s Eyes

– This app from NASA recently won a Parents’ Choice Award . It contains three games and one bonus game that teach children about the sun, the planets and their moons, and asteroids and comets. The graphics are excellent and there is very little text to read. Players just tap an object on the screen to identify what they are seeing in space.

2. Mobile Observatory

– This is another app about space that won a Parents’ Choice Award . It contains four astronomy games and one bonus game. Players will learn about the sun, the planets, Earth’s moon, comets, asteroids, constellations, galaxies, exoplanets , space probes and more. The graphics are nice but not quite as good as Nasa’s Eyes . There is also just a bit of text to read on each screen.

3. My First Outer Space Explorer

– This app claims to be “100% kid-tested.” It has eight educational activities for children ages 4-8 that teach them facts about outer space while playing fun games like memory match and puzzles. A parent can add names to each of the activities so that is very personalized.

4. Earth and Moon Viewer

– This app has fantastic graphics, with realistic images of Earth and its moon. Players can zoom in or out, spin the globe, change the time of day, learn about solar eclipses, look at different features on both Earth and its moon, read fun facts , see how far objects are from Earth by using a ruler tool and more. There’s even a music section where children can create their own songs by moving planets across the screen.

5. My First Outer Space Puzzles

– Kids will have fun solving three jigsaw puzzles featuring space-related scenes: comets , stars/galaxies , and astronauts . They also get to learn some fun facts about each scene.

6. ABC Skywatch

– This is an alphabet app that teaches children the letters of the alphabet while also teaching them about things in the sky, like constellations, stars, moon phases and planets. It’s very colorful and has images of objects flying over a 3D map of Earth . Players can tap on each object to hear its name or simply fly through space without anything popping up on screen if they want to explore more slowly on their own.

7. Kids First Science Book Math & Physics

– If your child needs help with math or physics , this science book includes 160 pages full of educational games for kids ages 6-12 covering topics such as speed math , time telling , angles, force, speed, mass, levers and more. The games are all pretty basic but will help your child learn some very important math and physics concepts .

8. Nature’s Playground

– This is an interactive toy where children tap different objects on the screen to hear what they are called in English or their scientific name. They can also record their own voice saying the name of each object so they can hear it again later. There are many things to touch on this screen, like insects , plants , animals , weather , flowers , mammals and more. It gets kids excited about nature before they even leave home!

If you know of other great educational apps for kids ages 4-12 that I didn’t mention here, please share them with everyone in the comments below. It would be great to get some more suggestions!.