My kid starts 1st grade on Wednesday in a virtual setting and I can tell you that the stress level in this household is steadily climbing as each hour passes. I know that we’ll get through this frustrating time, that my wife and I will do our best to act as at-home teacher’s aides to help his brain gobble up as much info as it can, and that once it is safe, my son will one day get to learn and play with other kids again in a school setting. But I can also tell you that before that day comes, I’ll take any and all resources available to provide new learning opportunities or even something that may give us all a break from the learning stresses.
Google is opening up a Google Kids Space starting today, which is a kids mode on select Android tablets that might be a new go-to resource.
Google says it designed Kids Space to help kids explore the “things they love” by allowing them to select interests that will then help provide content they can read, play, and/or make. There’s a feature that lets kids make their own avatar too.
The new Google Kids Space has a bunch of content that has been approved in a similar way to the “teacher-approved” section on Google Play. There are apps and books, including over 400 free books in the US, a section filled with “creative and fun” videos from YouTube Kids, and more. As you can see from the screenshots included in this post, Google built an entirely custom UI to help kids really find a range of stuff that fits their interests.
The Google Kids Space will first launch on Lenovo’s new Tab M10 HD Gen 2. Since you don’t own one of those and probably never will, just know that this Kids Space will come to more Android tablets “soon.” With school years starting across the US, I hope Google doesn’t take too long.
This post was last modified on August 31, 2020 5:59 am