This Best Tablet for Kids post is part of a paid Red Tricycle and Amazon Fire Kids Edition blogging program. The opinions and ideas expressed here are my own. #RTfireforkids
Every kid wants a tablet. My kids have been begging me for a tablet of their very own for ages. My kids specifically have been begging me for a Fire tablet long before I ever got my Kindle Paperwhite 4 years ago. And they don’t want it just to read books. They want it for the apps and games, too, of course!
But we have been really leery about handing over an open tablet to our kids. There are so many things they can get into on the internet that we don’t want them faced with just yet. And they haven’t been able to demonstrate that they can responsibly manage their screen time on their own.
So when it comes to picking out a tablet for our kids, we needed one that not only has great apps, books, games, videos and fun for the kids, but also has great parental controls and limiting features for parents to help limit kids as they are not quite at the maturity to handle a full responsibility of an adult tablet just yet.
And that is exactly what you get with the new Amazon Fire Kids Edition, and I couldn’t be more in love with this tablet for my kids. It has so many fun features, I’m almost tempted to play on it after the kids go to bed! But, SHHHH, don’t tell them!
Why the Amazon Fire Kids Edition is the Best Tablet for Kids
So here are the top 7 reasons why the Amazon Fire Kids Edition is the best tablet for kids and gives Parents the confidence they need when handing over an electronic device for their child to enjoy.
Durable & Lightweight: First and foremost, the Amazon Fire Kids Edition is amazingly lightweight yet still incredibly durable. I have held all kinds of tablets (which shall remain nameless for legal reasons, but let’s just say I’ve held all the most popular name brands) and none of them are as lightweight as this one. I was really surprised by how light the Amazon Fire Kids Edition is. Which is a really nice feature since the kids will be carrying it around. Kids can’t be carrying around a heavy tablet and not be expected to drop it.
Which brings me to the next feature I love: it is durable! It has an amazing case that protects it from drops, bumps, and damage. Watch any demonstration video and you will see them literally tossing the Amazon Fire Kids Edition onto the ground with no damage. It’s amazing.
And add to that, the Amazon Fire Kids Edition has a 2-year worry-free guarantee. You can return it if it breaks and Amazon will replace it, no questions asked! Talk about peace of mind for parents. Because let’s face it, kids can damage anything that claims to be indestructible, am I right? I don’t know how they do it, but they can do it.
Multiple Profiles: In an ideal world, we could buy a tablet for each child right? But sometimes that just isn’t possible for every family. So don’t worry. The Amazon Fire Kids Edition allows you to host up to 4 child profiles on the one tablet! And 2 adults! That means you can essentially share the same Amazon Fire Kids Edition with the entire family, and each member can have their own profile!
The younger children won’t mess up the older child’s games and progress in apps. It’s all stored separately in each profile.
And it easily syncs with your Amazon Prime account and syncs to your Library for easy access to all your previously purchased books as well.
As you set up each profile, you can manually select which books that profile will have access to and which they won’t, so you don’t have to worry about them getting content that you don’t want them to have, so don’t worry too much about that.
Parental Controls: When it comes to tablets and electronics, I require them to have some kind of parental controls. Our kids aren’t mature or responsible enough to have free reign just yet.
But I have found that many tablets are sadly lacking in the options for parental controls, or maybe it’s that my kids are just amazingly adept to outsmart the parental controls. But my kids have met their match with the Amazon Fire Kids Edition!
Parents have full control over what they allow on each individual child’s profile. You have the option for kids to not have access to social media or the internet! You choose exactly what content, books, apps, videos are accessible to that profile at the time you set it up.
Don’t want your child to have access to a game, a certain book, or app? You can block it right from the start! And your child can’t get around it!
Parents can set up exact time limits per profile. And by exact, I do mean very exact. You can even select that the profile cannot access the tablet after 6 pm and before 8 am!
Meaning your kids can’t sneak up at 2 in the morning to play when they should be sleeping!
You can even delegate what types of activities the child must complete for a specific duration of time before advancing to games. For example, 30 minutes of reading activities must be achieved before games, apps and videos will be unlocked for the day!
And each child’s time limits can be different! You can completely personalize it per child! Talk about amazing parental controls!
Amazon Freetime Unlimited: Have you ever purchased a tablet, started it up and then thought, “Ok, Now what? Where do I find all the fun stuff?”
Well, that isn’t a problem with the Amazon Fire Kids Edition. It comes with a 1-year subscription to Amazon Freetime Unlimited.
This is a service that gives you access to over 10,000 kids books, movies, games, and apps. Not just some samples of the items but the full version! Many are educational and many are just for fun.
It plays hand in hand with the parental controls I mentioned above. Locking out ads so your kids can’t purchase extra content, no clickable ads, no additional apps that they constantly bring to you and ask “I want this! Please buy it for me!”
Nope, if it’s on the tablet, it’s included! No more begging you to BUY something else! It’s already included. Let me tell you, that is a dream come true for this mom! No need to buy a TON of apps, games, and books after you’ve already spent money on the tablet itself!
DREAM COME TRUE, I’m telling you!!!
And no fear of kids racking up a huge bill “accidentally” buying even more apps and games without you knowing. Because they can’t. The Amazon Freetime Unlimited locks that feature out.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve spent on Amazon Chat getting my child’s “accidental app purchases” reversed because they click on things on my tablet when I’m not looking.
Did I mention this was a DREAM COME TRUE?
Expandable Storage: Many tablets have a small storage capacity. With every tablet we have ever tried, it doesn’t take long before we run into the issue of not enough space for all the apps the kids want, and we have to negotiate who gets which app over the other child.
But the Amazon Fire Kids Edition has a macro sd slot for up to 256 GB of expandable storage! That means you can keep all the games, books and movies and keep everyone happy!
Download content for Travel: If you have ever tried to travel with a tablet, you know the frustration that happens when you leave wifi locations. All of a sudden all your apps stop working and no more movies for kids! Soon you have a revolt on your hands and the helpful tablet that is supposed to keep your child happy while you drive just became a very expensive paperweight!
Totally been there, experienced that!
But with the Amazon Fire Kids Edition, you have the ability to download books, apps, games and even MOVIES that are accessible to use, read, play and watch even when you don’t have wifi!
Since we have another trip up to the Grandparents house coming up in another week, I logged into the girl’s profiles and downloaded some fun books for them, games, and even their favorite movies from Netflix such as Troll, so they can watch it during the drive!
Let me tell you, Miss Rose is quite happy with the selections and is quite ready for our next trip as well!
Amazon Parental Dashboard: This I think has to be one of the coolest features of the new Amazon Fire Kids Edition! It is a Dashboard that you can access that lists all the child profiles on the tablet.
Here you can see all the activity of each child and how they spend their time on the tablet. You can discover the books, videos, educational apps, and games your kid enjoys.
This information can help to inform parents how best to configure their child’s FreeTime profile, such as where they can adjust screen time, time limits and daily education goals. But more generally, it allows parents to track their child’s changing interests over time with different types of content as well as with individual titles.
Usually, when a child is at home playing, a parent can easily look in and see what a child is up to. But it’s much harder to keep tabs on a child’s activities when their nose is on the tablet. The Amazon Parental Dashboard lets you keep track on all their activity and you can see if they need to be spending less time playing games and more time reading. Or if you need to be adjusting their screen time limits.
But even more than that, it also includes Discussion Cards that help you start conversations and connect with your child about the books they have been reading!
The Cards are written by Amazon’s Content Editors and will cover many of the videos, books, educational apps and games inside FreeTime, plus some of the more popular titles often added to FreeTime by parents.
This is a great way to help open the dialogue between parent and child to discuss the activities they have been doing. Because we all know communication in this day and age is hard enough as it is. So this is a great way to help keep the lines of communication open and flowing, especially concerning their activity on their tablets.
I can see that Miss Jade prefers the Pete the Cat books, and she can manage to read those on her own. But she struggles with the other books on her own. So that would be a good way for us to spend more time reading together.
But she really loves the math games, and she does really well counting and adding. And she likes to spend a lot of time playing those games on her own when she has free time.
Ready to get your own Amazon Fire Kids Edition in your home?
CLICK HERE to get a special 20% Discount Code to purchase an Amazon Fire Kids Edition!!
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