Bookbug’s Songs and Rhymes 4+

This is 100% free. No hidden costs. This is purely driven by the Scottish-government backed educational group the Scottish Book Trust aimed at educating children. My young 2yo loves this and it’s the only app I allow her on. You can create playlists which is handy since there are so many. Some have videos of families singing. Some don’t have accompanying video. Some are in Gaelic, a few are in Mandarin and English which is nice. There’s even one sung by Dolly Parton which my 4yo likes as well. We all have our favourites.
And! I just discovered the download playlist function which is ideal for a long airplane trip we might be going on soon.

First of all- the content in this app is wonderful, and it's a beautiful thing to share with children. Nothing more needs said: please keep up the good work.

But there are two frustrations I have as I've watched this app develop - I'd like to point them out because I care, and as a family we use the app a great deal. Was it perfect before? No, but please be sensitive in the way you add features. It's not what it was.

First, I'm frustrated by the increase in features and complexity which have meant it's no longer nearly so simple for wee ones to navigate themselves. Lists are nice, but it's much more verbal and verbose than before, and even the simple concept of favourites is lost. It's way too easy for little fingers to hit mystery buttons now, requiring adult intervention to "undo".

Second: please take more care not to *require* updates all the time. Test the content against the previous versions, too! Nothing is more frustrating than having to update whilst placating a disappointed child or, worse still, using your last data allowance on it. There's no good technical reason for this that you couldn't work around with a reasonable transition period between versions, and you know it!

Anyway back to the praise: every parent needs this app.

A really brilliant totally free app (no ads) with a very wide selection of rhymes, songs and stories suitable for all ages. Great that there are a lot of different languages featured and lots in Scots and Gaelic. There are audio only ones if you don’t want screen time. Love listening with my one year old. Thank you so much to the government for funding this and to the developers for putting in so much thought and content!