Wildable is an exciting iPhone and iPad app that invites kids to enter a 3D natural world where they can become any animal they find and explore.

Have you (or your kids) ever wanted to swim like a fish, soar like an eagle, or climb like a squirrel?  Here’s your chance!

Want to try it for free?

How to enter

It’s easy peasy.  Just leave a comment below by Tuesday, January 31th, 2012.  The next day, we’ll choose 5 people at random and gift this app to them via email.

And the winners are…

Congratulations Laurel, Norma, Grace, Helene, Fay!  Check your email.

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Grade: B | Age rating: 4+| Price: $0.99

Sploosh for the iPhone and iPad is a unique puzzle game that you solve with water.

Why?  Because evil cacti are hogging all the water in a parched landscape.

You pop them with your finger, then bring dormant flowers and trees back to life with the liberated water by rotating your iPhone or iPad.

Why we like it:

Water can’t be lost, but it can be accidentally left behind in the twists and turns of the maze.  Go slow to avoid this.  The levels are timed, but it’s not obtrusive.  You earn stars for watering all the grass, seeds and trees and can replay each level to improve your score.

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We tested version 1.0 which is compatible with the iPhone and the iPad (OS 4.0 or later).  Developer Spooky Moon Studio Limited.  Read our disclosure policy.

Cool Jets is a arty, aviation-y iPad app that lets kids decorate, collect, de-ice and fly their own fleet of colorful, customized airplanes.

They use their fingers to stamp and paint planes ranging from 8-seater private jets to aircraft that hold 500 passengers.

Then, just when the planes are trying to take off, it starts snowing like crazy.  Kids have to swipe the ice off the wings as the planes speed along the runway with engines running.

Want to try it for free?

How to enter

It’s easy peasy.  Just leave a comment below by Tuesday, January 17th, 2012.  The next day, we’ll choose 5 people at random and gift this app to them via email.

And the winners are…

Kiera, Elena, Janet, Jennifer, and Nichole.  Enjoy the app and please write a review on iTunes for the developer.

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Grade: A- | Age rating: 3+| Price: $1.99

Doodlecast for Kids for the iPad and iPhone lets kids bring their artwork to life.  They narrate as they draw, then play the animated sketch back as a video — it’s ingenious!

The app starts kids with a series of 20 drawing prompts, which include themes (fast, yucky, messy, loud) and elements (water, park, mouth).  Kids draw with their fingers.  Then, things get interesting.

As your child is drawing, she can narrate.  Like this:  “The big…  angry… orange… dinosaur… in the flower hat… ATE MY DAD!”  The app records both the drawing sequence and the child’s voice, and the video playbacks (which can be exported) are priceless.

Why we like it:
It’s creative.  It’s unique.  It’s got the potential to be really, really funny (you should see my 9 and 12-year-old kids dueling with this app.  It’s a wonder they haven’t broken our iPad in their efforts to outdo each other.)

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We tested version 1.2, which is compatible with the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. Requires IOS 4.3 or later.  Developer: zinc Roe Inc. Read our disclosure policy.

Fat Cat App is an interactive educational app that teaches letter recognition, reading, spelling, and articulation.

Repetition and simplicity make this an effective teaching tool for parents, homeschoolers, teachers, and therapists.

Learning is based on phonemic awareness (the manipulation of sounds and letters) and phonics (sound to letter correspondence).  Children experience chains of words in which only one sound is changed at a time.

Remember the fat cat who sat on a mat?  Like that.

Want to try it for free?

How to enter

It’s easy peasy.  Just leave a comment below by Tuesday, January 10th, 2012.  The next day, we’ll choose 5 people at random and gift this app to them via email.

And the winners are…

Nancy, Missy, Kerry, Sue, and Deb!  Check your email and congratulations.

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After three weeks of voting, the polls are closed and the results are in.  While we like and recommend every one of these wonderful apps, only three could win.

If you’re both the lucky recipient of a new iPad this holiday season and a parent looking for good apps for kids, we encourage you to check out our Best Kids Apps of 2011 and this list of the Readers’ Choice Awards finalists.

And now, the winners:

1st Place…

Al Yankovic: When I Grow Up, a digital adaptation of a wacky book for the young and young at heart, handily hooked first place with an overwhelming 27% of the vote.

Tons of interactive touches — like shaving a tarantula and massaging a gorilla — made this a hit with our readers.  Don’t feel like reading aloud yourself?  Not a problem.  Weird Al will do it for you.

2nd Place…

Indie hit, My PlayHome, takes home the silver medal this year.  Haven’t tried it?  You should.  It’s a sweet and simple interactive playhouse that’s good for girls and boys.

Parents like the non-violent, open-ended style of play the app encourages.  Kids enjoy making discoveries in every room (the toilet really flushes!  you can pet the cat!  there’s cold pizza to eat in the fridge!).

3rd Place…

In late voting, Bugs and Buttons surged ahead to narrowly beat out its closest competitor (the very worthy Toca Doctor, which we also love) to capture third place.  Your kids will use fine motor skills while learning to count, sort, and recognize patterns.  They’ll never realize this, of course.  They’ll be too busy picking apples, flying butterflies, and catching fireflies.

Congratulations to all our winners and nominees, and thanks for all you do.  Here’s to another great year of fun, wholesome, and educational apps for kids!

Toca Hair Salon — Christmas Gift FREE, ages 1+
Hands down, our favorite Christmas App this season. Give Santa or a Christmas tree a hair cut with scissors, a buzzing razor, or simply dye it purple. This great app will have the kids (and adults) laughing with their wacky creations. Totally silly, my 3-year-old loves the blow dryer the best. She blows his hair up in his face and thinks it’s hilarious. Note: This is one of the best free apps I’ve seen in a while, but there is an in-app purchase available for $1.99 if you’d like to have six more characters (kids and animals) to cut.

A Charlie Brown Christmas $1.99, Ages 2+
If the TV version of a Charlie Brown Christmas gives you warm fuzzies, you might want to show your kids this story book app.  Not as many hidden interactive gems as I would like, but a wonderful way to share mom and dad’s childhood Christmas memories with their children. Plus kids can decorate the Christmas tree with ornaments. Yes, Shroeder plays the famous Charlie Brown Christmas carol on the piano. And your toddler or preschooler can play the piano themselves, too!

Santa Tracker Mobile $1.99, 8+
A parent’s tool to keep the kids looped in to Santa’s every where abouts.  Watch Santa’s location (not Santa) as a pin on a map as he travels across the world. Let your device track your current location and the app will tell you how many hours, minutes and seconds until Christmas. There are lots of santa trackers – but without all the cutesy clip art, this one looks very official. Music turns on and off and you can also share via Twitter or Facebook.

Holiday Time Machine $0.99, Ages 1+
The title of this app should really be all-you-can-play Christmas videos! Scroll to a year and get a popular Christmas movie, tv show, commercial, or music video clip via YouTube. From the “Rock Em Sock Em Robots Commerical” of 1967, “The Wiggles – Jingle Bells” from 2000, to broadcasts from Barack Obama or Queen Elizabeth in 2008. There are lots of holiday songs from pop stars too. Note: The only questionable viewing I found was a Victoria’s Secret Christmas TV commercial in 2008. Might want to play this one with your kids, just in case you’d like to fast forward any videos.

Want more Christmas apps? Here’s last year’s list of Best Christmas & Holiday iPhone Apps for Kids.

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According to Nielsen Co., for the second year in a row, the most wished for holiday gift is the iPad.  The prices-starting-at-$499 iPad, that is.  Up until now, there haven’t been many good alternatives.

Until lately, I haven’t been very impressed with Android tablets.  I test drove a bunch of them, and briefly owned the Samsung Galaxy Tab, but returned it after two frustrating months.   Then, two weeks ago, I got a Kindle Fire.

I still prefer my iPad, but if I were buying my first tablet (or a gift, either for an adult or child) this holiday season, I’d totally go with the Kindle Fire.  Here’s why:

1.  It’s compact

I love how easy it is to slide the Kindle Fire into a purse or carry on bag.  At 7.5 x 4.5 inches, it’s about the size of a trade paperback and much, much thinner.  Even kids can hold it with one hand (though mine grip it with two, the better to prevent their sibling from grabbing it and running).

2.  It’s tough

The iPad screen is gorgeous, but glass.  The lightweight, chemically-strengthened Kindle Fire display is some kind of plastic that is allegedly 20-30 times stronger than plastic. I have no hesitation throwing it into a bag with keys, a phone, and all my other junk.

3.  It’s affordable

At just $199, you can buy two Kindle Fires for less than the price of a single iPad 2.  How many kids do you have?  If you have more than one, it’s a total slam dunk.  The Kindle Fire battery doesn’t last quite as long as the iPad’s, but it’s in the same league.  You can stretch it farther by turning down the brightness and turning off the wifi.

4.  The Amazon Appstore for Android is just so great

Amazon knows how to make shopping easy, intuitive, and fun.  It’s a real  pleasure to browse apps, games, and movies on this device.  And they offer one paid app free every single day, which is totally fun.  Who doesn’t like free stuff?

5.  It’s also got books, email, and web browsing

Of course you can also read on it, check your email, and browse the web.  I appreciate the versatility, but honestly I seldom get the chance to use these features when my kids are around.  I’d rather read on my regular Kindle anyway.  Since it’s not backlit, it’s a lot easier on the eyes.  Magazines are nice on the Fire though, since you can see them in color.

>>Read more about the Kindle Fire on Amazon

The nominations are in, and we’ve got ten finalists.  Now you tell us which of these apps deserve to take first, second, and third prize in the 2011 Best Kids Apps Readers’ Choice Awards.

We’ve enabled daily and multiple voting so that really big fans (i.e. your mom) can support more than one app and show their love more than once.

This poll will close on December 27, 2011 at noon PST and the results will be announced later that day.  Good luck!

**Thank you all for your participation — this poll is now closed.  Looking for the results?  Here you go:  Readers’ Choice Award Winners.

So, we’ve told you what we think are the 10 Best Kids Apps of 2011, and now we’re giving you a turn.

Because this is an experiment our first attempt at this, we’re keeping it simple.

Choose any kid-friendly app you like, even if it already made our list or wasn’t launched this year.  To nominate it for the Best Kids Apps 2011 Readers’ Choice Awards, simply leave a comment below with:

1) The complete and correct name of the app
2) A link to the app in the App Store or Android Market
3) A one-sentence description of the app

This time next week, we’ll comb through the comments and publish a list of  finalists.  Then we can all get busy voting!   Just to be seasonal, we’ll also randomly choose one nominator and give them a $50 iTunes gift card.

Thank you all in advance for participating — you make our job fun.

***Nominations are now closed.  Voting will begin 12/6/11***