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Hungry Caterpillar Play School

Montessori Preschool Learning

Ratings

Age

4+

Category

Education

Languages

English

Hungry Caterpillar Play School is an award-winning educational app that uses Eric Carle's beloved artwork to teach a comprehensive preschool curriculum. Grounded in Montessori principles, the app encourages independent exploration of topics including literacy, math, science, and the arts. From tracing letters to learning about life cycles in nature, the app provides a safe, ad-free space for young learners to develop healthy digital habits and school readiness.

Dinsun Expert Review

Our Expert Score

95/100

Hungry Caterpillar Play School is a masterpiece of early childhood education. It manages to capture the magic of Eric Carle's 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' and translate it into a world of interactive learning that feels like a natural extension of the book. The collage-style art is stunning on a high-resolution tablet, and the gentle narration is perfect for its target audience.

What sets this app apart is its adherence to Montessori principles. It doesn't bombard kids with flashy lights or high-stress timers. Instead, it invites them to explore, trace, and create at their own pace. The breadth of the curriculum—from basic math to complex environmental science—is impressive. It’s an investment in a child’s digital well-being, providing a safe harbor of quality content in a sea of ad-supported distractions.

Dinsun reviewed on: Wed Feb 25 2026

Features

1

Montessori-inspired, child-centric learning

2

Covers ABCs, 123s, Science, and Problem Solving

3

Unique Eric Carle art and characters

4

Safe, ad-free environment with offline play

5

Regular updates with new stories and videos

Featured In

Spark Your Child’s Imagination
Spark Your Child’s Imagination
Great apps for little ones 8 and under.

Upcoming Events

Color Color Chameleon
Color Color Chameleon
A beautiful learn-to-read book.
Thu Feb 05 2026 - Sun Mar 08 2026

Tips & Walkthrough

Gameplays

Screenshot

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Q&A

Yes, it is specifically designed for children aged 2-6 with a focus on repetition and gentle rewards.

Ratings & Reviews

Invalid Date

Looks pretty good so far but FIX TYPOS, please!
Wed Apr 18 2018 ShiGold

We just started our free trial, as our three year old loves Eric Carle (and quite frankly, the limited content was way too limited to get a real sense of the app). We are enjoying the bright colors, familiar characters, and variety of games/subjects. Since the book section wasn’t available in our limited content exploration, we went to read one—the one about the frog. The pictures are cute, the information is age appropriate and the animations, though limited, are fun (the sound effects are especially appreciated by my preschooler). BUT! Imagine my surprise to find a typo! Yes it’s a common mistake —“its” incorrectly is spelled “it’s”—but COME ON!!! This is a LEARNING APP and there are grammar errors?!! Not cool. Not appreciated. And definitely NOT what I expect from anything Eric Carle-related (he’s a Big Deal in our household). For the money that we are expected to pay with the auto-renewal, I expect better editing and proofreading. Please look over AND CORRECT the text of the books and other sections of the app as part of the next update!

Ads
Mon Oct 15 2018 Seagreenx777

This is a really great app for kids, done really well. My daughter and I both enjoy all the fun things to do with in the app. I like how the content is updated frequently. My only complaint is the ads inside the App even after purchasing subscription for one year. I often pay to have ads removed so my daughter doesn’t encounter them while playing apps. Ads are such a nuisance and distracting, especially in the middle of gameplay. It would be my suggestion that you remove ads inside the game for subscription users.

Great app! Please don’t let Mickey ruin it again!
Thu Jan 03 2019 Daanyul

Update 1/3/19: I appreciate the apology. Have revised from 1 to 5 stars. It’s a great app provided Mickey Mouse stays far away. Original 12/25 review: This has been the only app I’ve ever let my 2.5 year old use. I’ve paid more for this app than any other. After using the free trial, we subsequently paid for the subscription and it has helped my kid learn letters and numbers. I’ve appreciated the relative simplicity and the lack of flashiness when compared with similar educational apps. Until this morning. This morning, Mickey Mouse Disney ads started popping up every minute. It’s ruining the experience and is infuriating. We’ll be cancelling if this isn’t eliminated. Please fix this and apologize for what was essentially a bait-and-switch move. Even if the frequency of the ads was an unintentional bug, its still unacceptable to try to sneakily show advertisements to my child.

Worth Paying For
Mon Dec 29 2025 LocalGirlDJ

My autistic son has been hyperfixated on Eric Carle books since he was tiny, and so this game tapped into that love and opened up a world of learning! This whole app is amazing. My son has spent a jillion hours practicing tracing his letters, listening to books, learning to spell his name, and even learning abstract concepts that tee up early coding! The music is gentle, and the animation is beautiful. We both love how interactive everything is on the app, too. Seriously, this app has been an incredible tool for helping feed my son’s innate love of learning!!

So very thankful for this app. Its everything!!!
Thu Nov 30 2023 Pac-Man0317

Where do I start? This educational app Als well made+ so creative. For someone who appreciates great ASMR'!!! The train is my sons favorite he loves the alphabet especially matching them so he has learned to identify the upper and lowercase letter and he is 3 he loves the spelling of his name which is so cool it’s a whole page for the, to learn to spell their name!! Just makes me wanna cancel all other subscription and just keep this one I love it and so does he it should win the best app of the year seriously! Thank you

Bugs and stops, a couple UI suggestions
Sat Apr 07 2018 The Mattness

In the blocks-to-holes game, my daughter will trigger an offscreen event like Siri or the camera and then when I bring this app back up, she can’t move the block; it’s locked it the coordinates where she’d placed it when the event was triggered. Also, she often wants to just start over when painting the letters rather than painting the whole thing white. I’ve worked around this by going back, then forward, but a quick-erase and confirm option (so kids don’t accidentally erase their painting) would be good so I can just cook while she and her sister race to destroy my iPad. Thanks, and overall, great work!

The best toddler app!
Mon Nov 18 2019 Ty1698

We’ve been using this app since our child was 1 year old. He’s now 2 1/2 years old. He knows the entire alphabet, can count to 10, knows all his colors, shapes, sings along to all the adorable little songs and speaks in full sentences. This app is worth every penny. I love that it updates and provides new games/songs/books and it really sticks to the Eric Carle themed art. I have nothing negative to say about this app. It’s been amazing. Thank you to the creators of this app. Keep up the amazing work.

Great but has a few issues
Thu Jul 04 2024 DadGuy1990

Great educational app, my autistic child loves it. Main issue is it has various bugs that pop up which end up causing an episode. - coloring game has issues moving the cut out pieces, randomly a piece can’t move. Restarting the app and even reinstalling it doesn’t fix it. - after a while, the game will require you to reconnect your account to restore purchases. Only issue is it doesn’t actually work and requires you to reinstall it entirely.

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