Instead of searching through your home library for a different story to read to your baby every day, consider using virtual magazine Babybug en español to provide some variety. Babybug is a bimonthly publication full of interactive short stories, nursery rhymes, and coloring activities.

Flip through each story vertically or slide horizontally to see the next page in the magazine. Each story or rhyme includes audio, and some even have real-life video. Infants and toddlers will enjoy touching the screen to hear sound effects or watch animation, and can explore their early artistic senses with a coloring activity in each issue.

Fitting for both girls and boys, Babybug is a nice mix of cute, traditional cuentos and unexpected information. Read the issues with your baby to teach them about everything from animals to vehicles.

Download Babybug en español to your Newsstand and enjoy automatic updates when you subscribe.

Find Babybug en español in iTunes

Available for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch

Recommended for ages 0-2

Price: FREE (one issue); individual issues $1.99- $3.99; annual subscription $17.99

Check out more from Cricket Magazine Group on their website and Facebook.

StoryToys, the same app developer that brought us 3D versions of Puss in Boots and The Little Mermaid, now has a new electronic pop-up book. Beauty and the Beast 3D Interactive Pop-up Book is another adorable multilingual app that offers a great combination of story time and game time.

Since most kids are already familiar with the Beauty and the Beast tale, they will enjoy how this storybook is broken up with interactive pages to make it a little more exciting. You can help Belle open gifts, help the merchant escape from the wolf, or – my favorite – play ping-pong with the Beast. The favorite part of make-believe princesses everywhere will be breaking the spell at the end!

The story is also nicely simplified and can be entertaining for a range of ages, from toddlers through early readers.

I particularly love that parents can use the Parent Center to customize the app in various ways, including changing the reading mode and opting out of promotional screens.

Find Beauty and the Beast 3D Interactive Pop-up Book in iTunes

Available for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch

Recommended ages 3 and up

Price: $4.99

Check out more from StoryToys on Facebook and Twitter.

Constantly on the lookout for new Spanish/bilingual apps, I am always happy to find something that is versatile. Los navegantes, created by second language teachers for Telefonica Learning Services is just that: a fun iPad app that can be used for young Spanish learners who have never been exposed to the language, but also for those who are conversationally fluent but are still learning to read in Spanish.

The app contains a variety of games, including word searches and coloring, that reinforce the vocabulary that is steadily advanced throughout. Adding a birth date for each user adjusts the level accordingly.

As a bonus, the characters are simply adorable and the in-app purchases are affordable.

Find Los navegantes in iTunes and Google Play

Available for iPad and Android

Recommended for preschool and up

Price: FREE (2 units); additional units $0.99 apiece

Check out the Telefonica Learning Services website, Facebook, or Twitter.

If your kids love animated shows in Spanish, i.e. Pocoyó and El perro y el gato, you won’t want to miss out on Gombby’s Green Island. This newly released show and its corresponding app from developer Magnistage have a great educational spin, as Gombby – a curious little boy – learns about the world with his friends. Together, they find out from the all-knowing Gadget Man/Ingenuico how gravity works, why we all have fears, and more of life’s greatest mysteries.

The app is available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Of course, I have a thing for the Spanish version, but it’s great to see a new kids’ app with multilingual options.

I knew my son would like this app, but I didn’t expect him to giggle quite so much. He thought it was hysterical and that all the characters and their names were so silly that he truly paid attention more than he does to some other animated shows!

Three episodes are available for free, and then you can download more (5 episodes for $1.99, 10 for $2.99) as in-app purchases.

Find Gombby’s Green Island Channel in iTunes

Available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch

Recommended for ages 1-7

Price: FREE  (3 episodes)

The Giveaway

Gombby  wants to give one of you a $50 gift card at random. To enter the giveaway all you have to do is download the app (it’s FREE!) and tell us which episode of Gombyy’s Green Island you watched and what you liked about it. Just make sure you use the Rafflecopter below to make your entry valid and to get additional entries.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The good old-fashioned crossword is usually an adult interest: something we might do while reading the morning paper or waiting in the airport. El crucigrama has gotten an update, though, and kids will love filling in the challenging puzzles on the new Spanish Crossword Puzzles for Kids app by Lyubov Zhivova.

Instead of giving clues as phrases, this app has pictures of the objects or animals and a bank of letters to choose from. The letters can be color-coded to make it a bit easier to guess if you forget a word. Also, choose from crucigramas clásicos and crucigramas con adivinanza, depending on your child’s age and skill level.

I found this app to be a fun mix of a vocabulary test and a game. Try it out with your kids to help them with spelling or use it to entertain yourself in a long carpool line.

FindSpanish Crossword Puzzles for Kids on iTunes

Available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch

Recommended for ages 3-10

Price: $1.99

We may have a bookshelf full of bilingual books in our house, but sometimes it’s fun to mix it up. The world of apps makes it easy to do just that. Instead of simply reading a story and maybe talking about it for a few minutes, we can extend the benefit of Spanish stories by letting our kids explore apps like Learn Spanish: Little Blue Jackal by Niyaa.

This iPad app is a high-quality learning tool that can be used to encourage both English and Spanish proficiency. Your preschoolers or elementary schoolers will love touching the pictures and learning over 50 Spanish words in Level 1, but it doesn’t end there. Then, they will advance to Spanish phrases in Level 2, and finally, listen to the story about the (un)importance of outward appearances in either English or Spanish in Level 3. After reading, they will get to play Memory and Feed the Jackal, as well as color some of the pages from the story.

What I love about this app in particular are a couple unique features: the Parent/Child Comprehension activity, which promotes excellent discussion of the moral in either language, and the Sleep Mode, which can be turned on if you only want to listen to the story without visuals. A great bedtime option!

Watch this video to see the app in action. Check out other apps from Niyaa by following them on Twitter or Facebook, or visiting their website.

The Giveaway!

FIVE lucky winners will receive a promo code to download this iPad app for free!

a Rafflecopter giveaway