Animal Jam

Suitable for ages - Primary School Apps (7-11 Years)

Subjects & Topics - Games

Great for - Engagement and Usability

• 3D virtual world with a variety of activities, games, and social interactions.
• Collection and customization of virtual pets.
• Parental control options for chat and in-app activities.
• Available on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and Chromebooks.

The ratio of entertainment to education in this app firmly favours entertainment. Animal Jam includes some educational content about the natural world. The app provides these as written snippets, videos, and creative activities.

The nurturing of the in-game pets could also form the basis for learning about responsibility and caring for others.

Animal Jam's suffix of Virtual Pet Design does not do the app's content justice. It satisfies kids' urge to complete collections with many pets to collect, which they can customise. In addition, they can play high-quality minigames, design and customise, interact with a community of worldwide players and get creative.

There is a massive amount for kids to do in the app, and they will also have the chance to learn some facts about the natural world.

Kids can get a lot of entertainment from playing this app without parents having to spend anything. They will likely ask you to help them get some of the premium currency in the game, but it is not essential.

What we like about Animal Jam

Young kids want entertainment from apps in the same way as older kids and adults. However, safety concerns and appropriate content are always concerns.

Animal Jam's design and safety features reflect the age of its target audience to give them more of the experiences they want with the enhanced protection parents expect.

What they will find in Animal Jam is a huge selection of activities that will provide various play experiences in the same world. There are many different games, virtual pets to collect and customise, friends to socialise with and much more.

Creative kids can make pictures, objects and tunes in the app. The resulting creations are human-moderated; once approved, kids can display them or give them to an in-game friend.

All of this fun takes place in a world realised with beautiful graphics and sound. This is a subscription app, but it might be the only entertainment app subscription you need for your kids.

Animal Jam asks users for permission to send notifications; you can reject this without a problem.

Animal Jam has a very clear safety page to help parents. Its advice is good for this app and as a general guideline for staying safe online. Sadly, there was a broken link where it explains how to block other players who are not displaying good manners, but hopefully this will be fixed soon.

If your kids use this app, you should take advantage of the opportunity to inform them about not sharing private information and what to do if anything makes them uncomfortable.

See the guidelines here.

Animal Jam is a big app with some play experience determined by others playing within its world. While we did not see any examples of inappropriate chat or content during this review of Animal Jam, this is not to say that it is impossible that some could sneak through.

The app uses automated moderation to protect kids from inappropriate chat. No moderation, human or machine, is instantaneous or perfect, so kids must know how to behave towards others and respond to inappropriate behaviour.

You also have some control over how kids can chat. The safe chat option lets kids type words from a moderated list. Bubble chat does not allow free-form text. Instead, players select from ready-created prompts.

Kids can always view other players' responses regardless of how their own chat options have been set. 

Kids can play the app as a guest, but to access many of its features, they must create a username and password and give their caregiver's email address. The app assumes that the email belongs to parents, but it cannot validate this assumption. This parental consent seeking is a weak spot with any apps that seek parent approval via email, not just Animal Jam.

The problem exists more for those who do not want their kids to use Animal Jam than those who do. If you are willing to consent, then kids have no reason to circumvent your email.