Plain and Simple Toddler
Flip books and tracing for a small child. Nothing collected.
Who this is for
For a parent who hands a toddler an iPad and would rather it were quiet. Two activities, no adverts, no purchases, no sound at all, and a lock so a small person stays in the one you opened.
It is aimed at roughly one to four years old, and the pictures were drawn for a child who is still learning what things are called. It will not suit you if you want something that teaches to a curriculum, or reports back on how your child is doing — it keeps no record of what they did, on purpose, so there is nothing to report.
How to set it up
- 01Download it and open it. There is nothing to buy, no account to create, and nothing to download after the app itself.
- 02Pick an activity — the flip book, or tracing — and then a category. Shapes, flowers, vehicles, diggers, animals, toys, the alphabet or the numbers.
- 03Tap the padlock and hand it over. Every control disappears; press and hold the circle in the corner for two seconds to get them back.
- 04If you want them properly stuck in the app, the app will show you how to switch on Guided Access, which is the part of iPhone and iPad that actually does that.
- 05Change what doesn't suit in Settings: colour or black-and-white outlines, how wide the tracing guide is, whether the picture's name is shown, and whether the lock engages by itself.
What it does
A flip book of ninety-one drawings, one at a time, filling the screen. A tap anywhere turns the page, because a two-year-old taps far more reliably than they swipe. There are no page dots and no counter — nothing that suggests getting to the end is the point.
Every picture can be shown in colour, or as plain black-and-white line art. The outline mode is the reason the app exists, for a child who finds a page of colour too much, and it is one tap away without leaving the activity. It is the same drawing either way rather than a second set of pictures, so the two modes can never drift apart.
A tracing activity where a child follows a light grey line with a finger and the picture fills in as they go. Stray outside and the mark thins and fades rather than turning red — the app never tells a two-year-old they got it wrong. Finish, and the outline they were following resolves into the finished drawing. That is the whole reward: no score, no stars, no timer, and no sound.
The letters and numbers are drawn as a child is taught to write them — the right strokes, in the right order, in the right direction — rather than traced around the outside of a printed letter, which is what you get when an app borrows its alphabet from a font.
The lock hides every button and takes a deliberate two-second hold to release. It is honest about its limits: it cannot stop a child swiping home, because no app can, so it explains Guided Access instead and then stops mentioning it once that is on.
Nothing about your child is recorded — not which pictures they finished, not how long they spent, not anything. There is no account, no analytics, no third-party code, and no network request of the app's own. The ten settings live on your device and in your own iCloud, and there is no Plain and Simple server for them to reach, because there isn't one.
