Hello there,
Nice to know your interest on building game media for kids.
I'm a game developer and my focus point is on developing educational purposed apps and game. My expertise on this aspect is because of my experience on how my app design produced from understanding the condition of the user. Yes, it is right, designing apps for fun only purpose is different with designing apps for educational purpose. Meanwhile we cannot blindly just implementing the game mechanic to a educational game purposed, it will make an awkward and bored condition to the game, because fun aspect can't be juxtaposed with education aspect. That's why we see many "education game" are worst on the output, especially on how the gameplay is. In the, designing the right User Experience is my responsibility to achieve a good educational game.
Can you tell me more about this project? Love to know more if you'd like to chat about it.
Best Regards,
Haidar Abhirama