See, "metadata" is a slippery term.
Go ahead and do an innocuous google search. Once the results show up, take a look at the URL you've accessed.
There it is: your search terms right there, (in human-readable format, even) in the URL itself. Is a URL metadata? I'm sure the NSA would say "yes"

So, Google doesn't need to be complicit in any way. This is all unencrypted stuff that could easily be filtered and could theoretically be defended as being "metadata"

Kinda makes me wonder what else you might call metadata. Are the SMS messages that piggyback on phone packets metadata? (I'll admit I don't really know anything about that so this is just speculation)

I'd be very interested in other people's opinions on things we think of as communications content that could be argued as being metadata. Thoughts?

Before you bash MS too hard on this, you should probably check out the amazing game/engine they're providing to xbox, xbone and win8 users for free:
https://joinprojectspark.com/

It's meant for kids (though I'm sure adults will become engaged) and is basically the AAA version of Kodu, a programming language that was built by MS Research with the explicit aim of teaching kids to code.

First recommendation: let the OP parent however s/he sees fit. This isn't your kid and you don't necessarily know best.

Second, I do have a couple of apps to recommend. Disclaimer, these are my apps. I wrote them for my son when he was little. The voice you'll hear in Baby Animal Balloons is his.

Baby Animal Balloons supports a wide range of devices and is available across the board. This was the first app I wrote and I released it on iOS and Android (in google market, amazon app store and Barnes and Noble). It's super-simple, touching the screen causes a cute little animal to appear and start floating away. Touching that animal causes a cute child's voice to say its name and allows flinging it around.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.littlelaptime.games
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/baby-animal-balloons-little-lap-time/1107081455
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Lap-Time-Animal-Balloons/dp/B005D7BKLI

Interestingly, I never got almost any sales on the Google or Amazon stores. I steadily get 1-3 sales a day on iOS. On B&N I was getting as many as 900 sales a month, though it's slowed down over the last year. For that reason, my next app targeted the nook family of devices. I released it on Amazon as well, simply because it didn't really take any more effort to do so.

Night Night Baby MusicBox is just meant to soothe your baby and get him/her to go to sleep. It plays 5 songs and has some minor (but cute) interactive elements.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/night-night-baby-musicbox-little-lap-time/1108563370
http://www.amazon.com/Little-Lap-Time-Night-MusicBox/dp/B00711YP3O