My both girls are obsessed with Minecraft – developed by Swedes, supposedly encourages creative thinking, problems solving, spatial thinking etc. All great things. Except when I hear my precious sweet 5 year old Melanie say something like Come here, little sheep, I want to kill you…. I get little concerned. All I wanted was to find an app that would turn my little girls into geniuses with very little input from me. Reasonable, no?
Here are some of our new favorites though Minecraft is still going strong. Not all are free but I prefer to pay upfront rather than have girls tell me they can’t do x and y unless I pay to get access for the next level or have several ads pop up.
5 and up
DragonBox Algebra 5+: developed by former math teacher, players learn how to solve equations in a playful and colorfull game environment where they are encouraged to experiment and be creative. $4.99
Phonix Genius: Multi-sensory learning tool – combining audio, voice, and written words – 6,000 professionally recorded words carefully grouped into 225 categories by phonics. 530 5 star ratings! FREE
Coin Math: Mathgametime.com says – Rated #4 of Top 10 math apps! “This fun matching game involving money helps kids become familiar with U.S. coins and their values.” There are several levels so this would work for a kindergartener AND older kids. $1.99
7 and up
Motion Math: developed by Stanford School of Education, kids have to find ways to get fallen star back up to the sky and the only to do that is to solve math problems. FREE
Little Solver: This application will help your kids dramatically improve their analytical reasoning skills and give them the confidence to breeze through any test that includes figural analogies. $0.99
Geoboard: Geoboard is a tool for exploring a variety of mathematical topics introduced in the elementary and middle grades. Learners stretch bands around the pegs to form line segments and polygons and make discoveries about perimeter, area, angles, congruence, fractions, and more. FREE
Mad Libs: Jeena Choi says that Mad Libs helps with spelling and my girls love reading the silly results out loud with abundant cackling. FREE
Sushi Monster: was another moms favorite. A game to practice, reinforce, and extend math fact fluency is completely engaging and appropriately challenging. FREE
Scratch Jr: By snapping together graphical programming blocks, children can make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. In the process, children learn to solve problems, design projects, and express themselves creatively on the computer. They also use math and language in a meaningful and motivating context, supporting the development of early-childhood numeracy and literacy. Olivia likes this one a lot, they use it in school also.
Another favorite seems to be Math Playground apps: There are 8 different apps, all rated very highly and free! I like the Visual Algebra puzzles which work on algebraic thinking.
Osmo Genius Kit – technically not an app though you do need an ipad but I’ve met lots of parents who love this device. Osmo consists of a base and a red reflector. The reflector enables the iPad to read the environment in front of it on a table. Powered by Osmo’s revolutionary Reflective AI technology, the reflector brings real-life actions and movements into the digital world on your iPad. There are tons of games in math and writing, you can buy tons of add ons to it as well. It’s expensive, starter kit if $79.90 and genius kit (starter + numbers game) is $98.85 but it is very popular. Its not something you grab and go though, you need to set it up.
Hope you liked some of these ideas! Let me know if there are any others I should be looking at .
x
-haiku
