The iPhone Mom

Math Kingdom combines math facts practice with an adventure game. You are the hero who must save a captured princess and recover the Math Kingdom’s stolen treasures. To do this you’ve got to solve math problems and make your way through the castle. You are asked to solve a math problem and then write your answer on the screen. If you get the answer correct you break though a castle wall. After breaking down ten walls you’ll face a monster. (They’re meant to be monsters but don’t worry, they’re not very scary.) The monster will present you with a more challenging word problem. If you solve this one correctly you recover one of the lost treasures. As you progress through the app the math problems increase in difficulty.  Each time you begin or continue a game you are given five “lives”. When you answer a problem incorrectly you lose a life. When all of your lives are gone it’s game over but don’t worry, this is a friendly app. It gives you the choice of starting over at the beginning or continuing where you left off.

When I was playing Math Kingdom I did have a little bit of trouble with the app crashing as I was trying to load a saved game. I powered off and then restarted my iPhone and after that I had no problems. I like the way Math Kingdom jazzes up math practice. This app is a fun alternative to flashcards. I especially like the way it incorporates actually writing the numbers. This is fantastic practice for kids and the handwriting recognition works very well. It did a terrific job deciphering my sloppy chicken scratch.

Price when Reviewed: $.99    FREE

Seller: Acoco Interactive

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

Clever, clever, clever and sneaky! Math Bumpies-Adventure on Math Island: Addition & Subtraction had me practicing my math facts while thinking that I was playing a game. And yes, I said me. I tried this one out because I can always use practice with my addition and subtraction. But you better believe I’m going to encourage my girls to try out this new “game” though. They’ll have their math facts down cold after a few go arounds with the Bumpies.

In Math Bumpies you choose a character to take you around Math Island. I chose Mister Chickenpants simply because he has an awesome name.  Next you choose your level, easy medium or hard. You also choose whether you want to play with addition facts, subtraction or both. And now you’re ready to journey around the island. You begin at Easy Street. The idea is to tilt your iPhone  and roll your character from left to right. As  you travel along you’ll see math problems in the sky. Solve the math problem and then tap on the screen when your character is under the correct answer. If you bump the right one you’ll score some points. When you reach the finish line you’re given your final score based on correct answers and the time it took you to finish. Then you’re off to the next round. The app allows you to create more than one player profile and you will select your level of difficulty and area of focus each time. This means that kids with different sill levels can all share the app and as they improve their skills they can continue to challenge themselves with more difficult questions. Math Bumpies also has a leaderboard that will keep track of individual player stats and high scores. Just a bit of friendly competition among siblings, right?

I thought Math Bumpies – Adventure on Math Island was a lot of fun for a math app! I loved the way it combines the math practice with the game. My only issue with the game was the voice over when you  bump into an incorrect answer. It’s really a pretty nitpicky thing too. Sometimes you hear “sorry” and sometimes you hear “whatever”.  “Whatever” is a phrase that I don’t particularly care for. I’ve never really liked it but I think I’m even more aware of it now that I’ve got a ten year old who tells me that with a “look” on a daily basis. I get the look and I can just read the “Whatever” in her mind. So I’m not that keen on having her (or my sassy seven year old) hearing that on a frequent basis. But it’s absolutely not a big enough complaint for me to keep them off Math Bumpies. The app is too fantastic for that and it even comes with a mute button. If you’re looking for a way to make math practice fun at your house this app will do the trick.  I’m hoping that there are multiplication and division adventures soon to come.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Rookie Labs, LLC

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this app for review purposes.

Eye Training is a collection of twenty mini-games aimed at improving your eye sight. The games focus on four different areas of vision: visual analysis, visual memory, visual coordination and the field of vision. You begin by taking a test to see how wonderful, or poor, your vision is. Mine was poor, poor, poor. Not that I was surprised, my coordination is terrible, I don’t drive well at night, the list goes on and on. Part of my problem was also due to the fact that I didn’t read the instructions as closely as I should have.  Guess I’ve got problems following directions too. Eye Training will track your progress and you can check out how much you’re improving. There’s tons of room for that in my case.

The graphics in Eye Training are well done and the mini-games will require your attention. It’s an interesting app that has the potential to also do you some good.

Price when Reviewed: $2.99

Seller: Bulkypix

Shooting Stars is a math app that just didn’t quite work for me.  In this app stars are falling from the sky. They have positive and negative numbers on them. You’ll be given a goal number and a set amount of time. To play you need to tap the stars that will add up to the goal number. Positive numbers add to this number and negative take away. The concept is good but the stars fall very quickly and they’re grouped close together, sometimes even on top of each other. There were times I’d think that I was tapping on one star only to find that by the time I made my move another star had taken it’s place. It was frustrating for me and even though I know math isn’t my strong suit I think it would be frustrating for a child as well. For me, slower and bigger stars would be a nice improvement to Shooting Stars.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Nth Fusion LLC

The classic board game Settlers of Catan just came to the iPhone! We’re big fans of the game so I was curious to see how it translated into an app. After playing it through I can tell you that if you’ve played Catan before you’ll have no trouble. If you’ve never played then it might be a bit confusing at first. Then again the original game is confusing the first few times through as well. There’s a built in tutorial that will walk you through game play. If you’ve played the xBox 360 version you will find the app to be very similar.

Catan allows for four players. They can all be “human” players but you’ll have to share the iPhone, no wifi playing unfortunately. If you choose to play against the iPhone you can select which characters you want to challenge. The app will show you their ratings in expansion, aggression and skill. A note – in “Options” you can choose to turn off your opponent’s comments. If you don’t do that you’ll be playing with constant dialogue boxes popping up. In settings you can customize the game even more. My favorite? Switching “Robber Mode” from normal to friendly. I hate that robber.

The game board is a bit smallish but you can zoom in on it which makes it easier to see. The graphics are excellent as is the music and sound effects. Not to worry though, if you’re an intense Catan player who needs total concentration you can mute those.

I found the game play to be extremely smooth and the developers have done a great job taking the board game to the iPhone. I think I’ve got a new favorite time filler for those long waits in the car during dance lessons. Hooray!

Price when Reviewed: $4.99

Seller: United Soft Media

Wriggle is getting a guest review by my seven year old daughter. We’ve both been trying it out and I was curious about what she thought of the game.

Her thoughts: “Wriggle has you trying to get worms out of their holes and you can move them forward or backward but you only have a certain amount of moves. If you get the worm out then you get a world record or something. And the moves get harder because there are other worms that get in the way. But it’s really fun".”

My thoughts: Wriggle is charming. The goal is to move a friendly little worm through his worm maze using as few moves as possible. There are eighty puzzles and once you’ve solved one you can replay it again to try and beat it in fewer moves.  Challenging but fun, fun and more fun!

If you’re looking for a puzzling, brain teasing app that will appeal to both you and your kids this is a fantastic one. The graphics are adorable but don’t be fooled. This game can be played by kids and their parents I’m sure there are plenty of adults (including me) who’ve found themselves addicted to the wriggle worms.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Conlan Rios

I don’t know what’s more adorable about Spelling Soup – the illustrations or the sweet English girls who narrate it. Listening to them made me smile! In this app you see an illustration and hear the girls say the word. Tap “flip over” and there are letters on the screen. The letters have to be dragged to the correct spot to spell the word. As you move a letter the girls will say it’s name. When the letters are all lined up correctly they will spell the word and say it once again. Then you’ll get a new illustration. After a few times the app lets you “bounce” the letters to spell the word. They show up on the screen and you tilt the iPhone left and right to make the letters bounce to their spelling spot.

This is a cute spelling app and I think the narration on Spelling Soup may be my favorite yet. The developers are also taking word requests for future editions.

Price when Reviewed: $2.99

Seller: Software Moderna HK Ltd.

I know my math skills have been improving as I’ve been trying out all the wonderful math apps available.  Now I can add two more to my list – Math Time and Math Time EX. In Math Time you’re given various problems in the areas of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Tap “Show Problem” and a problem appears on the screen. Solve it in your head and then tap “Display Answer” to see if you gotten it right. Math Time EX operates the same way only it involves problems where you are squaring a number, finding the square root or doing multi-addition or multi-subtraction problems. Is squaring a number the right way to put it?

These are two simple and effective apps that will help your child practice their math facts. I love having “flashcards” that don’t have to be flipped through and cannot be lost.  Now here’s the cool thing about these apps. They were designed by an eleven year old boy named Owen. (One of my favorite boy names by the way.) Owen and his brother Finn have been featured in many news stories and even on the Rush Limbaugh show. You can read all about their press here. As the mom of a ten year old I’m thoroughly impressed with what these kids have accomplished. Owen has mastered a new programming language and  built a useful app that he should be very proud of. Math Time and Math Time EX are well done, effective and helpful to all the other kids who need that extra bit of practice with math.

**Update 1/27/10 - Owen has just released a new version of his Math Time app.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: John Voorhees/Squibner Software

Math Time

Math Time EX

Pocket Phonics is chock full of phonics fun and I love it. There are multiple sections to this app. Your child can listen to letter sounds and tap the letter they belong to. The letters are put in groups of six. (You can read more about why this is under the help section of the app.) Next they can watch the letter being written on the screen and try writing it themselves. There’s a section where the app says a letter sound, your child taps the letter, the app says another sound, and so on until a word is formed. (It does this using the letters from the original group.) Then the app will sound out the letters, put them together and say the word. I say the “app says” but it’s really the voice of a phonics teacher. Finally, there is a game to play with the letter sounds. When your child has gone through all the sections they start over again with a different group of sounds.

On the settings page you can choose the writing style to try: lowercase, uppercase or cursive. Thank you for including cursive! Even though my older kids don’t need the phonics help they can use the cursive practice. You can also select the handwriting style to use: D’Nealian or Zaner-Bloser. Finally you can select the nationality of the app’s “voice” – US or UK. I suggest going to the help section within the app so you can become familiar with the way Pocket Phonics is laid out.

Pocket Phonics is seriously educational and I think it’s a terrific tool for helping early readers.  You can tell that a ton of thought and research was put into it and best of all, they talked and listened to teachers. It shows.

Price when Reviewed: $.99 – this is a sale price. I would grab it now because it’s a steal of a deal. There is also a free version available that you can try.

Seller: Apps in My Pocket, Ltd.

Flashcards! is an educational app for testing your basic math skills. You can do problems in addition, subtraction, multiplication, division or a mix of all types. There are two modes – practice and quiz. The practice is untimed and has a button that lets you check your answer. The quiz mode gives you ten seconds to complete a problem before it moves on to the next question. (In the information section you can change the amount of time for the problems.)  There’s also a button that allows you to skip to the next problem.  The stats button will show you how you’ve been doing with your correct and incorrect answers. My favorite feature can be found in the information section. If you tap the “Number Set” button you can select the minimum and maximum numbers used to create the flashcard problems. I love this because you can customize the app depending on the skill level of your child. You can change it up as needed. Terrific!

There aren’t a lot of frills to Flashcards! It does exactly what it says – gives you practice for your math skills – without a lot of bells and whistles.  Which is great for my fifth grader. She doesn’t need any distractions, just practice and lots of it. My one suggestion for this app is to make the number buttons bigger.  They are a bit on the small side and I think bumping the size up would make Flashcards! even better.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Hawk iMedia