The iPhone Mom

Number Sense is a math app designed for Kindergarteners and based on the National and California Math Standards for that grade. The app contains five games and that’s a good deal for the $.99 price tag. I’ll give you a quick rundown of what I thought about each game.

Booster Balls – In this game you’re trying to catch colored balls as they fall from the sky. As you catch them the app counts them out loud and when you’re all done you feed them to a monster. In order to catch the balls you tilt the iPhone from side to side. This moves a basket and you need to position it underneath the falling balls. I found the response time between when I tilted the phone and when the basket moved to be slow. Not my favorite game in the app.

Do the Dotty – This is a connect the dots game. You need to tap the numbers on the screen in order from lowest to highest. As you tap a line appears connecting the dots and creating a picture. When the picture is complete you can change it’s color and save it. I liked that the connect the dots didn’t all start with the number one, they began with higher numbers and different ones each time.

Numberella – This game features a donkey in a cape and some rain clouds. The clouds have different numbers on them and the game asks you to tap on the smallest number or the largest one. When you tap on the correct number the cloud rains on the donkey and you earn a trophy. If you get it wrong the cloud zaps the donkey with lightening. I like the idea of giving children practice comparing smallest and largest numbers but I really didn’t understand what the donkey and the rainclouds had to do with anything. This one didn’t appeal to me at all.

Fishoonka – In Fishoonka you are shown two schools of fish, each group a different color. You’ll be asked to make the sets equal or to make one greater than or less than the other. Next you’ll drag fish from one group to the other and they’ll change to the appropriate color. You’ll do this until you’ve made the groups the correct size. This was my favorite game in the app.

Toot Toot Train – In this game you need to get the correct number of train cars hooked up to the engine. You tap on a car and tilt the iPhone to move the cars. Tilt toward the engine to hook on the cars. Tilt away from it to unhook them.

Out of the five games I liked Fishoonka and Do the Dotty the best. All of the games taught important skills but I found some of the games more appealing than others. Overall though the graphics in Number Sense are nice and the app ran without any hitches.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Emantras, Inc.

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

My seven year old daughter is thoroughly enjoying the Math Ninja app. It combines an arcade style game with math practice and it does it in a way that’s a lot of fun. You play the game as a Math Ninja who is battling the evil Tomato-San. Tomato-San wants to take your math treasure and he sends his army of Cat-bots and Dog-bots to attack your tree house. First you’ll try to fight off the robot cats and dogs with ninja weapons. This phase involves you tapping the screen as you try to destroy the enemies. Once you’ve destroyed them all the game switches into math mode. A key pad appears on the screen and you’re presented with math problems that you must answer. You’ve got to quickly  enter in your answers using the key pad before Tomato-San  appears. Once he shows up you’ll need to use more of those Math Ninja skills to fight him off. As you move through the different levels you’ll earn money. Money can be used to buy health for your tree house, extra ninja weapons and more. I think my favorite purchase so far was the set of Ninja Stars, those can really take down a Cat and Dog-bot.

The game has three different levels of difficultly, easy, normal and ninja. You are also able to choose what math skills you’d like to practice. You can answer either addition, subtraction, multiplication or division problems. Or you can choose them all and the skills will be mixed together.

Math Ninja is a fun and clever way to get in some math practice without realizing you’re doing math. I’m going to admit that I found myself sucked into the game beyond what was necessary for review research. I’m going with my daughter on this one and declaring Math Ninja a winner.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Ray Wenderlich

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

I took the ability to tell time for granted until my eldest began to ask when things were happening. When will we do this mom? And how long is 30 minutes? Let’s just say it’s a happy day when my kids learn how to tell time.

This app, Learn to Tell Time, let’s children practice four areas of telling time. There’s the basic time telling, figuring out elapsed time, calculating time after a certain time and time before. The app uses clocks and has the children figuring out the basics (what time does the clock show?) and the more advanced (what was the time 1 hour and 30 minutes before the time shown on the clock?). By default you can choose to give your child ten questions or one minute’s worth of practice. In the settings you can change the question limit, the number of minutes and the difficulty level of the questions.

I think the graphics in Learn to Tell Time could use a bit more polish but I like how it really gets you thinking about time. It provides good practice for an important skill.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: NSC Partners, LLC

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

Kids Math Fun~Kindergarten and Kids Math Fun~Third Grade are flashcard apps for math facts practice. The Kindergarten one features addition and subtraction problems. I’d say they’re problems for advanced Kindergarteners or maybe even First Graders. But I may be underestimating the math that Kindergarteners do now. The Third Grade app has addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Many of the problems don’t ask you for the answer, they ask you for the missing number in the problem. I’m not sure if I explained that well enough. For example, the problem might be __ * 12 =72 and you’ve got to figure out what __ is. I find this a more challenging way to do flashcards and it’ll stretch your brain. It did mine anyway.

Both apps allow you to do “Minute Math” where you have 60 seconds to finish the problems. You can also turn on a “Try Again” feature that gives you a second chance at a missed problem.

The Kids Math Fun apps are simple and straightforward without a lot frills, just Math facts, although they do feature simple graphics that brighten up the flashcards. I found the Math to be a little trickier than the grade level it was for but again, it’s been a few years since I’ve had a Kindergartener or Third Grader and I could be way off. These apps are also available in Spanish, French, Filipino, Portuguese, Turkish or Korean.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Kids Math Fun~Kindergarten

Kids Math Fun~3rd Grade

Seller: NSC Partners LLC

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

Kosmic Math-Family is a space exploration game that will have your family practicing their math skills. You set out on a mission to explore the planets and along the way you need to complete math problems. With enough correct answers you can place your flag on the planet and move on, earning a higher rank as you go. As you move through the grade levels there are twenty levels of difficulty in the game. From what I’ve seen this app is much, much more than a set off flashcards for practicing drills. It works with you and adapts the problems you’re given based on how well you’re doing. If you’re struggling and having trouble it will adjust the problems to fit your skill level.

The Family version gives you up to five user profiles. Problems for the grade levels Pre-Kindergarten through 4th Grade are represented. While you are playing you can manually adjust the difficulty of the problems. You can also change the amount of time you have to answer a problem and the amount of time you have on each planet. You can view a report that gives your statistics and shows how you’re doing on the current planet as well as how you’ve done on others.

Kosmic Math-Family gives you the option of enabling data synching. To do this you’ll need to provide your email and set up an account. The App Store description says the account is included in the license for a year. Once you’ve done that you can login to the Kosmic Math website and view the statistics for everyone who has a user profile in the app. Their progress and statistics will be easy to track. When they finish a drill you’ll also receive an email showing how they did.  If you have two iPhones or iPod Touches you can install the app on both devices. By enabling data synching on the second phone (use the same email to register) you’ll allow the data from one phone to be synched up with the other. This means your child can play on mom’s phone and then pick up right where they left off on dad’s phone. Plus, the progress from both phones will be synched up with the website data. You don’t have a limit to how many devices you can sync together, you’ve just got to use the same email to register them and they’ll all have the same users.

My one suggestion for Kosmic Math is to adjust the narration on the screen where you adjust the difficulty, time, etc. The instructions are helpful but they go on and I found them a little distracting after awhile. Perhaps there’s a way for them to play the first time you view the screen but not again after that.

I really like the fact that Kosmic Math adjusts to your abilities. My kids have all gotten frustrated at one time or another over flashcards. It’s nice to know that this app will keep things within their skill level so they can have some success. This is one of the more expensive math apps that I’ve seen but you do get five user profiles and it covers a wide range of math skills. It’s definitely something different than a flashcard card app that gives you random problems. It works with you and adapts the problems you’re given based on how well you’re doing. If you’re struggling and having trouble it will adjust the problems to fit your skill level. I like the fact that each user has their own setup, this means all of my kids can use the same app. Plus, being able to play on my phone and my husband’s is a nice feature. It’s only fair that his phone get used by the kids as much as mine does.

There is also a free version of Kosmic Math available in the App Store. It allows you to have profiles for up to four players. Kosmic Math-Educator is another option. It’s licensed for one player and is designed for use by tutors, teachers and schools. This version would allow teacher’s to track their classes progress in the game and see how they’re doing individually. It would also allow a child to play at school and then continue at home on mom or dad’s device for extra practice.  How fantastic would that be to get an iPod Touch to use in math class? My kids would be in heaven!

Price when Reviewed: $7.99

Seller: Sloth Media, LLC

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

Alien Equation is a math app that really works your brain. Once I figured out how to play it I actually enjoyed it (math, me??) but it took me a little bit to realize what I was supposed to do. I like this app but if I’ve got one suggestion it’s to include some instructions on the main menu. I ended up going to the website, watching a video and then light bulb went on.

The app gives you a grid of numbers and operators (that’s the fancy way of saying the addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and equals signs.) You need to arrange these tiles into equations and when you do they disappear and you earn points. When you’ve earned enough points you’ll move on to the next round. In order to make your equations you’ll need to move the numbers and operators around the grid. To do this you swipe along the rows and columns until you’ve got things lined up. Once you’ve got the hang of it you’ll see that you can rearrange things to get them right where you want them. This is definitely a game for elementary schoolers and older. I’d suggest that it’s best for those who know their math facts fairly well.

Alien Equation allows you to have different player profiles and it remembers where everyone was in their games. There is a practice mode where you can work with only addition or subtraction, etc. The app also gives you the ability to access your iPod and turn on your own music. I liked that feature. The graphics and game play are very smooth and the game moves quickly (once you’ve got the hang of things).

This app had a learning curve for me but I have a feeling if I’d given it to my kids first they would have figured out how to play much faster than I did. Isn’t that the way things go? But in spite of myself I think this is a great game for math practice and your kids won’t even realize they’re doing more than just playing a game.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: Funner Labs

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

The BabyCounting app has eight different games that teach counting skills. When you play the games you’ll work on identifying numbers, putting them in the correct order, counting up and counting down. The games are simple. Tap numbers on a number line in order going smallest to biggest and vice versa. Listen for a number and then tap on the one you heard. Put a missing number in the correct spot on a number line. Count a group of objects and then tap the number that shows how many. Play a guessing game where you tap on numbers and work with the clues “greater than” or “less than” until you find the secret number. Make a helicopter fly by tapping on numbers.

The games all deal with the number 0-9 and the skills they teach are basic, but important. A couple of the games seem very similar but you do get eight games for your money. My only real issue with BabyCounting is the narration. During the games a dog and cat will pop on and off the screen to give you instructions. They are cute characters but some of the words and phrases they use sound a bit stilted. The English used in the app doesn’t always flow smoothly.  If you’re going to work with your child until they’re used to the app and know how to play this might not be a big deal. Finally, I think BabyCounting is better for young preschoolers than babies. But if you have a baby who knows her numbers please send me whatever brain food you’re feeding her.  I’ll feed some of it to my little gal and then eat the leftovers.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: TeamFourStudio

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

Numbl is all about taking a screen full of jumbled numbers and getting them to add up. Your given a sum and you need to tap the numbers on the screen that add up to it. You can use one number or two, three…however many it takes. As you use up numbers they disappear off the screen and it gets trickier to find the answers. When you’re done you can enter your name on a high score board and also compare yourself to players around the world.

Numbl also features a two player mode where the screen is split. You stand on opposite sides of the phone and race to see who can clear their game board first. The app keeps track of how many wins you each have. I love that the two player mode lets you actually play at the same time, against each other, instead of passing the iPhone back and forth.

Numbl has great graphics and runs very smoothly. I had a lot of fun playing it and I think it’s a great way to let your older children practice their addition facts.

Price when Reviewed: $1.99

Seller: Andy Wise

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

Maddition turns addition and multiplication practice into a game. Bubbles with numbers on them float around the iPhone’s screen. At the bottom of the screen are buttons showing the numbers 1-9.  You have to tap on two numbers that add up to one of the bubble numbers on the screen. When you get it right the bubble pops and you move on to another one. If you get it wrong the bubbles grow bigger and bigger until they pop. When you begin playing you’re only allowed to have three bubbles pop before the game is over but as you do well you’ll earn bonus bubbles. If you want to make the game tougher you can switch to multiplication mode. Then you’ll have to tap two numbers that multiply together to make the bubble numbers. You can adjust both the level of difficulty and the number of bubbles that appear on the screen.  Lastly, there is a practice mode to the game that you can turn on or off.

Maddition is a change of pace from regular flashcards. It would be nice to see a subtraction mode in future updates.

I’ve been given five promo codes for Maddition to give away. If you’ve got a child who could use some math practice leave me a comment. The first five comments win a code. (Promo codes will only work in the U.S. App Store)

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: thrum

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

Flash Bee is a flashcard app that features both math and word flashcards. It will allow you to create different “student” profiles so you can use the app with more than one child and I’m always a big fan of this type of feature.

There are several buttons on the bottom of the screen that will help you navigate through the app. “Words” will take you to the word flashcard section.  Choose your student’s profile and then tap on the button that says “word list”. Here you can choose the grade level for the words that will show up on the flashcards.  The grades go from Pre-K to Fifth Grade and each grade has beginner, intermediate and advanced lists. (Many of them will also have more than one list per difficulty level.) In the options you can get specific about which grades and lists you want to work with.  There are a few additional options that you can choose from including setting a limit on the number of flashcards shown, determining when a “helper phrase” for the word will appear, randomizing the words, repeating the list and some sound options. When you’ve figured all that out it’s just a matter of tapping “start” and you’re off. A word is displayed on the screen and when you’ve read it correctly you tap the “next” button and you’re on to the next flashcard. At the end of the flashcard set you’ll see a summary of how you did overall. You can always view this information on the “history” section for your student (found by tapping the “Students” button). The history will tell you what list your child worked on, how many cards they reviewed and how long it took them to finish. One last thing about the word section – I really like the font that the developers chose for the word flashcards.

The “Math” button takes you to the main math flashcards screen. First thing you’ll want to do is choose between addition, subtraction, multiplication or division problems. Choosing  what you want is as easy as sliding a button on the screen from on to off. There are also options about the number of problems in your flashcard set, the number range for the problems and a time limit for the review. Again, when you’ve completed the flashcards you’ll have a summary of results and you can view those in history too.

I also found that if you tap the button “Word List” at the bottom of the screen you can see all of the word lists available for use with the flashcards. Here’s the part I was surprised about – you can also add your own words to the lists. Great concept! From what I can tell you can’t create new lists, just add in your own words to the existing ones.  It would be nice to be able to create new lists for weekly spelling words.

I like how Flash Bee combines the words plus the math facts. It’s nice to have a combination in one app. I also like how you can choose what math facts to practice and which words you’d like to review. It’s great being able to set up student profiles for each of my children and their different ability levels.

Price when Reviewed: $.99

Seller: BizzyTime, Inc.