Sunday, March 18, 2012

Maths Apps for Primary School


I got a great phone call the other day from a teacher who had been given the opportunity to develop a intervention program. The school had identified a group of students who had been struggling with their Maths. 

We talked about what outcomes were important and came up with a cross section of apps that might cater for Counting, Operations and Place Values. Obviously some of these are more appropriate for the younger students but we have looked for ones that will make maths a fun thing to learn about.


Math Magic: $0.99 AU
Math Magic is an application for kids to have fun with math and at the same time learn addition, subtraction and multiplication.  Kids need to just touch the answer. Every time they pick the answers they get appreciated with surprise appreciation (real voice) Once they identify the correct answer, shaking the iphone will take them to a new problem. 

Montessori Place Value: $0.99 AU
Review, practice, and expand your child's place value math skills the Montessori way. Practice forming numbers from 1 to 4 digits, emphasizing each place value. Gain visual reinforcement of place value position and the sum that creates the larger number.  MontessoriTech is a member of Moms with Apps, which seeks to promote quality apps for kids.

Stamp Game: $5.49 AU
Montessori math materials on an iPad. Teaches multi-digit addition and subtraction in a visual form, leading to deeper understanding. An innovative new incarnation of a classic "Montessori" math “game.” This Stamp Game app was created collaboratively by incorporating ideas from teachers, parents and most importantly children themselves.  

Place Value: $0.99 AU
Practice place value of 2,3 and 4 digit numbers using multi-touch. The scoreboards spin and a number appears, you are asked with words and audio "How many tens". You must then use your fingertips to indicate how many of each digit there are. The aim is to see how quickly you can answer 10 questions. 

Maths Bingo: $0.99 AU
Get a pattern of five Bingo Bugs in a row by correctly answering math problems. Math problems are presented at the top of the game screen. Feedback is presented at the bottom of the game screen.  There are three levels of game play in Math Bingo: easy, medium, and hard. Math Bingo displays high scores in the Score Board. 

Counting Caterpillar: $1.99 AU
A counting app for preschoolers and kindergarteners. Counting Caterpillar teaches the basics of counting with fun game play, great graphics and quality sound effects. Catch aphids in the correct number sequence to feed the caterpillar and fill its belly. Curriculum based counting practice covers counting in ones to 100.

MathSmart: $0.99 AU
MathSmart breaks down first grade math in 60 built-in difficulty levels and finds the difficulty level that suites the individual student. To do that MathSmart comes with a unique adaptive engine that learns about the student with time and matches the learning speed to each student.  MathSmart asks questions depending on how the student performs. 

Motion Maths HD: $1.99 AU
Developed at the Stanford School of Education, Motion Math HD follows a star that has fallen from space, and must bound back up, up, up to its home in the stars. Moving fractions to their correct place on the number line is the only way to return.  Motion Math gives learners a physical experience of the number line and an intuitive feeling for fractions. 

Pearl Diver: FREE
Throw on your diving helmet, and head into the depths of the sea! Dive amidst shipwrecks and sunken ruins for the valuable pearls, maybe even the elusive black pearl. But watch out for that pesky electric eel!  Addresses number and operations standards. Games developed by the Learning Games Lab undergo a rigorous instructional design process.

Princess Math: $0.99 AU
Princess Math challenges you with addition and subtraction problems. Boost your Math Skills! Draw on the screen to work out the harder problems. The app inclues addition and subtraction problems, perfect for kindergarden to 3rd grade. This is a good app to balance out some of the male oriented app narratives that are used in maths apps.




8 comments:

  1. Have you checked out "100s Board" and "10s Frame" from Rubber Chicken Apps? They are also great math teaching and learning tools! Thanks for the list, some useful apps here to check out.

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  2. Thanks Matt. I will have a look at these two. Happy to add others to the list if people think they are appropriate. Thanks for sharing.

    Cheers
    Greg

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  3. Hi Greg
    You may also like to check out WISHBALL - an app version of a Learning Federation Digital Learning Object for developing place value to 5 places. It is a great strategy game which requires user to add or subtract by tens, hundreds, thousands or even 10 000s to reach a target number within 10 guesses.

    1,2,3 SHEEP is also a quality skip counting game. Nicole (Sprainger)

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  4. Dear Greg, Please allow me to ask whether some of the apps have an Android version (I am on Android...). Many thanks, best regards Paulo Moniz

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  5. hmm the site is great enough and i am also gonna share this site to my friends.

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  6. Hi, may be you could check the app 1+1 :
    http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1+1/id537049275
    it is for learning adding numbers from 1 to 10 .

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  7. Hi Greg
    If you review this page in the future please can you consider DoodleMaths? Only recently released but very comprehensive curriculum coverage and can really make a difference to a child's all-round performance in maths.

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  8. Hello Greg,

    For the later years of primary school, kids can explore geometry property with an interactive geometry apps like Dr. Geometry. There are versions for Android and free for Mac/Windows/Linux

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