As a follow up to my post about writing apps (which you can click here to see) I thought I’d share some of the math and counting apps we’ve discovered. Again, it’s been challenging to find the few jewels among the plain old rocks. I really hadn’t realized how many apps were out there, nor how terrible some of them could be! The ones I list below (in no particular order) are the ones that I like because of their educational value, and that kids like for their entertainment value. Each of these apps (except for Count Sort Match) offers a free “lite” version and a full price version. Click on the title or the picture to see the app in the app store.
This app showed up on Free App Friday last week. It’s been a big hit with my class. They find it very engaging. I like that in the “count” area of the game, they ask children to count objects and then teach the numeral (1) as well as the written number (one). (Small pet peeve: I think the way they ask children to write the lower case ‘e’ is off, but since this is a math app, I won’t hold it against them. 😉 ) My students don’t find the “Sort” game particularly compelling, but they do like the “Match” game. It offers an opportunity for them to match a collection of items to the numeral represented. Great for reinforcing accurate counting.
This app is particularly popular with the boys. A fish comes into the coral reef “hungry” for a particular number. It’s the job of the player to feed that number to the fish. This in itself is plenty of challenge (and entertainment) for some of my students. They love watching the fish grow as he eats each number. What takes the app up a notch is the fact that you can combine two numbers to get the target number and then feed that number to the fish. That concept is a little above some of my students, but they still love the app.
I review this app here, and it’s still a favorite among my students. As I was trying to encourage them to try out some of the new math apps I’d downloaded, they still kept gravitating back to this one. There are a variety of activities which teach a variety of skills. My students enjoy all of the activities.
The kids drag a target number of butterflies into a bamboo cage. They check their work and adjust it if need be. I like that this app allows children to make mistakes, and then fix them. A lot of the counting apps I’ve downloaded only offer the correct number of items to be counted. Often I’ve watched children simply touch all the elements to be counted but not actually count them.
It took me awhile to discover the depth of this app. Actually, it took one of my students to show me where all the “good stuff” was. I love how their young brains often see so much more than mine does. There are seven different activities for the child to explore. Those activities focus on counting, sorting, patterning, addition and subtraction. The counting activities were a little too simplistic for my children, but they enjoyed most of the rest of them.
Let me know in the comments what your favorite math apps for the Pre-K crowd are! If you’d like to read about my five favorite writing apps for Pre-K and Kindergarten click the picture below to see that list.
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Thanks for sharing your list! Here’s another early math app (for iPad): Native Numbers (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/native-numbers-complete-number/id570231808?mt=8). It’s designed based on research about how children develop number sense. There’s a free Lite version and a full paid version, and teachers can sign up for a free instructor dashboard on the web where they can track student learning in real time. So far teachers and students tell us they are having a great experience with it!
Thanks so much for stopping by. I’m excited to try the free version of your app with my students tomorrow. It looks very intriguing. Can I access the dashboard with the lite version? As a teacher, I’m really appreciating apps that allow individual progress & have different accounts for each student. I love the idea that students wouldn’t need to use the same ipad each time to keep up their progress!
Terrific! Yes, the dashboard works with the Lite version, too. And you do link the iPads to your dashboard you can transfer all student progress to the full version if you upgrade later. As long as the iPads are connected to wifi in the classroom, you can use any ipad with any student. Please let us know how it goes with your students!
Have you ever used EuroTalk? It is awsome! I like it because it is so thorough.
Thanks Alexis! I’ve downloaded it played around with it a bit. It’s definitely on my list of apps to try with my students!