Great app for teaching algebraic thinking, but really young kids may get frustrated quickly.

How I Use It

I teach Algebra 1 and 2 to high school students, but I actually bought this app to start teaching my 4.5 year old algebraic thinking. I know the recommended minimum age is 5, but my son has pretty good number sense and does fairly well with basic addition and subtraction. Also, he will be 5 in a couple of months, so I decided to give it a shot. He started out okay with the very basic levels, but he thought it was a little boring. He prefers games with more animation and excitement, so this one didn't keep his attention as much as some others. What did work was the very gradual build-up of the first couple of challenges. After a few of them, however, he started getting frustrated. I happen to think that frustration in math can be a good thing, as kids needs to learn how to deal with frustration. So, I helped him use the hints, and I worked through some of them with him together. I'll give the app a rest for a couple of weeks and then try again with him.