Review by Dana Villamagna, Common Sense Education | Updated August 2012

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Kids Numbers and Math

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Solid basic math practice, especially useful for visual learners

Common Sense says

3

Rating Details

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Grades

Pre-K-1 This grade range is a recommendation by Common Sense Education and not the developer/publisher.

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5 images

Eight activities to play, all including colorful graphics and verbal instructions.

Count the flowers and match the correct number.

Pick the balloon with the highest number.

Some games include numbers-only problems.

Rewards are minimal -- just simple images of items like fruit or lemonade that appear on the screen.

Pros: Students can solve many problems by counting the images of familiar objects, like apples and pears.

Cons: The "shake" effects may be distracting to some kids (but can be turned off in settings).

Bottom Line: Kids Numbers and Math offers focused, fun practice to help kids master basic math skills.

Lesson & Activity Ideas

Use Kids Numbers and Math to supplement basic math lessons. There are a lot of skills to practice on this app, but it doesn't go into depth on any of them, or progress much in difficulty. As a result, its usefulness in the classroom is limited to simple, fun practice. Teachers may want to recommend this app to parents as a good one to install on their Android-based phone or Kindle Fire for kids to practice math at home or during free time in the car.

Tool Overview

Kids Numbers and Math is a basic math practice app that requires kids to solve problems using both visual clues and numbers with multiple gameplay options. Eight main games help kids learn fundamental math skills such as counting, matching, number recognition, addition, and subtraction.

One game displays addition and subtraction problems both numerically as well as in pictures, which allows young kids who are still learning numbers to solve the problems by counting the images and practice number recognition. For example, after kids watch nine colorful apples line up, they hear a chomping sound and one appears bitten to the core. The subtraction problem "9 - 1 =" appears over the line of apples. The narrator says: "Find the solution."

A matching game asks kids to remember the numbers hidden under clouds; if they get a match, lightning strikes and those clouds disappear. As a bonus, kids can also learn to count in five different languages with this app. One more difficult game only includes numeric digits and requires kids to know addition and subtraction signs and solve simple two-step problems (such as 3-2+3=).

Learning Value

These focused games provide a good amount of challenge and encouragement to support kids as they solve problems. The settings options allow teachers to customize activities to match kids' learning needs (including turning off the somewhat distracting "shake" feature). Kids have a lot of choices when it comes to which activities they want to try and come back to, and how long they'd like to stay on each one. More data on players' progress during gameplay (number of problems solved and answered correctly) would boost learning and provide kids with immediate feedback. There is a “Parent Center” that can be used to view students' progress and time played. To use that, teachers must sign up for that via email and create user accounts for individual students.

Kids Numbers and Math has bright colors, familiar images, and a pleasant narrated voice, all of which make this app very appealing for pre-K and kindergarten students. Overall, this is focused, fun math practice to help kids master basic math skills in low-stress ways.

Rating Details

Overall Rating

3

Engagement Is the product stimulating, entertaining, and engrossing? Will kids want to return?

3

Engaging games, especially for kids who are visually oriented learners but prefer calming games with minimal on-screen motion.

Pedagogy Is learning content seamlessly baked-in, and do kids build conceptual understanding? Is the product adaptable and empowering? Will skills transfer?

3

The eight main games in Kids Numbers and Math are well-aligned with basic math skills. Focused challenges and encouragement support kids as they solve problems. Kids can also learn to count to 10 in five languages.

Support Does the product take into account learners of varying abilities, skill levels, and learning styles? Does it address both struggling and advanced students?

2

More data on kids' progress would boost learning. Settings options allow adults to customize activities to match kids' learning needs.

Common Sense Reviewer

Dana Villamagna Classroom teacher

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Featured review by
Anitra L. , Classroom teacher

Classroom teacher

2

Math facts that are not too engaging!

This is a teaching tool that I will not be using with my class again. It was not very engaging and it did not allow me to set levels for the students. What did work was the encouraging words the app used when students were incorrect. Students are encouraged try again until they get the answer correct. Some of the games are engaging, but not enough for me to want to use this app with my students again. The games within the app do not have names, but pictures. I think it would have worked better if it had both names and pictures. My students would click them all until they found one that they felt worked for them. What I did like was that they were games with two and three addends. I also love that there were pictures for the students with sound effects which help make the games more engaging. For example, five apples and two are eaten, the image will show the apples eaten and make a crunch sound. Then students could count home many were left over. I wish the game would read the addition and subtraction problems to the students. I think this would be helpful to the ESL and special education students.

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© Common Sense Media Inc. 2017 All rights reserved. Common Sense, Common Sense Media, Common Sense Education and Common Sense Kids Action, associated names, associated trademarks, and logos are trademarks of Common Sense Media, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. (FEIN 41-2024986) Teaching strategies and digital citizenship tools for educators.

Counting And Cardinality
K.CC: Count To Tell The Number Of Objects.
K.CC.4	Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality.

K.CC.5	Count to answer “how many?” questions about as many as 20 things arranged in a line, a rectangular array, or a circle, or as many as 10 things in a scattered configuration; given a number from 1–20, count out that many objects.
Know Number Names And The Count Sequence.
K.CC.1	Count to 100 by ones and by tens.
Operations And Algebraic Thinking
1.OA: Add And Subtract Within 20.
1.OA.6	Add and subtract within 20, demonstrating fluency for addition and subtraction within 10. Use strategies such as counting on; making ten (e.g., 8 + 6 = 8 + 2 + 4 = 10 + 4 = 14); decomposing a number leading to a ten (e.g., 13 – 4 = 13 – 3 – 1 = 10 – 1 = 9); using the relationship between addition and subtraction (e.g., knowing that 8 + 4 = 12, one knows 12 – 8 = 4); and creating equivalent but easier or known sums (e.g., adding 6 + 7 by creating the known equivalent 6 + 6 + 1 = 12 + 1 = 13).
Represent And Solve Problems Involving Addition And Subtraction.
1.OA.1	Use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions, e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.2
K.OA: Understand Addition As Putting Together And Adding To, And Under- Stand Subtraction As Taking Apart And Taking From.
K.OA.1	Represent addition and subtraction with objects, fingers, mental images, drawings2, sounds (e.g., claps), acting out situations, verbal explanations, expressions, or equations.

K.OA.2	Solve addition and subtraction word problems, and add and subtract within 10, e.g., by using objects or drawings to represent the problem.

K.OA.5	Fluently add and subtract within 5.

Kids Numbers and Math

Solid basic math practice, especially useful for visual learners

Subjects and Skills: Kids Numbers and Math

Take a look inside

Lesson & Activity Ideas

Tool Overview

Learning Value

Rating Details

Overall Rating

Engagement Is the product stimulating, entertaining, and engrossing? Will kids want to return?

Pedagogy Is learning content seamlessly baked-in, and do kids build conceptual understanding? Is the product adaptable and empowering? Will skills transfer?

Support Does the product take into account learners of varying abilities, skill levels, and learning styles? Does it address both struggling and advanced students?

Key Standards Supported

Counting And Cardinality

Operations And Algebraic Thinking

Teacher Reviews

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