Marble Math Junior

Marble Math Junior is a younger kids' version of the excellent math app Marble Math. Like its counterpart, Marble Math Junior is an ingenious app that combines a marble maze game with math word problems. Teachers can create as many user accounts as needed, and customize each. Students in kindergarten through third grade can practice many Common Core-based and other basic math skills here, including shape recognition, addition and subtraction to 100, time, money, fractions, sequencing, and more. There are three levels of play, and many options of skills to include in the game's word problems. Since this version is for emerging and early readers, students can hear the problems read aloud by touching the words at the top of the screen. Once you've established user accounts and settings, students simply roll the marble around the screen to touch the correct numbers to answer the problems, roll around obstacles, and move the ball toward the pinball-like hole to earn points and move onto the next question.

Teachers can also customize what skills they want kids to work on and in which currency (for the money-related problems). Math problems appear at the top of the screen, such as "Collect numbers that equal three," and kids navigate through the maze with their marble to pick up answers to the problem. Three levels (easy, medium, hard) provide progression of difficulty. Moving the marble around the maze while collecting answers and avoiding obstacles is so absorbing that kids easily forget they're practicing math skills. Lots of customization options and unique marble rewards make this game effective, sticky, and tons of fun.