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

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Marble Math Junior

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Sticky math practice encourages kids to keep playing, maze after maze

Common Sense says

4

Rating Details

Teachers say (2 Reviews)

$avg_user_learning_rating

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Grades

K-3 This grade range is a recommendation by Common Sense Education and not the developer/publisher.

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Kids roll a marble around the screen to collect answers to problems.

Fun twists, like a maze ghost that allows marbles to roll through walls, keep gameplay fresh.

Tap the problem and a narrator will read it. Good for emerging readers!

Teachers can customize which type of math skills the game includes for each user.

Pros: Great customization options let you tailor gameplay to each student's needs.

Cons: Some of the obstacles may not be clear right away.

Bottom Line: Students will enjoy practicing math skills with word problems in fun mazes.

Lesson & Activity Ideas

Marble Math Junior is an excellent resource for individual student math practice. That teachers can create as many customizable user accounts on Marble Math Junior is yet another bonus in ease of classroom use for this spot-on math practice game. Kids will get excited about choosing their silly avatar face parts. For young students newer to educational apps than older Marble Math-using students, teachers may want to take extra time while making a user account with each student to explain the basics of gameplay, as well as adjusting the options with each student so they can be most comfortable with the settings, such as rolling the marbles with a finger or tilting the device to move the marbles, and removing obstacles or keeping them for extra challenge. Other ideas: Place a jar of marbles in the classroom and have kids add one from a bag into the jar for every session played or for reaching point total milestones on Marble Math Junior for a visual illustration of how practice adds up. Encourage students to identify and talk about the unique characteristics of each beautiful marble as they choose one to put in the jar.

Tool Overview

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.

Learning Value

This is a fun game that requires young kids to do some deceptively complex thinking, as kids are required to focus on both the math problems and the mazes. Kids can learn shape recognition, sequencing, number values, fractions, ordinals, addition, subtraction, and multiplication from very simple problems up to 100. For example, the problem "Collect numbers that multiply to make 15" sets the player's marble off into the maze seeking to roll over the numbers 5 and 3 and avoiding the numbers 6, 7, and 4. Kids can also practice their money and time skills. Decision-making and strategy skills are inherent parts of this game as kids move their marble through the maze. Marble Math Junior is an exceptionally fun way to practice math.

Rating Details

Overall Rating

4

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

5

One of the most fun, customizable, and effective math games available for early elementary school-age kids. So absorbing that kids easily forget they're practicing math skills like shape recognition, addition, and subtraction.

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

4

The combined challenge of answering concept-building math problems and moving a marble through mazes while avoiding obstacles helps kids learn to strategize via spatial relations. Customization options allow kids learn at their own pace.

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

4

Parents and teachers can customize style of play, skill sets, and levels to make this game more effective and less frustrating for kids. Pre-readers can tap on problems to hear them spoken.

Common Sense Reviewer

Dana Villamagna Classroom teacher

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Teacher Reviews

5

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Featured review by
Susie L. , Classroom teacher

Classroom teacher

Cecil Intermediate School
McDonald, PA

5

Move your marble and make math fun!

Marble Math Junior is a customizable app perfect for early elementary students. You can toggle between a number of concepts including shape recognition and matching, counting money, telling time, ordinal numbers, identifying fractions, and addition, subtraction, and multiplication to 100. Each board lists a task at the top of the screen. Users must manipulate a marble through the maze while completing the task. The focus is, most certainly, on the task. Child can’t read well? No worries! The task can be read to them!

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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.

Geometry
K.G: Identify And Describe Shapes (Squares, Circles, Triangles, Rectangles, Hexagons, Cubes, Cones, Cylinders, And Spheres).
K.G.1	Describe objects in the environment using names of shapes, and describe the relative positions of these objects using terms such as above, below, beside, in front of, behind, and next to.
Measurement And Data
1.MD: Tell And Write Time.
1.MD.3	Tell and write time in hours and half-hours using analog and digital clocks.
2.MD: Work With Time And Money.
2.MD.7	Tell and write time from analog and digital clocks to the nearest five minutes, using a.m. and p.m.
3.MD: Solve Problems Involving Measurement And Estimation Of Intervals Of Time, Liquid Volumes, And Masses Of Objects.
3.MD.1	Tell and write time to the nearest minute and measure time intervals in minutes. Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of time intervals in minutes, e.g., by representing the problem on a number line diagram.
Number And Operations In Base Ten
2.NBT: Use Place Value Understanding And Properties Of Operations To Add And Subtract.
2.NBT.5	Fluently add and subtract within 100 using strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction.
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).
2.OA: Add And Subtract Within 20.
2.OA.2	Fluently add and subtract within 20 using mental strategies.2 By end of Grade 2, know from memory all sums of two one-digit numbers.
K.OA: Understand Addition As Putting Together And Adding To, And Under- Stand Subtraction As Taking Apart And Taking From.
K.OA.5	Fluently add and subtract within 5.

Marble Math Junior

Sticky math practice encourages kids to keep playing, maze after maze

Subjects and Skills: Marble Math Junior

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

Geometry

Measurement And Data

Number And Operations In Base Ten

Operations And Algebraic Thinking

Teacher Reviews

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