What we love…
Arcade-like math game that gets children to practice mental math. Game rules that encourage creative problem solving skills and better grasp of basic math concepts.
What we’d love to see…
Multiple players. A game option without time limit for beginners.
Summary
A useful app for students to practice and improve on their mental calculations while building their cognitive abilities.
Our Rating
Math Swipe Jr. By Michael Cozzolino is a surprisingly addictive game for practicing mental math calculations involving the four operators separately or all together at the same time. Though the game play is simple, this app works on several skills simultaneously.
Upon opening the app, you are greeted with the choice of playing with addition, subtraction, multiplication or division math problems or all of them in the same game. Whichever you choose, your child will work with whole numbers from 0 to 12 to get answers ranging from 0 to 144.
Once in the game, you’ll see a random ‘Number to Get’ at the bottom of the screen and you have to swipe across numbers and operator(s) that will give you an answer that is equal to that number. As you swipe, the number/operator explodes and the number sentence is shown. The rules are straightforward and there is no limit to how many numbers or math operators you can use as long as you arrive at the answer, e.g. to get 9, you can swipe 3+6 or 3+3+3 or any other combinations. The order of operations does not matter here as the app instantly calculates the answer as you swipe the numbers and operators. Scores are given for math problems solved within the time limit (60 or 100 seconds per game) and a random correct answer is briefly shown when a wrong answer is made (no penalty) before the next question comes up.
By allowing multiple steps to get to the same answer, this app trains children to think of different approaches to solving a math problem, encouraging them to fully grasp the various math concepts, beyond merely regurgitating numerical facts. It also means that children just learning basic math concepts or not familiar with times tables of larger numbers, are still able to play with the app and progress over time.
This app may not be fanciful but it can be addictive even for older kids and adults. My older kids enjoy the brain workout while playing the more challenging 4-operators game. As a parent, I can see how frequent playing of this app helps them with concentration, mental agility, processing speed, problem solving and mental rotation skills (the numbers and operators are constantly moving and rotating) which is great.
Wish list:-
- Multiple player profiles.
- Ability to pause (and return later) or stop the game before it ends.
- A game option where the player has to solve a number of questions with no time limit and compete in terms of accuracy instead of speed. This will ease the frustrations for the beginners.
Overall, Math Swipe Jr. is a useful app for students to practice and improve on their mental calculations of basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems, while building their cognitive abilities. Worth a download.
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Math Swipe Jr.
by Michael Cozzolino
Category: Education, Games, Educational, Kids Requirements: Compatible with iPad 3G, iPad WiFi, iPadMini4G, iPad 2 3G, iPadFourthGen4G, iPadThirdGen, iPad 2 WiFI, iPadThirdGen4G, iPadFourthGen, iPadMini Size: 5.22 MB |
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NOTE: A fee was received to expedite this review to the top of our waiting list but this payment has not influenced the objectivity of the review and all opinions have been offered honestly.
Giveaway
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Grace
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Alison, Amanda, Grace and Mary are four mothers from different parts of the world dedicated to educating parents about the best digital stories, educational apps, fun games and technology products available for their children. We also offer the latest news in apps for kids, interesting articles, developer interviews, free apps and regular giveaways!
I would like to thank Grace and the other iMum’s for reviewing Math Swipe Jr. and giving valuable feedback. I think I can add many if not all of the wish list requests in future updates.
Adding zero– when you add zero you add nothing…..Multiply by zero- If you have zero groups (or nothing within each group) of anything you have nothing.
Randomly ask sums in our daily life.
We use apps and computer games to practice mental math. New apps keep the math interesting.
I have my students make tens or use doubles if possible.
Teaching Nichole mental math is very difficult due to her being nonverbal. Basically, however, certain things are easier since she does most things in her head. I would love to work with this app and see if it enhances what she seems to know. Thanks!
Simple everyday problems such as we bought six bananas for a torte but we need eight….how many more should we buy?
Turning every choices or jobs into maths problems, getting my kids to work out money and change, halving food items etc, they enjoy it while they learn!
We are just starting basic addition and subtraction. Right now it is the 1′s + whatever number outloud.
7 yr. old twins…nuf said!