Apps + curiosity — do the math kid!

My five-year-old son recently explained to my three-year-old son that they were two years apart. Three years old plus two years old equals five years old, he explains.

I was hugely proud of his reasoning and math skills. He hasn’t learned them exclusively at school. His math learning has happened, in part, on a tablet running educational math apps that we’ve found for him. He’s learned addition and subtraction, and as he gets older he’ll be learning more complex math.

The most impressive math education app I’ve seen has to be DragonBox Algebra 5+. What impresses me is that its clever design can teach all sorts of complex algebra concepts without making children feel as if they are learning mathematics.

The app is like a game, and it starts at an abstract level: The player has to match small cartoon icons with their matching “dark” alternatives, eventually arranging the pieces on the playing board so that only the magical “box” of the game’s title is left on the board. As the child plays through the levels, the abstract cartoon icons are replaced with numbers and mathematical symbols, but with the same gameplay and sound effects.

There’s also the YodelOh Math Mountain. This app involves a cartoon yodeler who ascends a graphical mountain over time — if he gets to the top, he yodels his way to his doom. To keep the yodeler from climbing the peak, the player has to answer math questions against the clock. For example, the question may be “10 x 15 = ?”, tapping the right answer saves the yodeler, whereas taking too long or tapping the wrong answer makes him take a step up the mountain or get butted uphill by a cartoon ram. It’s $3 on iOS and, $2 on Android.

Madagascar Math Ops, is another game filled with characters from the Madagascar cartoon movie franchise. The app has a multiple-choice mental math quiz and lots of animation. Winning moves are rewarded with a short in-app game. There is a free edition with limited levels on both iOS and Android; the full version costs $3.

For a slightly more traditional route, try MathBoard. It has gamelike elements, but it’s based on a simulated old-fashioned school chalkboard. The app’s screen is split into a quiz area and a work area. In the quiz area, a math puzzle is posed using traditional notation. Players choose the answer from a list of numbers to solve the puzzle, and they can use the faux chalkboard on the other side of the screen to work out the solution. If they get stuck, a “problem solver” window shows which can help you to correctly work out the answer.

— New York Times News Service