Math Games 1st Grade

Child-friendly, educational and fun. Quite a few different math activities are included too. My personal is the activity with the dragon -counting its spots. Too cute, and fun for younger ages too.

I would highly recommend this app for addressing the mathematical content standard 1.OA.6. The app has 9 levels that increase in difficulty. The app starts with a counting game for students to review, then goes on to addition and subtraction games. The games each have an audio of the instructions for how to play. Also, some of the games have scaffolds for the students where the audio will direct them towards the right answer without giving the answer away. This app allows the teacher to change the level of difficulty to fit the students needs by having the students work with numbers 1-10 or with higher numbers up to 20. This app can be used to meet individual student needs while they are counting or answering addition and subtraction problems.

Many educational apps look promising but upon first use it is immediately apparent that it is mostly bells and whistles, the quality just ain’t there. You’re tempted to think it was cobbled together without much attention to detail and quality. I went through a number of such Math apps that had catchy titles and high star ratings but which ultimately disappointed. Not sure how I arrived at this app “Connie Math”, it wasn’t among the first in search results and it didn’t have any star rating or reviews but the description was well written and it claimed a thorough feature set so I gave it a chance. I am SO glad I did! My experience with this app was the complete opposite of the disappointment described above. The author(s) has obviously spent considerable time and effort honing the list of activities. The quality of implementation is superb and extremely well polished. I particularly appreciate that each activity has a customization panel where you can configure things like difficulty level and other task-dependent settings. It really feels like they consulted professional educators early on in design. Graphics are excellent. My daughter is just under 6 and it was a bit of struggle getting her to do (let alone enjoy) her Math homework but she absolutely loves this app and I now use it as a reward that she can “enjoy” after doing her regular homework. Sometimes she asks (begs) to use it during play time and so I often “let” her :) I think because she so enjoys doing the activities, she’s so engrossed in the “fun” of it, it puts her in the zone to learn optimally. Her Math has certainly improved (the activities in this app happen to reinforce, in a fun way, the content of her actual school work) over the course of 3 weeks she has been using this. This app is for 1st grade and I don’t see it for any other grades. My almost-4-year-old daughter likes it too (naturally she wants to do everything elder sister does!) but only the first activity (Counting) is really useable for her. I do hope the author eventually releases an app for other grades/ages. Highly recommend this app for any parents of first graders who want their kids to “want to do Math for fun” 👌