iPad app review: King of Math

Back in February, I caved in and bought an iPad. For those who know me, you know that this was a huge leap. It remains the only Apple product in our house, and will remain as such for the foreseeable future. However, I took a workshop on iPad apps in the classroom, in preparation for my school’s purchase of iPads with some grant money, and I fell in love with many of the education apps that were available. Unfortunately (from my point of view), most of these were only available for an OS platform, not for Android. I was made such a believer by the class that I actually went out and bought my own iPad… to get used to and screen apps on my own, and to have them available for my private tutoring. I remain very glad that I did. (And I remain very much a fan of the particular teacher and seminar that got me hooked – it was a BER training taught by Joanne Troutner.) With that in mind, I’d like to start writing reviews here for some of the better apps I find, starting with… King of Math.

“King of Math” is a game intended to reinforce basic math skills. The player begins the game assigned a character that is a farmer, and as he or she completes levels, his or her character is advanced in rank. The rankings and overall look of the progress pages are meant to invoke a middle-age feel. There is a free version of this app, which allows one to play the first several levels, up through subtraction. For the higher math skills, one must purchase the app, which is reasonably priced at 99 cents. Overall, I quite like this app, and it seems appropriate for and interesting to students at the middle school level. There is a “King of Math Jr.” also available (with the same free/fee division) for elementary school students, and I enjoyed that app as well. These games fill a consistent need – ways to keep kids interested and invested in practicing their basic computation skills.

Pizza Fraction Fun

As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, and as the subtitle above suggests, I am primarily a reading teacher. However, I have taught several other subjects, including social studies, computers, and math. While these are not my primary focus, I do spend a fair amount of time working in these areas. I no longer teach math in school, for example, but I have several tutoring jobs wherein our focus is math. With that in mind, I’m going to recommend a resource for math today.

When I work with children in math, I focus on keeping the lessons highly interactive, heavy on visual and kinesthetic clues, and full of fun. To that end, I utilize a lot of math games with my students. When we get to factions, there’s one game in particular that I’ve come to really like and my kids consistently request. That game is Pizza Fraction Fun.

I like this game because it’s flexible. The pieces can be used for a lesson, and there are 6 variations of gameplay provided in the box. Depending on your lesson, it’s  very easy to come up with challenges outside of these games, as well. It helps kids get a spatial feel for fractions, see how equivalent fractions work, learn to add and subtract fractional pieces, and all the while, it is amusing to them because it’s based around realistic-looking slices of pizza. If you’re looking for a way to make your students less hostile to learning fractions, I’d recommend this as a piece of your plan.