Last Updated on February 2, 2024 by Editorial Team
The essence of academics often starts at the preschool and kindergarten levels. While many multisensory attempts may be employed in class to make these little learners versed with regular schooling, a special strategy for home-based learning may be needed to ensure the proper practice. This is where apps may come in handy for subjects like maths.
In this modern digital world, it should not be a surprise if you see a plethora of math apps designed for kids when you go searching for one. It becomes very difficult to choose the one which has the best quality and also supports the child’s learning of the subject.
This article will be our attempt to provide you with some basic tips for selecting math apps for kids in preschool and kindergarten.
How can math apps help preschoolers & kindergarteners?
Math app helps improve the understanding of basic math concepts with multiple cues. This way, reckoning numbers, and solving sums get an intriguing twist for the pupils. Here are a few grounds where applications may have distinct assistance.
- Most math apps are often designed to ensure multisensory learning. This is often assured by stipulating the pupils interact with this companion. Further, feedback assists them to learn from their mistakes. Another intriguing edge is that these freeware are often encompassed with curriculum-based content
- Diverse practice opportunities, let learners grasp multiple approaches, thereby assisting them to address complex challenges later as well
- After an effective lecture in school, these may accompany little ones by offering brain breaks, implicitly letting them refurnish the lessons.
- Not only at a personal level, teachers can also take assistance from these apps to craft classroom activities. Or they may employ these games as brain breaks in school as well.
How did we choose these apps?
There are some qualities one should consider before using an app for any educational purpose. Below we have curated some criteria that might help you to find the best suitable app without compromising the quality of education and experience for the young learner:
- An ideal companion may need to be interactive and should engage the child in active problem-solving.
- The app should be much more than remembering number facts. Learning to memorize numbers and facts should also make the child think, reason, and solve problems.
- They may be able to provide ample directions on how to engage in the activity through demonstrations or step-by-step instructions.
- For incorrect responses, the feedback may often assist by encouraging and correct responses.
- These recreations are often designed for the activities to be playful with fun game characters and an engaging storyline.
- The app should introduce new math vocabulary in a way that will make sense to the child. The app should not make the child get confused and frustrated by the words and concepts.
Fun math apps for preschoolers and kindergarteners
Ensuring all the above-mentioned attributes, we filtered out a list of free and easy-to-access games that your little one may like to dive into to learn numbers.
1. Elmo Loves the 123s
Who does not know about Sesame Street? They have been such an important part of everyone’s child in the 90s. This app is about the Sesame Workshops by Elmo and Abby, who make math fun for your child.
They will teach the kids about number tracing, identification, addition and subtraction, and many other lessons that they will get to know after the kids trace numbers to unlock surprises. There are counting games, coloring pages, and many other fun games.
One of the most important features of this app is that the parents can track what kids are learning. This particular app is user-friendly for kids of four and above age under parental guidance.
App link: Playstore | Appstore
2. Quick Math Jr.
An educational app that is designed to cater to the kid’s mathlete’s aptitude. It includes all of the requisite addition, subtraction, and monster counting along with handwriting recognition.
For this reason, this app is not limited to just developing math skills like counting fingers and toes, but they will also learn and practice writing numbers. This app, under parental guidance, is suitable for kids ages four and above, available on iOS.
It is claimed to be a good fit for children aged 3 to 7. Twelve games here ensure better engagement and coping with the adaptivity of the learner. Other features include unlimited player profiles, customization of characters, and a report card for easy access for parents and mentors. All these features may make it a fitting pick for students and teachers.
App link: Appstore
3. Endless Numbers
No one knows why, but monsters always interest children and give them an adrenaline rush rather than scare them. So why not use them to teach the kids preschoolers math?
The app uses animated ugly dolls and monsters in vibrant colors and fun designs to introduce mathematical concepts like counting, sequences, and basic arithmetic in a fun manner! This app can be used on computers as well and it is available on Windows along with iOS and Android. Suitable for kids of ages 4 and above under parental supervision.
With simple UI and gameplay, it may be a good pick for learning numbers making it pretty useful for little learners.
App link: Playstore | Appstore
4. Marble Math Junior
This app helps in solving a variety of math problems by collecting numbers and bonuses as the player navigates a marble maze.
There are three difficulty levels and 16 marble styles, and this app also provides the option to personalize as per the kid’s needs, personality, and skills. The games can also be customized in order to concentrate on the areas that the child needs. Interface with colorful balls may make it interesting gameplay for young learners.
With 4.6 stars, this application has bagged many awards including Common Sense Media Award and the Parents Magazine Best Math App. The application helps juniors with concepts like shape recognition, telling time, and basic operations like addition, subtraction, and much more.
App link: Playstore | Appstore
5. Moose Math
A math app from the award-winning Duck Duck Moose developers focuses on counting, addition, subtraction, sorting, and geometry. This app is aligned with the common core standards for kindergarten and first grade.
It also includes a teacher section in order to monitor the progress. It is available on Android and iOS. Interesting activities in the game include moose juice for counting, paint pet for number dots, pet bingo for operations lost and found for shapes and colors, and dot to dot is a bonus activity. With a diverse set of options to choose from, the players may be enticed to get engaged for long hours.
For greater accessibility, this application is available on iOS and Android. Helping with a report card, this application informs the understanding of the concepts and the status of the student time and again.
App link: Playstore | Appstore
6. Park Math
This math app has 3 different levels, which is great for extending students. Level 1 focuses on numbers up to 20 with an extension up to the number 100 by level 3.
This app focuses on numbers, counting, addition, subtraction, greater than/less than, halves, patterns, and sorting. Currently, this app is present for iOS but will hopefully be launched for Android as well. The activities in this game include numbers, counting, operations, patterns, comparison, and sorting.
With multiple levels and curriculums, this application involves animated figures, which entices the children and makes learning fun for them!
App link: Appstore
7. Khan Academy Kids
Known for reliable content for students, Khan Academy ensures to have an app for kids. Ensuring all sorts of skill development in students, this app has a collection of lessons, activities, games, and some reading materials. All the content here is ensured to be appropriate for little learners.
With mostly white and blue themes, the app opens with an animal host; The users are taken to a library of options for the user to choose from. For each option, a unique animal host appears to teach, guide, and ensure practice.
With a focus on multiple subjects, especially math, it claims to ensure complete practice for students after school. The Edge of this app is that it is absolutely free and also is serene without ads and diversions.
App link: Playstore | Appstore
8. Lucky’s Math Game
Better interaction may make a game suitable for young learners. This app ensures to provide a complete iterating interface with a squirrel host named Lucky. The app opens by asking the player to choose the difficulty level of practice questions. To start with, easy may be selected.
The set of questions starts with simple numbers and operations with interactive digital cards and voice cues. With a complete set of 17 games, Lucky’s Tree of Puzzles ensures noteworthy gameplay as the learner practices.
This app has multiple unique features making it worth considering. Firstly, the instruction is available in multiple languages including English, Arabic, Finnish, and also Spanish. Secondly, it ensures a three-dimensional interaction with the players. Finally, this app needs no purchases and internet access and also has a provision for parents to monitor the performance.
App link: Playstore
9. Numbers – 123 Games for kids
Get your child excited about math right from an early age through this interesting educational app by Bimi Boo Kids. The app features close to 100 games and activities to foster a love for learning in young minds.
The app caters to kids aged 2–5 years old and covers a variety of topics like counting and tracing numbers. The games come with animations of cute animals that catch the eye of early learners and keep them engaged. What makes this app extra special is that, in addition to learning English numerals, kids can learn numbers in more than a dozen different languages.
Although the app contains no ads for a disturbance-free experience, it does offer in-app purchases if you want to access all its features. It can also be installed on Windows so that kids can enjoy the activities on the bigger screen of a personal computer or laptop.
App link: Playstore
10. Math Kids: Math Games for Kids
Here is another app to keep young kids entertained while allowing them to learn basic math skills. Parents and teachers love this app across the globe. No wonder it has crossed over 10 million downloads to date.
Toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners can begin by learning numbers and counting and later move on to advanced concepts of addition and subtraction. Completing games would be so much fun, as every time they finish a task, they will earn cute stickers as a reward and token of appreciation.
The app also allows one to keep track of a child’s progress and adjust the difficulty levels based on the current competency level of the child. With multiple features and child-centered activities, this app is a must-try if you want an app that’s completely free and has no distractions appearing on screen time and again.
App Link: Playstore
11. 123 Numbers- Counting and tracing
Hosted by a pretty bear, this app is all about ensuring that learners trace and learn about numbers effortlessly. With five levels of games, it may be an additional mentor for little learners of numbers.
The first game gives a number on the screen, which the player needs to trace out with their fingers. This way, the shape, and dimensions are learned. The second game assists the pupils in counting easy numbers with routine digital manipulatives like fruits, vehicles, and animals. Thirdly, the users may also be tested to fill in the blanks with good graphics and stickers to comprehend. Finally, a combination of all these may also be availed.
For numbers and math, this app may turn up to be a handbook for your little one. With easy access, practice is simplified with better interaction and cues.
App link: Playstore
Wrapping up,
Introducing and teaching mathematical concepts to young children without boring them out and keeping them interested may be arduous for any adult. Regular practice of the concept is needed in order to sharpen their skills and brains. But only paper and pen practice may need an additional strategy to intrigue for participating in further lessons.
For this reason, fun and interactive apps with games and activities will keep them in regular practice. There are plenty of applications that cater to a single concept like Abacus. It may also be necessary to pick the correct ones, and the kids should be supervised with regard to screen timing and getting addicted to these apps cause they are that interesting! Check out the above games to see if any of these may be a good fit for your little one.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,