Review : NumberSense for iPad

There seems to be apps for kids popping up every hour any more, mostly dealing with the alphabet and numbers. With good reason, the iPad is a great learning tool for this age group, and let’s face it they will be using technology we didn’t have in the classroom as they age, might as well get them started.

Number Sense ($1.99) is designed to teach basic number skills to kids preschool through kindergarten age. It helps with counting, comparing, addition, subtraction, and math concepts like greater-than/less-than. Using cartoon graphics and characters children are asked to complete various tasks to help learn and recognize numbers in many different ways.

Numbers Sense includes audio instructions to help those kids who have yet to master reading, and has feedback for completion in the form of a child’s voice as well as trophy rewards. There is a shelf of sorts that stores all the trophies won so that kids can always look to see their accomplishments.

Within the app kids can engage in 5 different games and while the app is interactive in the numerical sense, my kids actually found touching items that weren’t part of the game itself just as fun (touch the donkey and it makes donkey sounds, the owl hoots, etc), it’s a small addition, but one kids will look for right off the bat.

The app was far from perfect at launch, and suffered from bugs early on, so if you downloaded it before the recent update I’d make sure to get the newest version. The only issues that seem to persist now are minor details in the “touching” of objects. By that I mean that certain objects require too much precision for kids to really have an easy time. They can do it, but it takes a few attempts, it’s almost like the app was designed for bigger fingers in a few instances.

Other than that, and I’m sure they are already working on it, the app is a nice little assistant for kids still learning numbers. It’s animated, it’s engaging, and it helps conquer a hard area for children, mathematics.