Math Land: Mental Arithmetic

Mathland is a gamified approach to developing and reinforcing math skills. After launching the app, users are asked to enter their birth year. Next, the game loads the user’s avatar on an island, and users are taught how to navigate their avatar in the game to collect coins, jump over objects, interact with other characters, and complete challenges. As users progress through the game, they are presented with challenges that require them to answer addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division questions along with comparing both positive and negative integers. By correctly answering the questions, users advance islands in the game and the questions become more challenging and complex. If users answer incorrectly, the app provides them with another opportunity to answer the question. The ultimate goal in the game is to complete all the islands stages.

From the main screen, users can select tabs to further explore the app. The “Math Zone” tab lets users select a type of math problem to solve and then provides them 60 seconds to answer as many questions as possible. The “Collectible” tab shows users the in-game challenges they completed while playing the game. The “Gems” tab shows users the achievements they have earned while playing the game. The “Settings” tab lets users change their age they initially entered when launching the app, the option to reset the game, view the credits, and access additional games by Educagames. The “Educagames” tab also shows users more games they can sample.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.EducaGames.MathLand

iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1304367299

Instructional Ideas for Mathland

1. After teaching a math skill, teachers can have students use this app to reinforce that skill. As they play the game, teachers can make sweeps of the room to support and monitor students. If teachers identify that a student needs specific support, they can then develop a mini-lesson to support that student.
2. Teachers can share this game with parents/guardians at an open house or conference and encourage they let their children play the game to continue developing their math skills at home.
3. This app can be used for a friendly class challenge. To structure it, teachers can challenge their students to see who can complete the game or advance in the game by a certain point in time (e.g., week, month, semester). Teachers can then have students log their progress and reward the winning students with a homework pass, a food party, or other type of recognition.
4. Teachers can have students play this app and compare it to other similar apps, such as Running Noah, PaGamO, and Math Planet, among others. Students can then share what they liked and did not like about the apps. When students share, teachers can ask questions about the different math experiences they had while engaging the app to develop students’ academic language.

Screenshots of Mathland

Ratings of Mathland

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