Bottom Line: Math Tales – The Jungle is a brand new app from Marshmallow Games designed to help teach your little one basic math skills and concepts. This app is presented as a story told in rhyme with mini games interspersed throughout focusing on various math skills.
If you’d like to purchase Math Tales – The Jungle ($2.99, iPad/iPhone), please use the handy link below so they’ll know how you found them.
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No ads, no in-app purchases, external links in protected area
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Math Tales – The Jungle opens up with a cartoon lion telling the other animals of the jungle (in rhyme) that they are about to have a friend returning home (because Ray the elephant has escaped from the circus) and that they must all prepare for a party. After this intro, we are taken to the first of nine chapters.
Each chapter shows us a new animal along with their story (again, in rhyme) and gives us three mini-games concentrating on different math skills. Kids can help sort flags for a banner, and they can color balloons. They get to sort animals by size and count out ingredients to help the tiger chef bake a cake. There is a rhino that has lost his glasses, and young users get to help him find his lost things. There is a basic puzzle where youngsters can help complete jungle scenes.
Kids are asked to help a snake find some lost presents, looking up and down and under and out. Then they are asked to determine if the alligator or the frog is bringing more favors to the party. Next we count different animals and add up how many live in different parts of the jungle. Finally we help figure out how many items the naughty monkey has destroyed.
Math Tales – The Jungle is designed to concentrate on six themes (colors, numbers, logic, visual attention, spatial perception, basic operations), and there is a place in the parent’s area where you are supposed to be able to track your child’s progress. At any time in the settings, you can individually turn off the voice, music, and sounds.
Watch Ellie bring this app to life here:
What I liked:
- The games themselves were varied and (at least in initial play through) they offered many challenging ways to present different math concepts to very young children.
What I liked less:
- My biggest issue with the app was the story being told in rhyme. This was a problem for me because some of it felt very contrived and forced for the sake of rhyming. I feel like this led to some parts that didn’t make sense because they were trying to force in a word that didn’t make sense or perhaps quite mean what they were intending it to all for the sake of the rhyme. The point of the app could be made just as easily with a non-rhyming, straight-forward story.
- There were also occasions where (because of the forced rhyme) the app limited itself to one option for answers only. I’m particularly talking about in chapter 4 where the rhyme itself limits the choices to yellow items.
- Throughout the narrative we found misspelled/misused words and incorrect grammar. Oftentimes this happens when an app is translated from one language to another. I wish that the developer had taken care to have the app edited a little more strictly.
- I also had concerns that the tracking function in the parent's area was not functioning properly for me. Despite repeated completions of every chapter, the only thing that ever showed as complete was Colors.
Overall, the math games themselves were not bad and they presented various skills in ways that would appeal to young children. I fear that the forced rhyme and other issues will distract from the benefits that the app might offer. 3.5 Stars.
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Kelli's daughter had her first piano recital recently. She rocked. Smart Apps for Kids was paid a fee to review this app in a priority manner.
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