Montessori Numbers - Math Activities for Kids

This visually engaging app is an ideal teaching tool to help children with autism learn a wide range of mathematical skills and is relevant to a very broad spread of ability levels.

Benefits

• Experiment with quantities and learn their names

• Learn the numerals and their names

• Learn to count

• Associate quantities with numerals/numbers

• Understand the decimal system and place value

• Introduce addition and subtraction

• Learn to trace numbers

Montessori Numbers builds on the iPad’s touch feature, and uses verbal feedback for more efficient learning. The app can pronounce any number between 0 and 1009 (American, British and Australian voices available). 

Montessori numbers has some fantastic features that really make it stand out as a teaching and learning resource.

• The app uses the familiar grouping of numbers of objects into individual ones, lengths of tens and a 10x10 grid of 100 just like the ubiquitous dienes classroom resource.
• Montessori numbers offers the user the option to change the appearance of the background and the objects being counted which is a really nice feature and aids with engagement and variety for anyone using the app.  Users are able to choose from: wooden dienes blocks, pearls, diamonds, cupcakes, flowers or small yellow taxi cabs.
• The tone and clarity of the voice is excellent and really helps support the very clear visuals within the app. In the settings menu users are able to select between American, British and Australian accents.
• After each guided activity the user is offered the opportunity to enter the "building game".  This is a lovely treat for the child as they get to use the numeral and visuals from their guided task to effectively have free play and explore by adding more resources, changing colours of numerals and even turning the gravity off so objects gently float around the screen.
• Touching the background in this mode sets of a little firework of shapes accompanied by ascending or descending musical notes.
• When working with numbers beyond nine place value is reinforced by colour coding digits according to their place value.  Hundreds are red; tens blue and ones are green.
• The app offers a really useful assessment feature where individuals can be set up as distinct users and the app tracks the user's progress and provides very clear reports on progress which can be shared via e-mail.

Upon opening the app the user is presented with five options covering areas of early mathematical learning: counting, 1:1 correspondence, place value, number recognition and number formation.

In the 1-20 section users are given a set of numerals ranging from 1 to 5, 1 to 10 or 11 to 20.  Once the user has made their selection the numbers are read out in a clear voice by the app and each one shows a quantity of objects with a watermark appearance next to the numerals to support association between the numeral and the value it represents.   The app models to the user moving objects to the number until the target quantity has been reached. It is then the user's time to do this. This really supports one to one correspondence when learning to count and relate numbers to the quantity value.  From 10 onwards users have the ability to select a group of ten objects to move to the number and the voice counts that as 10.  This reinforces grouping by 10 and early place value learning.

In the quantity section you are given the options of working at three levels of difficulty: "1 to 9", "10 to 99" or "100 to 999".  The child is shown a number based on the selected level of difficulty and the aim is to place groups of 100, 10 or single 1s into the correct column to reach their target number.  Once this is done small fireworks go off the child is invited to the building game or to play again.

In the numerals section users are once again given three levels of difficulty: "1 to 9", "10 to 99" or "100 to 999".  The child is then asked to find a given number and he/she must then use numeral cards at the bottom of the screen.  For children working at a lower level this is an excellent activity to develop number recognition and as the level of difficulty progresses it begins to develop understanding of place value. Visual representations of the 100s, 10s and 1s appear when a number is moved to the correct column.

In numeral (from quantities) section children are asked to count how many object there are and then move the numeral cards to the correct column to make the given number. Again, this section offers the same three levels of difficulty.  This provides a great opportunity to children to put together a range of skills depending on their level of ability.

The final area of learning is the tracing section and this is one of the best character formation features I've ever seen on an app. Children select a number from 0-9 and then have a large number with a start and finish point indicated. As children trace the number an attractive animated line appears where they trace.  There is a small margin for error but if the child strays too far from the tracing line or does not complete the number the line disappears and they must start again.  A visual showing a representation of the quantity is shown alongside the numeral throughout the activity.

All in all this is a really well put together apps that can be used with a wide range of abilities and to cover an extensive selection of early mathematical skills.  Its excellent visuals and clear audio really help engage children and support their learning.