After the success of the iPhone app Measurement with my son I looked at the other two maths apps by the same developer. Punflay very kindly provided promo codes for us to download Number Sense and Alzebra, which we thoroughly enjoyed. What I like about Punflay apps is the light approach to maths. Their games are simple and entertaining, yet they cover the essential notions of early maths and on top of that they make it fun. All games are suitable for children aged between 4 and 8 in a way that they are easy enough to appeal to young children whilst being stimulating for older children who are able to test their knowledge and get rewards for it. Gratification is an integral part of learning so a great educational app could not leave out the rewards. Children earn an award to go on the virtual shelf for every game they complete. Alzebra consists of 5 games all about patterns and sequences including numbers, shapes and sounds.

Number Sense is definitely the more challenging of the two considering that my son is 7 and the topics of this app are in line with his school’s curriculum so he can apply his knowledge to play the games by himself without help and the rewards feel much sweeter because of that. However the games are just as suitable for younger children with some guidance for early exposure to basic counting. The Toot Toot Train game requires simple additions and subtractions and Fishoonka is all about learning the concept of greater than, less than and equal to. Numberella is all about comparing numbers without objects and recognizing the smallest or the biggest number on the screen according to the colourful donkey’s question. Other games in this app are designed to help kids counting from 1 to 30 in the correct order by connecting the dots in Do the Dotty and by feeding number balls to a friendly monster in Booster balls.