Common Sense Media Review
By Mieke VanderBorght
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Early number practice rounded up into cute, playful games.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 3+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Download
Videos and Photos
Doodle Math: Numbers
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's It About?
DOODLE MATH: NUMBERS has six games in which kids identify, trace, count, partition, arrange, and add and subtract numbers 1 through 10. When kids finish 10 tasks in a game, they get a puzzle piece. Keep playing to collect enough pieces to complete pictures of the little creatures that appear throughout the games. Games can be played in any order, though there is a vague sense of increasing sophistication if kids start at the beginning and proceed in order.
Is It Any Good?
A nice presentation of cute mini-games approaches number literacy from multiple angles that build in complexity. Though there's a nice progression, some games may not provide enough scaffolding for the target age range. For example, it can be hard for young kids to start counting up from 3 (rather than starting at 1), and there's no explicit guidance for the partitioning and simple arithmetic games, so kids may get the game but not the number concept, which can easily fly over their heads. There also are a few quirks that some may find charming while others may find them annoying: The narrator's sweet encouragement can quickly turn grating, some word choices are a bit odd (at one point the creatures are described as "naughty," which isn't accurate), and it takes a long time to earn all the puzzle pieces. Also, the tracing game has kids approach the number 5 in an unusual way (not from the top horizontal line), and the number 9 might not be written in the way kids recognize, though it won't confuse them in the context. Despite minor flaws, the games provide solid early learning practice -- especially with a little conceptual reinforcement from a grown-up -- and it's a nice collection of games.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about all the ways numbers appear in our daily lives. Count steps as you walk up stairs, divide groups of blocks into smaller groups, and take one item away and add it back and see what happens.
Play with your kids and talk them through what's going on when they partition numbers. Point out that there can be multiple ways to break up some numbers into fact families.
App Details
- Devices : iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad
- Subjects : Math : addition , counting , numbers , subtraction
- Skills : Thinking & Reasoning : part-whole relationships
- Pricing structure : Paid
- Release date : September 3, 2015
- Genre : Education
- Topics : Numbers and Letters
- Publisher : NCSOFT
- Version : 1.0.7
- Minimum software requirements : iOS 6.0 or later
- Last updated : October 1, 2025
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