Common Sense Media Review
Kids get hands on with fractions; guidance needed at first.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 8+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Download
Videos and Photos
Virtual Manipulatives!
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's It About?
Kids will need a grown-up's help in the beginning to understand how to manipulate the tabs and bars (or circles, if you choose) to show the connections among fractions, decimals, and percentages. After the initial learning curve, kids will be able to snap boxes together and line them up to convert percentages, fractions, and decimals with independence.
Is It Any Good?
VIRTUAL MANIPULATIVES is a solid math app with a focused purpose: to help learners visually understand the relationships among percentages, fractions, and decimals. Kids who use fraction bars/tiles at school will probably know what to do with the app and may find it to be a great homework helper. Otherwise, you'll need to explain the how and why for using this tool before kids will get much out of it. This is where the app falls short: It doesn't offer any guidance to parents on how to use the app with their kids.
But if you're able to meet that challenge, Virtual Manipulatives can make a tough concept a bit more easy to understand for kids with a variety of learning styles, with visual representations that kids can use their hands to manipulate. It's colorful, well designed, and free, making it a good addition to your math apps collection.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Support kids with an initial demonstration of equivalency and conversions; you'll need to use sources outside the app for tips.
Encourage kids to make "pizza" using the pie-shaped pieces or "candy bars" with the bars to discover that the more parts in a whole, the smaller the individual pieces.
App Details
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
Suggest an Update
Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
See how we rate