Categories: Archived Post

Math Shake is an effective math app for young students

Years before I became your friendly neighborhood tech blogger, I was a teacher. In 2015, my wife celebrated* her 20th year as a teacher. All this to say we know our pedagogy, which makes it difficult for us to find education apps that we’re satisfied with. While Math Shake for iPad (free with in-app purchases) isn’t long on looks, it’s got it where it counts. Specifically, it presents word problems along with tools and strategies that help students discover the solution. It’s quite well done.

Math Shake divides problems into six ability levels, from Beginner (6- to 7-year-olds) up to Genius (11- to 13-year olds). Beginner is available for free, while the other levels are available via in-app purchase at $1.99 each (or you can grab the lot for $2.99). Once you’ve chosen the appropriate level, decide if you’re going to work on addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. From there, the lessons begin.

Your little learner is presented with a word problem and a friendly little character who guides him or her through the process of working it out. The app asks the student to identify the numbers and, more importantly, the words in the problem that suggest what operation is required to find the solution. Each of these elements is dragged into a series of colorful boxes that end up creating the clear, easily-solved equation that will solve the problem. Then the app moves on to my favorite part.

Cats of the past had some advantages over the new generation. For example, they could lay on top of hot CRT monitors and soak up a lot of the wasted energy. Sadly, the move to flatscreen displays made it hard for felines to lay on top of monitors and stay warm. Says owner Cookie Bonanza:

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“It’s Caturday today, and here’s a pic of my cat, Monkey. He got into the habit of sleeping on my monitors back when I had a pair of CRTs, and his shedding messed with their cooling so I built a platform for him that rested on top of one of them. When they were replaced with a pair of sweet Apple 30” flatscreen monitors, there was nowhere for him to sleep anymore. Trouble ensued, until I built another platform behind the monitors for him. Here he is after a hard day of napping, judging my browsing habits.”

Have a picture of your cat soaking up the good vibes of an Apple product? Tell us the back story behind your kitty’s photo on the Apple World Today contact page – we don’t accept inbound attachments, so please host the photo on Dropbox, Flickr, iPhoto, etc… and then include the link in your message.

A compliment on your choice of website and a big thank you to Monkey and Cookie

Steve Sande

Steve is the founder and former publisher of Apple World Today and has authored a number of books about Apple products. He's an avid photographer, an FAA-licensed drone pilot, and a really bad guitarist. Steve and his wife Barb love to travel everywhere!