New Palm OS games aim to teach kids math

- Gary Thayer, Editor

October 12, 2005 -- (MobileVillage) -- Schools and parents looking for innovative ways to enhance math skills of upper-elementary and middle school students now have a fun new tool available to them: Size It Up by Leading Step, Inc. Size It Up is a series of three games that are played on Palm OS handheld computers to help students identify and compare numbers and math operations.

Working together as a complete learning system, Size It Up's three games, Arrows, Bricks and Numbers, are designed to help young students learn whole numbers, decimals, fractions, mixed numbers, and negative numbers, and even operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication or division.

Arrows is a timed game to help students learn to compare the size of numbers as they put them in order from smallest to largest. As new numbers appear on the left-hand side of the screen, students shoot them like arrows into a column of numbers on the right-hand side of the screen so that they land between the smaller and larger numbers. If the "arrow" fits into the correct gap on the number column, the number will be added to the line and a new number-arrow will appear to be shot into place.

Teachers, parents or the students themselves can choose to focus on a particular type of number to use in the game, such as whole numbers or decimals, or they can select multiple types and have the game randomly pick a different one for each round.

The Bricks game (at left) helps students identify numbers based on prompts made by the game. Numbers are displayed as "bricks" in a wall, and the goal is to clear levels of bricks by picking the correct number that answers a command prompt. For example, the screen prompt may ask the player to select the smallest or largest number, a number that falls within a given range, or a number with a given digit in a specified place value.

As the correct bricks are selected, they turn multi-colored and a new command will be displayed. When all of the bricks on a level have been correctly selected, that level will disappear and a new level will appear on top. Players must clear the specified number of levels for each round in a specified amount of time.

The goal of Numbers (left) is to identify the numeric equivalent of a value that is specified using a different notation, such as a written form of a word or the expanded notation. The game offers multiple variations, giving players the opportunity to unscramble the digits of a number, fill in the blanks of the target number, or come up with the target number with no assistance other than the Hint option which is offered on all games.

Teachers and parents can monitor each player's progress through the Size It Up game system by storing the scores for up to eight players on each PDA. Using the game score statistics, they can easily determine how well players are progressing in developing different math skills.

For more information, see leadingstep.com.

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