Here's how it works:
To play, you tilt your device (iPad, iTouch, or iPhone) so that a fraction ball falls onto the correct place on a variety of number lines. It starts fairly slow. Three levels to choose from. If you need help, you get prompts.
What I like:
It's fun. I gave it to my 8yo son to try. He's had very minimal formal exposure to fractions. When he didn't know a fraction, the game slowly gave him hints, filling in parts of the number line, giving an arrow to indicate the direction he should try, etc. When I asked how much he enjoyed it, he replied, "Good." Granted, it's a new game, but he's been playing it now for more than 20 minutes without wanting to stop.
The game uses a variety of number lines (including negative numbers), mixed fractions, decimals, both number and pictorial versions of fractions. It provided good fraction practice.
Issues I experienced:I didn't have any problems with the initial games. After you've mastered several levels, however, you're given an exercise where the ball must fall into a less than, equal to, or greater than, slot. My iTouch did not react in a timely manner. It was VERY difficult for me to get the ball into the correct category, even when I immediately knew the answer. As the levels got harder, this particular exercise produced falling numbers faster than I was able to see them...and since my machine was already reacting slowly at the easy levels, the harder levels were impossible.
I enjoyed the regular bouncing ball exercises and could mostly control where they fell. I was sometimes frustrated in my ability to get the machine to tilt so that the ball fell where I wanted it to; I thought that might be due to my own inexperience with app games. So I gave it to THE. APP. MASTER. My 14yo son. He agreed that it reacted slow...jerky. But the falling ball parts were pretty good...it was mostly the less than/equal to/greater than parts that my machine struggled to accommodate.
I don't think I'll be able to master the game due to the difficulty of getting the app to respond. But I made it to the second to the top level on my first try. Not bad. And I had fun doing it.
In summary:
The app was worth 99 cents. I've found free apps that I like almost as well; IF the app had responded better to my movement, I would have felt different.
Have you tried it? What do you think?
Update 1/2011: We've had this game now for several months and my 8yo son has been able to pass my level of play. In talking about fractions the other day, I was shocked at how much my son was able to articulate. He said it was because of this game and "because we talked about how Mary and Laura shared 2 cookies with their sister, Carrie." (Little House books) Go figure. ;)
