What makes it worthwhile, however, are the various ways a student can practice counting to 100 (or any multiple of 10 up to 100). The settings allow for skip-counting by 2s, 5s, 10s, and 25s. Students can explore the numbers by tapping arbitrarily or follow a forced-sequence.
Once a number is selected, it is highlighted yellow and a tone plays with a female voice saying the number. Either of these options can be turned off in the menu. The developer cleverly designed the home button to activate on two taps, thereby ignoring inadvertent taps by students. Using the Guided Access accessibility feature of iOS 6 can disable all the option buttons, of course.
Some ideas for using this app in the classroom include:
A scaffolded counting experience for students during lessons to support 1-1 correspondence. For example, students can put items in a container one at a time and use the app as a counter to augment working memory.
By setting the grid to 30, students can practice counting during calendar activities (except on months with 31 days, of course!).
Students can estimate numbers on the grid with the option of displaying the numbers only when tapped and using the 'tap any' mode.
This app is a must-have for classrooms that have students with early numeracy skills. While it specializes in one skill, counting, it's many options make it a useful tool in the classroom.
note: some reviews on the AppStore mistakenly claim that the home button doesn't work and that music and speech can't be turned off independent of one another. After testing this app, I can confirm that the home button does work (requires two taps) and all sounds can be toggled on/off within the home menu.
