In the High Tech Kids series we will share our favorite apps and kid friendly technology.

Our Kindergartener recently got her second quarter report card and along with her report card came a “Math Award” we were so incredibly proud of our little girl, she is testing beyond where she is expected to be in math. When the folks at JumpStart® contacted us again (we reviewed their Madagascar App here) to look at two apps for kids in Math and Early Reading we jumped at the chance, because as an educator myself, who spends most of my work hours on the Common Core State Standards implementation and a parent of a young child who is currently learning these early skills, we love any chance to help her improve her them and to share great apps with our friends who have young children as well.

Upon first starting this app, you are asked to log in. The reason for logging in is to “save” the data from your child’s activity in the app. That being said, you can play as a guest as well. Once you get to the menu screen you do need to help your child the first few times playing, as the menu has a list of options. You choose which skill you want the child to work on, what curriculum level (each level would be equivalent to a grade level, 1 is late Kindergarten and early first grade and so on), then you have to choose if you want easy, medium or hard game play. When all those options are chosen, you can also choose if you want to play left handed and it shows you how to deal with the joystick or tilt.

Once in the game, you begin to navigate your spaceship, make sure your volume is on here as the narrator tells you what numbers/shapes, etc. you are looking for.

Working the spaceship through the game is pretty exciting for a five year-old. Our daughter was really into it and the sound effects started pretty quickly for her. She was cracking me up just watching how into the app she got.

The app did require a lot of parental guidance for us because she is only five years-old. That being said, I can easily see her being able to quickly pick it up and an older child would do very well with this app. Similar to video games, you have to really use both hands to manage the controls, which is another reason it can be tough, at first, for younger children and may require parental participation.

We will continue to use this app to practice her mathematics skills and improve her confidence with those skills. Overall, I am mostly happy with this app, but would love to see the introduction menu to be a little more child-friendly perhaps, with pictures and less options on one screen.

From the creators:

Help your child learn key elementary math skills! Perfect for your 6-8 year old!

Explore a mysterious cavern packed with math skills and fun for your child in JumpStart® Blast-Off: Math! ! Armed with their brains, jetpack and blaster, you child must find the correct answers to help them race for the top score! Beware of the pesky punk punks that are out to stop your child.

With 28 lessons designed to teach key elementary math skills like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, this game is the perfect way to help your child master and in a fun, cool way.

Equip your child with a strong math foundation JumpStart® Blast-Off: Math. Your child will develop key educational skills such as math operations, shape and number recognition. Elementary school learners will enjoy a comprehensive math learning experience found only through JumpStart® Blast-Off: Math

Game Features:

• 28 lessons of fun math skills for your young learner to get ahead in elementary school!
• Key educational skills your child will learn:
  • Math operations: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division
  • Shape and number recognition
• Many progressive of math game play for your young learner to master!
• Amazing 3D graphics and catchy music that your child will love!
• Choose child-friendly tilt or joystick controls so your child can pick up and play immediately!

JumpStart®, a key children’s educational publisher, has created learning games such as JumpStart® Blast-off: Early Reading, Madagascar Math Ops, Math Blaster, JumpStart® Pet Rescue and more!

Where: iTunes App Store Google Play, and Amazon.

What: JumpStart® Blast-Off Math

Need to know: This app is designed for children as young as Kindergarten. However, it may require some parental help in getting to the game play.

Extra Extra: Check out JumpStart Moms for parenting tips and ideas to printable worksheets and fun activities for kids.

Website/Contact Information: www.jumpstart.com.

But wait… There’s more.

In celebration of the Blast-Off Series of apps, we at Windy Pinwheel, in conjuction with JumpStart®, are giving away a download code for both Blast-Off Math and Blast-Off Early Reading apps for your family to enjoy. Simply enter the giveaway below and be sure to come back every day before 11:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time Friday, March 7, 2013 to enter.

This giveaway contest is open to residents of the United States and Canada only. You must be 18 years-old to enter or have your parent’s permission. Void where prohibited.

Sponsor this article for $1.00

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By sponsoring this article, your sponsorship will display for a period of 180 days (6 months). If, for any reason, and it is up to the discretion of the authors of Windy Pinwheel, we feel content linked to or the name provided does not coincide with the objectives of this site for our audience we will issue a refund and pull the sponsorship of the article. This action does not limit you from sponsoring an article on our site again. However, by sponsoring again, we will issue the same review criteria as the prior sponsorship and if it fails, we will follow the same process as before and issue a refund and pull down the sponsorship. We truly appreciate the support of our audience and hope you can help offset our costs of operating this site by sponsoring our site articles.

For all reviews, please exercise discretion. If the sponsor of the article is in conflict of the topic of the article, we will pull down the sponsorship to remove any conflict of interest with the article at-hand. For instance, there is an article about a hamburger restaurant and a competing hamburger restaurant sponsors the article; we will pull the sponsorship and issue a refund.

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Welcome to outerspace… Zorbit and his friends are going to take you on a math adventure on their planet.

The iPhone/iPad app, Zorbit’s Math Adventure Preschool – Learning. Reimagined. hereafter known as Zorbit’s Math Adventure is a great game for preschool-aged children. The game begins by helping Zorbit’s mom wake him up. Zorbit is a sound sleeper and you have to complete several math related tasks (early math skills). One task is to pop balloons to be “loud enough” to wake him up. What little kid doesn’t like popping balloons? After you have woken Zorbit up you head to the next part of the app where Zorbit asks the child to help him count gum balls, which Zorbit then proceeds to eat. Our daughter loved watching the bubbles pop on his face. Eventually, you wind up with a friend of Zorbit’s who needs help feeding her pet, this also consists of the child who is playing Zorbit’s Math Adventure to count and choose certain shapes to help feed the pet that looks like an alien dinosaur. The game goes on to a few other areas and along the way the child collects stickers that they can place on several images of the game. Also, once the player completes a level, they receive a star. Stickers and stars are all very exciting prizes for the 3-6 year-old set.

I can say, from watching my five year-old play with this app that it’s engaging and exciting. On the day we started playing it, she needed just a little bit of help to get it started when waking Zobit, this was because the mother character was trying to give her hints on what to do and she had her volume turned down. Had it not been for that, she would have been able to completely navigate this app on her own. So fair warning, you do need the sound on for this app.

In the words of our five year “Zorbit is cool, I like it and it was fun to make a rocket ship”. I guess that’s really all the review we needed.

We enjoyed Zorbit’s Math Adventure and it was fairly simple for our five year-old to complete the tasks. However, the math level was a bit below what the State of Nevada expects for Kindergarten Math Standards, but it was a great reinforcement for her and a confidence booster for her math skills. This is definitely a preschool app and a wonderful addition to good math apps for preschoolers, especially boys who will enjoy the alien characters. They also have a “light” version that you can try out to see if you like it.

Next year the company does plan to add Kindergarten and First Grade levels.

Overall, we really enjoyed this app, we are working with our two year old on the app as well to help him begin developing those early math skills. This app has the Windy Pinwheel Stamp of Approval!

Where: The iTunes App Store.

What: Zorbit’s Math Adventure

Need to know: Zorbit’s Math Adventure is rated for preschool-aged children.

Extra Extra: Sign up for the Zorbit’s Math Adventure mailing list and get access to a free activity.

Zorbit’s Math Adventure covers all the skills a preschooler needs to be prepared for first-year school math, including the following:

Counting and Number Awareness

• Counting objects up to 20
• Ordering numbers (ascending)
• Ordering numbers (descending)

Identifying Shapes

• Recognizing circles, squares, and triangles
• Distinguishing between squares and rectangles

Sizing Shapes and Objects

• Long and short
• Tall and short
• Wide and narrow

Subitizing

• The precursor of estimating (for more)

Characterizing Colors

• Red, yellow, blue, orange, green, purple, brown, and black

Comparing Amounts

• Identifying more and less

Recognizing Positions

• Inside and outside
• Left, middle, and right
• Above and below
• Top and bottom

Classifying Objects and Groups

• Same
• Different
• Same and different
• Classify by colour

Separating and Matching

• Recognizing group commonalities and differences
• Pairing similar objects

Website/Contact Information: www.zorbitsmath.com. Be sure to sign up for the Zorbit’s Fan Club and get access to a free activity

Here is a video about Zorbit’s Math Adventure:

Bonus Giveaway

As an added bonus to this review, we at Windy Pinwheel, in conjunction with Best Boy Entertainment, the creators of the app, are holding a giveaway. We want you to share in the fun and excitement that this app has to offer. That’s why, when Best Boy Entertainment reached out to us we suggested a giveaway for our Windy Pinwheel community.

Here’s what we’re giving away:

• Prize: 1 Zorbit’s Math Adventure app download.

*Please note that the Zorbit’s Math Adventure app is available only on the iPhone/iPad. You must should have access to an iTunes account if you are selected as the winner. Also, this giveaway is available only to United States residents, 18 years or older or with a parent’s permission and void where prohibited. Winner must supply email address associated with your iTunes account to receive the app download code.

Giveaway deadline is 11:59PM Pacific Daylight Time on October 18, 2013. Enter today and come back every day for a chance at daily entries.

Sponsor this article for $1.00

Enter sponsor title and e-mail.

Enter website URL. Sponsor title will be hyperlinked with this URL.

By sponsoring this article, your sponsorship will display for a period of 180 days (6 months). If, for any reason, and it is up to the discretion of the authors of Windy Pinwheel, we feel content linked to or the name provided does not coincide with the objectives of this site for our audience we will issue a refund and pull the sponsorship of the article. This action does not limit you from sponsoring an article on our site again. However, by sponsoring again, we will issue the same review criteria as the prior sponsorship and if it fails, we will follow the same process as before and issue a refund and pull down the sponsorship. We truly appreciate the support of our audience and hope you can help offset our costs of operating this site by sponsoring our site articles.

For all reviews, please exercise discretion. If the sponsor of the article is in conflict of the topic of the article, we will pull down the sponsorship to remove any conflict of interest with the article at-hand. For instance, there is an article about a hamburger restaurant and a competing hamburger restaurant sponsors the article; we will pull the sponsorship and issue a refund.

By clicking the button below, I agree with the Terms & Conditions.