LeapFrog Number Rumble Released for Apple App Store

Written on Apr 13, 2009 by Brian and filed under LeapFrog, News

The Apple iPhone and Touch series of devices are arguably the most innovative mobile platforms in years, but one thing that’s been lacking in the application space is educational content for children. Today LeapFrog has released their first, of presumably many, educational software packages for the Apple App Store. Number Rumble is available now and lets kids age 6-10 multi-touch, shake and tap their way through math equations.

With LeapFrog’s Number Rumble kids get a clean, easy to use interface  to sharpen their math skills. Number Rumble works with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and numbers 1-12. The ultimate goal is to help kids be able to quickly recall commonly used equations, like the multiplication table for instance. Kids are also exposed to early algebra, as questions can be posed in non-traditional formats, like ? – 4 = 3. 

Number Rumble comes with three game modes:

• Learn It – Kids choose an operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division) then drag along each number wheel to send them spinning. Once they’ve answered the problem in their head, kids can tap the equal sign to see the answer.
• Quiz Time – This game option has kids test their skills by spinning the number wheels to create a problem, then shake the iPhone to get an answer pool to select from. This mode also lets kids select an operator to focus on.
• Random Quiz – Kids may practice all four operations at once, simply shaking the iPhone to see “fill-in-the-blank”-style questions, such as “12 + 8 = ?” or “? ÷ 9 = 11.”

It’s great to see LeapFrog expanding their offering outside of their own hardware. While this is the only game they’ve announced, we expect that there will be many more if they find this channel successful. Long term they’re going to need to think about ways to integrate the data with their other tools like the Learning Path, but it’s probably a bit premature for that. We’re working with Number Rumble now and will be providing a full review soon.

The Number Rumble application is available for $2.99 from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch.

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