Gamifying math and teaching number sense to young children.
Pip Squeaks - iOS Game
For kids who are learning to count or learning to add, PipSqueaks is a rewards-based game that helps children develop the math strategies and big ideas related to counting and early addition.
PipSqueaks was my first foray in to the app dev world. Created for iOS and avaialble in the app store, I was responsible for all of the UI and illustration assets.
Problem
Parents use their devices as a tool to distract and pacify their young kids when they need a couple of minutes of uninterrupted time. The type of content that kids would pull up was mostly just time killing filler with no educational substance.
When we are children, our brains are in a constant state of learning. Most moments are new, and our brains are processing and rationalising new ideas and expreinces full time.
Instead of using our phones to simply waste a couple of minutes, our hope with Pip Squeaks was to provide a bit of educational nutrition to the young minds captured by the glow of a mobile device.
Method
Subatizing is a strategy used for teaching children about number sense. Math educators have discovered that the ability to see numbers in patterns is the foundation of strong number sense. The ability to visualize and understand numbers and numeration supports operational fluency and the ability to add and subtract mentally, to see relationships between numbers, and to see patterns.
We built Pip Squeaks on top of this methodology showing kids flash cards with a number of ‘pips’ on the screen.
Children were then asked to identify how many pips they saw.
Correct answers rewarded kids with puzzle pieces that would eventually reveal character cards.
Pip Squeaks was developed in 2012, and had a 5 year run in the App Store.
Project contributors:
Design, Illustration, Wireframing: Allan De Los Angeles
Development Coding: Brendan Miller
Project Management: Chris Walter