Math Doodles

It wasn’t until after my school years, that I became a lover of math. I managed to slip through all of those classes, text books, and homework assignments, without learning one of the most important math lessons of all. Math IS FUN!

I design Math Doodles to provide a place where anyone can discover the joy, wonder, and fun of mathematics.

This version of “Math Doodles” introduces three challenges plus an additional functional sneak peek challenge that will be made available in it’s finished form in a future free update. Each Challenge provides plenty of mathematical practice, within a recreational math setting. The mathematical puzzles allow users to play, explore, and experiment with mathematical concepts, while developing and strengthening their strategy and problem solving skills. Math Doodles challenges are designed to allow for multiple solutions and strategies. There isn’t only one correct answer.

THE CHALLENGES:

1. Sums Stackers: Values are piled into three stacks. Each stack is randomly assigned a target sum. Move values and sets of values around with the tip of your finger from stack to stack until the sums of each stack equal the target sums represented at the bottom of the screen. The values can be represented in 22 different ways that vary in their level of abstraction: preschoolers might start with the fingers, dice or ringlets, because they can be easily counted, while older children or adults can find a challenge with coins, roman numerals, the word spelled in Spanish, or even binary.
2. Connect Sums: Users develop their number sense by trying to clear series of random values presented in a 4×4 array. Selected values are cleared when their sum equals the target sum. Users can choose from 22 different value representations and two levels of difficulty.
3. Unknown Square: Users begin to explore algebraic thinking by developing strategies to solve for unknowns found in a 3×3 array of values. Horizontal, vertical, and diagonal sums for the values are shown.
4. Sneak Peek Challenge – Splat Go Round : Users develop an understanding for rotations by experiencing math in action. Users rotate a fly swatter to splat a target fly. Users can choose from several rotational modes including clock hours, clock minutes, angles, and fractions.

CHALLENGES MODES:

1. Solve Mode: Strategically solve five random sets in the fewest number of moves.
2. Infinity Mode: Play as long as you wish.
3. Race Mode: Rack up as many points as you can solving puzzles, before time runs out. The timer is represented by a tab of paper that works its way around the edge of the screen.

DIFFICULTY MODES:

Each challenge has an easy mode and a hard mode:

VALUE REPRESENTATION OPTIONS FOR THE FIRST 3 CHALLENGES:

• Dice
• Fingers
• Hole Tiles
• Ten Frames
• Tally Marks
• Spanish Tally Marks
• Numerals
• Roman Numerals
• Chinese Numbers
• Arabic Numbers
• Gurmukhi Numbers
• Hebrew Numbers
• Hindi Numbers
• Binary Numbers
• Braille
• English Words
• Spanish Words
• Math Prefixes
• Polygons
• US Coins
• US Dollars
• Area Fractions
• Bar Fractions
• Fractions

MATH GOALS:

• Number & Operations
• Number Sense
• Addition
• Subtraction
• Angles
• Rotation
• Time and Clocks
• Money
• Problem Solving
• Mathematical Reasoning
• Math Enjoyment