118 Boxes: Periodic Table

My six-year-old could read the word magnesium. They had never heard it. 118 Boxes is a periodic table quiz built for exactly that problem. Every element name is read out loud, and every element shows a picture of what the stuff actually looks like, so a child who can sound out the letters can also learn what they mean. THREE ROUNDS • What's this symbol? See the letters, pick the name. • What is this stuff? See the sample, pick the name. • Find the symbol. See the name, pick the letters. Ten questions a round, then a score and up to three stars. Anything your child gets wrong is listed at the end with its picture, so the mistakes are the last thing they see. EVERY SAMPLE IS DRAWN BY THE APP No photographs, and nothing is downloaded. Each element is drawn from three things: its colour, its state at room temperature, and the shape a real sample comes in. Gold appears as a cast bar, copper as a coil of wire, mercury as a puddle, and the noble gases as glowing discharge tubes. Anything radioactive glows. EXPLORE THE TABLE The full periodic table, colour coded by family, plus a searchable list. Tap any element to see it, read one short fact written for an early reader, and hear its name. IT KEEPS UP WITH THEM All 118 elements are there from the very first round and nothing is locked. The app just weights things: elements your child has not met yet come up more often, and ones they have learned come up less. An element counts as learned after three correct answers. NO ADS, NO TRACKING, NO ACCOUNTS There is no advertising, no in-app purchases, no analytics and no sign-in. The app contains no networking code at all, so nothing can leave the device even in principle. Progress is stored on your iPhone or iPad and nowhere else. Settings let you turn spoken names on or off, choose which English voice reads them, hide the picture clue to make the symbol rounds harder, and reset progress. Made in Sydney.