I'm on an iPad Air 2, so I thought all the reviews complaining of clunkiness would not apply. I was so wrong. There is so much potential here, but the buttons are so slow to respond (and often don't respond at all), that it looks like I just wasted $14.99.
I love this for tutoring math! No, it does not produce practice problems, but there are plenty of free resources available online for producing practice problems, including the MUS website, and inexpensive multiplication drill apps. If your student has been taught how to make the models, they should be able to use the app to solve whatever practice problems you generate for them, which should make the app worthwhile enough. But what I appreciate so much about this app is that it provides an unbelievably easy laboratory for active tutoring sessions. I can quickly make examples for demonstration and interactive questioning. Today, I introduced improper fractions and their mixed number equivalent. It was easy as dragging in a fraction model and tapping the parts to shade them. Switch to notation mode to write and erase easily on the model. No more spending time and paper drawing the models I need. We sit in a cozy chair and don’t need to chase around paper, pencils and blocks. The more I play with this app, the more I appreciate the things it does. Drag in a model of 1/2. Drag in another model of 1/2, rotate it, and place it on top. Not only does it show the 2/4 shaded, but it changes the color of the shaded pieces -- all fractions of a given size are displayed in the same color. Multiplication of fractions? Easy. Choose from three backgrounds, including x and y axes and the houses of “decimal street”. Select from algebra, integers (like the physical blocks), decimals (units, tenths, hundredths), and fraction overlays. As a teaching tool this app is easily worth twice it’s price. No problems or glitches running on iPad air. Destined to get a hard workout in my homeschool. Thanks for a wonderful tool!
I am very dissatisfied with the purchase of this app. I was expecting drills and worksheets for all levels. I should have read the reviews before paying for this app. I am very disappointed and would like a refund as soon as possible. The price of this app is not worth it at ALL. This is very upsetting.
I should have read the reviews before spending the $$, so it's really my own fault, but we are VERY disappointed as well! I was expecting worksheets and drill practice. If a refund was available, I'd take it! For what it actually is, I feel like its WAY overpriced.
I love the idea of having the blocks in app form. Unfortunately the app is very glitchy on our 1st Gen iPad . The blocks don’t move smoothly. It is difficult for little fingers to align and rotate the blocks and it freezes quite often. This is by far the most money I’ve spent on an app, therefore I expected better performance. As far as the functionality goes, it has all the features I expected, I just wish it worked better on our ipad. A rotate button would be helpful, and a snapping feature to align the blocks would be good as well. An automatic zoom out would be nice so that it automatically fits the blocks in the window.
Pros:
-These blocks will not be lost, left in the back of the car, sucked on by the baby, stepped on barefooted (ouch), chewed by the dog or vacuumed up.
-More than one kid can use them at a time if you have more than one device for the app.
-Kids are used to learning, working, thinking on a screen, this connects with that part of their 21’st century brains.
-Portable, so nice for we moms who yell, “Grab your books we have to go to the….but you have to get your math done.”
-Could be used as a weekly “special kind of math day” or end of the week reward for younger children. The kids seem to think it’s more fun to use the iPad than getting the block boxes out.
-Decimal street is a background option, nice since the wonderful decimal street poster is huge and cumbersome.
-Fractions! Maybe it’s just me, but the fraction manipulatives (while so incredible for helping to understand) are always falling all over the place, difficult to keep in order and find quickly, slide around so easily etc. Not so on the iPad screen! Tap, slide, tap, twist, tap, color it in. Very nice.
Cons
-This app is ridiculously over priced! I decided to give it a chance because I have loved math-u-see for my family but as it turns out, I do feel ripped off. I would be very excited if it were $5 or less. It just does not work well enough or do enough to justify the high price.
-Very glitchy. The blocks are not easy to grab and move around. Erasing and rebuilding is cumbersome. The kids gripe about this so it’s not just a mom thing. For the price especially this app needs to work much better than it does. Consequently it adds time to math - waiting on the app to do what it’s suppose to do. So much faster to grab the manipulatives boxes and move blocks around. So, for teaching new concepts I would not want to use the app, slow. One could argue that it is easy to figure out and simple but - we are used to programs that work fast and smooth and this just does not fill the bill.
I saw some reviews that complained about there not being worksheets. I agree that this would be a really, really great feature (hint, hint to the developers at MUS - it would make the high price more justifiable) but I can’t gripe about it not being there - the app description makes it clear that this app is simply for supplementing the manipulative blocks that accompany the Math-U-See curriculum.
This is not an app for random kids math learning, it is specifically designed to accompany the MUS curriculum.
Will we continue to use the app? I think so, I hope so for the price. I might just make all the grown kids do some math with it just so I feel better about spending the money. I was happy to try it out, MUS has not been getting money from me for a while since I use the same books for the kids year after year - even though they gripe about having to hand copy the problems. I have so enjoyed the MUS program, my kids understand math concepts (by their own estimation) better than their peers. Had we had access to the app when everyone was younger I am confident it would have seen a lot of use. I would not want to completely ditch the manipulatives, holding and seeing it “in real life” has a great deal of learning value in my opinion. Once they “know” the blocks and get the idea I think the app is a wonderful tool to continue the seeing part of the program and to add an element of convenience and possibly fun for the kids.
Math-u-see physical manipulatives are the best there are, except that you have 100,000,000 little pieces of plastic to lose around the house. Not great when you still have tiny babies around to eat them. I'm SO HAPPY they released a digital version. I will you use these in my homeschool and in my tutoring work. THANK YOU!!!
This is such a wonderful addition to Math U See. It is so nice to have an endless amount of blocks at my disposal. We only have the basic set of blocks so I was never able to have the kids build numbers higher than 499, now I can have them build all the way to 999! I find that exciting. I am only giving four stars due to the screen occasionally moving in a way I don't want it to. Sometimes when I am trying to move just a block the whole screen will move and sometimes the block just will not turn. Those are my only issues. I think thousand blocks should be available on the app.
The description is accurate. No where does it say that it generates problems to solve.
Giving a low rating because one failed to read the description or misunderstood it is not a fair assessment.
We used it and it worked well until now... We click on it, the splash screen comes up and then we get a black screen and we never get to the app... Disappointing for an app that costs $14.99!!!
I love this and my daughter loves it. Way easier and more neat then pulling out all the physical manipulatives.
Basement gym
none at this time
#1Duggarfan
MTGKF
daddyofx
farmlife
Tziporra
MollyT-76
Wifey2Odie
Home mommy
