Here I was, thinking I was so excited to have my kids back in school, but I totally forgot one thing: homework. Drilling your kids on their math facts is the most fun ever, right? Ugh. Well, if you have the amazingly inventive Osmo for iPad, your kids will be able to practice their math skills and (gasp) have fun doing it on their own, with the new Osmo Numbers game. You don’t even have to help, but you might want to. Because it’s really fun,just like their original Osmo app and their Osmo Masterpiece app.
And if you don’t have an Osmo yet? You should go get one today. It is so, so cool.
Related: The coolest little kids’ tech toys and gifts for the holidays
You can check out our review of Osmo to find out the magic behind how this iPad accessory works, but the short version is that you use real, tactile objects — like wooden tangram tiles or, in this case, game pieces with numbers and dots on them — to interact with the digital game happening on your iPad screen.
The object of Osmo Numbers is to release the fish that are trapped in bubbles above the surface of the water. You pop the bubbles by placing physical number (or dot) tiles in front of the screen that add up to that number: so, you’d pop the 3 bubble by placing down the 2 + 1 or 1 + 1 + 1 . . . simple.
You want to get the most fish you can during your turn, so kids are motivated to think quickly, which is where this learning becomes intuitive. They’re memorizing these facts by experimenting and using trial-and-error, not counting on their fingers. And that’s the goal.
As you progress in the game, you’re moving from counting the dots to working out multiplication challenges. So the more you play, the more you learn. That, plus the fact that the kids are getting tactile stimulation from the physical tiles that come with the game, make this screen time that I don’t even count towards my kids “screen time.”
You can find the Osmo Genius Kit — which includes their Numbers, Tangrams, Words, Newton and Masterpiece sets — at their website or our affiliate Amazon. And you can download the new Osmo Numbers app at the iTunes store.
Thank you to Osmo for sending us a sample unit to try. We’ve been playing it non-stop.
