I have compiled a list of 5 resources that support technology in mathematics and that have the ability to transform the Primary/Junior math class! These resources are definitely some that you will want to try and use in your classrooms to benefit and assist math learning.

KnowledgeHook

https://www.knowledgehook.com/

KnowledgeHook is an online program that engages students with immersive game-based activities designed to improve understanding. Teachers are provided with a dashboard that tracks student performance, identifies gaps in understanding, and provides lessons and resources to target those gaps. KnowledgeHook can be used in 3 ways: Missions (students work on tasks individually), Game Shows (students work collaboratively or competitively as a large group), or Paper-Mode (students use printed QR codes to answer multiple choice questions). These activities are great for diagnostic or formative assessments, providing both the students and teachers with immediate feedback about their understanding of a specific topic. It can also be used to differentiate learning, as individual students can be assigned content from any grade level. My school board has provided every teacher with licenses for this resource and I believe it has been a beneficial tool in our math classrooms (not to mention the students love it!). 

Scratch 

https://scratch.mit.edu/

Scratch is an online coding platform. In fact, it is the world’s largest free coding community for kids! With Scratch, students can program their own interactive stories, games, and animations using block-based coding. This platform provides students with an area to create their own animation, view other’s animations, and follow step-by-step tutorial on a number of different topics, such as making a chase game. There are so many possible cross-curriculuar ways to use Scratch, such as animating a story written in Language or creating a dialogue between two characters about something they learned in Science that week. My students have enjoyed using Scratch (and ScratchJr.) to learn how to code, how to think creatively, and and how to work collaboratively towards a common goal. 

Toy Theatre

https://toytheater.com/category/teacher-tools/virtual-manipulatives/

Toy Theater is a collection of interactive educational games for elementary students. Their games and tools can be used on computers, tablets, or mobile devices. My favourite part of this website are the virtual manipulatives. There are so many different virtual manipulatives available on the website, such as interactive clocks, 2 colour counters, 3D dice, probability spinners, graph builders, fraction bars, base ten blocks, and many more! The virtual manipulatives offer the opportunity for students to manipulate tools that help them to understand math concepts, which is especially beneficial when physical manipulatives are not available in the classroom. My students have enjoyed using these virtual manipulatives and have found them to be helpful in their learning process, especially when we had to pivot to distance learning throughout the pandemic. 

Osmo 

https://www.playosmo.com/en/

Osmo is a gaming accessory that provides hands-on learning activities in which players use objects in the real world to interact with the digital world shown on their tablet. Essentially, there is a mirror that connects to the camera of the tablet, allowing it to capture what is being done on the table in front of it. This allows for the table to become the workspace for the learner as they follow the instructions on the screen to complete the activities, which is determined correct or not using the mirrored camera. Osmo’s games are geared toward embodied learning, meaning their games teach abstract concepts by connecting them to objects and actions in the physical world. There are a variety of games and accessories available, such as coding, tangram, and number activities. I have seen students gravitate towards these activities, as they uniquely combine physical and digital interactions. The games also help to foster social-emotional skills like problem-solving, creativity and perseverance. 

Solve Me Puzzles

https://solveme.edc.org/

The iPuzzle project has developed apps for students to explore logic-building and mathematical puzzles in an interactive, digital format. There are three games to play on the website: SolveMe Mobiles, SolveMe Who Am I?, and SolveMe MysteryGrid. 

• SolveMe Mobiles: This activity provides students with a hanging mobile, in which they need to figure out the missing value of the shapes. They have to use their understanding of equations and expressions to balance the mobile using the correct numbers.
• SolveMe Who Am I?: This activity features puzzles where a number robot gives clues about what number it is. The goal is to fill in the blanks for the digits to solve for the mystery number.
• SolveMe MysteryGrid: To solve these puzzles, students must place all of the tiles on the grid so that every row and every column contains exactly one type of each tile (similar to sudoku).

The SolveMe Mobiles is something I use on a yearly basis with my students and I have found it to be a positive and beneficial tool. This activity really challenges students to use their knowledge of variables, expressions, equalities, and inequalities, and it gives them a visual representation of what the meaning of the “=” in an equation is.