The inspiration for this web app came from trying to help my children understand some of their elementary maths. I tried out a lot of apps on the iPad but they all suffered from the same problem. They were always set at the wrong level. Therefore they were not ‘fun’ to use, despite the music, colourful graphics and built-in games when they answered a question correctly.

Although this is definitely a ‘no-frills’ application, my children have found it (slightly) more enjoyable as I can set it at a level which makes it hard, but not too hard! It is only really meant to be used by children who are under 12 so do not expect anything too sophisticated. Its purpose is to provide an easy and quick way to recap some basic maths periodically.

There is one ‘snazzy’ feature however which may help the older children to understand long addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This is a simulated ‘graph’ paper. I have found my oldest son refused to try to jot down anything when working out a problem, which meant he made frequent mistakes. The graph paper is an attempt to help him lay out the maths problem properly. It is still undergoing cosmetic improvements but is perfectly usable.

For younger children, the default input device is a numeric keypad, like a telephone. The reason I include the keypad is to avoid the iPad/iPhone from popping up the keyboard. The app is entirely driven using the mouse (or finger presses).

For older children, they can show the graph paper by clicking on the icon. In this case the keypads reorganised to make better use of the space and provide access to a few editing functions.

To get started using the app, first add a ‘user’ i.e. one user for each child, and then edit their test parameters. Each type of question can be activated independently of its other settings. This way you can force the program to only generate questions of a particular type sometimes.