DragonBox Algebra 5+

★★★★★ Fantastic game for getting kids to understand equations and algebra. My daughter has been using it for a year (she is in first grade) and she has learned alot.

★★★★★ My kindergarten daughter is loving it especially the characters! She asks to do "monster math" daily and is quickly developing a love of math.

★★★★★ Im 36 years old and I find this app an amazing tool to drill key concepts in algebra

★★☆☆☆ It doesn't explain why equations work and if your stuck there is no hint box all i know is blobs cancel out blobs, was expecting more of a experience. Like if this blob and another blob was 5 over 3 then use this mathematical principal to complete. But no it says match these to complete, once you get to fractions on both sides there is no binding the knowledge so you fail. Im sure there are hundreds of games out there that have the same "this is technically math" problems that teach you nothing

★★☆☆☆ I teach math to adults, focusing a lot on pre-algebra, and much of my time is spent convincing students that we can discover the rules of algebra through our understanding of basic arithmetic. One of the largest obstacles for students who don't do well in math is that they have learned it as a set of rules and procedures that they just memorize without any justification. That is exactly what Dragonbox Algebra 5+ teaches. It doesn't give any context or meaning to the equations, it just treats the equations as abstract objects. Therefore, there is no *reason* for the rules, they are just rules to be memorized. In addition, contrary to how math is actually done, in this game there is generally only one way to solve a given equation. For example, I was given x+a/b=c. Whereas the one-step procedure for this is to subtract a/b from both sides, this app doesn't allow subtracting fractions, so you have to first multiply everything by a, then subtract b, and then divide everything by a. Absurd. I love Dragonbox Numbers and Big Numbers and Elements because they emphasize meaning and creativity and flexibility. This one may well be more damaging than it is helpful.