Improve Early Math Skills With PBS KIDS Online Games

A new study from WestEd has found that engaging low-income parents and their preschool children with PBS KIDS content and games improves math learning and helps prepare kids for kindergarten. The study examined improvements in preschool kid’s math knowledge and skills by studying families that use online games and at-home activities from the PBS KIDS Lab which features well-known character such as Curious George, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, and Sid the Science Kid. The study showed that kids who were exposed to these PBS KIDS games and media outscored peers who hadn’t been exposed on the Test of Early Mathematics Ability. 

To read more about this study click here.

We already love PBS Kids resources, especially since so many are also available in Spanish.  In honor of this great resource we have put together a list of our favorite 10 educational PBS Kids math-centered games. Check them out below:

Curious George Games

The Curious George games focus around George’s busy day and how he uses math to get through it. There is something for every kids’ taste at George’s Busy Day. Check out our favorite three games below and then explore all 17 games with your kids!

The Curious George Game Maker is a perfect resource for our bilingual kids. Parents can create a game of their own using all of the tools available in the game maker, and then explain the game to their child in their language of choice. The game maker provides objects, math symbols, grids, and frames. You  are free to creative missing number games, sorting games, counting and graphing, or write out simple math problems.

Curious George train station is the game  your train obsessed niños will love. It’s an interactive math game that prompts kids to do simple math by asking them to match the train lengths in the station.

Apple Picking with George is a mathtastic game. While kids help George pick the right apples they are learning number sequences to identify the missing number.

The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! Games

The Cat’s Math Safari includes nine different math themed games that all feature familiar Cat in The Hat characters.

The Huff-Puff-A-Tron game encourages kids to identify two-dimensional shapes, patterns, and colors. In order to make the kite fly kids have to correctly match shapes and patterns that go into the huff-puff-a-tron which then makes more wind for the kite. The patterns get more complicated as the game progresses.

Sketch-a-Mite encourages dimensional shape recognition, drawing, and simple physics. The goal is to draw or select shapes to build a tower faster and taller than the termites. There is also the option of simply making the tower without having to beat the termites to it.

 The objet of Beaver City is for kids to help the beavers build their home. To do so they have to compare lengths.

Sid the Science Kid Games

This series of games focuses on games that are all about weather, temperature, and math. Check out all nine Sid the Science Kids games here.

In the game Weather Surprise kids help Gerald match items with the environment with the right temperature.

In Vegetable Harvest kids help Gabriela pick the vegetables in her garden and count them.

 In Vegetable Planting  kids follow Gabriela’s instructions to make sure the seeds go into the right box. Kids practice measuring and measuring vocabulary.

{First photo by  ShashiBellamkonda }

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