Common Sense Media Review
By Jinny Gudmundsen
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Excellent math game with fun premise.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 8+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Play
What's It About?
By helping store clerks in the financially troubled Spectacle City with their real world math problems, kids earn enough money to open their own arcade business in MATH MISSIONS GRADES 3-5. And of course, due diligence requires the owners to play all the arcade games to make sure they are fun!
The game requires that players help every business before they can progress through the game. For example, at the electronics store, kids use their math acumen to help the clerk interpret graphs and charts. Youngsters will also be asked to help with fractions, decimals, money, measurement, patterns, time, geometry, and much more.
Is It Any Good?
Scholastic has created a top-notch math game for elementary school children. While the store clerks are uniformly lousy in math, they are nonetheless hip. Kid-testers enjoyed becoming math whiz kids to help these characters. There is much to like about this software on many different levels.
Not only do kids perform real-world math with the store clerks, but they use math reasoning to run their arcade and complete several mini-missions throughout the game. The program provides help in the form of video tutoring, a math glossary, and, where appropriate, on-screen math manipulatives. The difficulty leveling is sophisticated, scrolling up or down depending on how the child is performing.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about other real-world applications for the math problem-solving required in the game. When do you think you can use those skills? Families can also discuss their favorite arcade games.
Game Details
- Platforms : Windows , Mac
- Pricing structure :
- Available online? : Not available online
- Publisher : Scholastic
- Release date : August 30, 2003
- Genre : Educational
- ESRB rating :
- Last updated : August 25, 2016
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
Suggest an Update
Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
See how we rate