Apps and animations can be a great way to teach math, because you provide students with a visual representation of a concept that they can see, hear, and in some cases, touch and manipulate.

• Pearl Diver HD (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch) – Learn the number line while diving for pearls amidst shipwrecks and sunken ruins. Address NCTM standards including: understanding numbers, ways of representing numbers and number systems; understanding and representing commonly used fractions; understanding fractions as part of unit wholes and as locations on number lines; and comparing and ordering fractions.
• Virtual Manipulatives! (iPad) – Virtual fraction bars and tiles.

Our last app this month is a cool graphing tool, that makes use of touch interface to help kids better understand linear relationships. 

• Slope Slider by Shodor– increase student understanding of linear relationships by allowing students to manipulate graphs and lines to reflect changes in equations. F

Have you been using math apps in your lessons? Share your experiences in the comments! 

Acknowledgment: Special thanks to Rebecca Flynn for helping to prepare this blog post.