For Kids · Games
Counting and numbers
Counting real things — acorns, stars, nights to the full moon — before counting on a screen.
One number word per thing, the last word you said is how many, more and fewer, tens as a way past the fingers. The numbers in these games are today's real ones for your town, so a child counting nights to the full moon is counting something true.
The games
Game · about 5 min
Weather Window
Look out of the window, say what the sky is doing, and keep a week of weather.
Game · about 5 min
Walk Around the Sun
Carry the Earth around the sun once for every year you have been alive.
Game · about 2 min
The Frog Pond
Catch the frogs that hop across the stories and games, then count them at the pond — eight real kinds to find.
Game · Only at sunrise
The Dawn Chorus
Only at sunrise: wake five birds on a branch and hear each one's real song, then all of them together.
Game · Only at dusk
Lights at Dusk
Only as it gets dark: catch fireflies in a jar and let them go — or count the first stars coming out.
Game · Only at night
Eyes in the Dark
Only at night: shine a flashlight on the glowing eyes in the meadow and find who is awake.
Story · about 6 min
Hoo's Night
The turning Earth, tonight's real moon, and counting stars with a barred owl.
Then outside
The same idea, with real things
And the lessons
An hour outside, five minutes on screen
A hundred acorns
Gather a heap, then discover that the only way to count a heap is to stop treating it as one.
The five-minute bird count
Sit still for five minutes and mark down every bird. The oldest one learns tally marks; the youngest learns to sit still.
Getting to a hundred
Sunflower seeds, dried beans or maple keys, and the discovery that a hundred is not very many once it is in tens.
Counting mushrooms, hands behind backs
After rain in autumn there are more mushrooms within fifty steps than anyone expects. This lesson is about counting them and only counting them.
Made for where you live
Tell it where you live
The games draw the clearing in your real season and sky, follow your own rivers to the sea, and fly over your own town. A town, postal code or ZIP is all it needs — and it is kept on this device only.
Not about counting, but worth knowing
Game · about 15 min
Fly Over Home
Fly geese, monarchs, Jay the blue jay or a jet over your own town, at their real speeds, with a guide naming what's below.
Game · about 10 min
The Big Jump
Pick a rock or a waterfall and an animal from a frog to a bear — hold, let go, and see the splash.
Game · about 6 min
Down the River
Swim or paddle down your own rivers to the sea, dodging rocks, whirlpools and hungry bears.
No ads, ever
The children's pages carry no advertising and no advertising scripts. Nothing is for sale inside a game.
No accounts, no tracking
Nothing to sign up for. No analytics on the children's pages, and no location or name leaves the device.
Read aloud
Every word is spoken by the device's own voice, and lit as it is read, so a child who cannot read yet can still play alone.
Nothing to fail
No scores, no timers, no wrong answers that scold. A wrong box bounces back; the story waits.
Real, and local
Today's weather, tonight's moon, your own rivers and your own town from the air. The game matches the window.
A lock for the grown-ups
One tap takes the whole screen and stops the back button; a press-and-hold gets out. A one-tap sound switch, too.