Comments on: Motion Math: Pizza!

By: Jacob Klein

Jacob Klein — Fri, 02 May 2014 01:51:40 +0000

Thank you Dan and everyone here who tried out our game!

David, you’re right. If you don’t calculate correctly, no pizza appears; that’s the only feedback. In general we prefer a mild response to errors, as opposed to big red x’s. Let me know if you have a suggestion for better feedback for this case.

By: David Wees

David Wees — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 10:49:33 +0000

I just saw this game at the Game Street Fair in NYC last weekend. It does look pretty good. I was hooked on it as was my 7 year old son.

The one question I have is; if a student doesn’t know how to do the arithmetic calculations, what feedback do they get? As far as I can tell, none, but I’m going to download the game for my son to our iPad and play-test it with him to confirm this.

If they do know how to do the simple arithmetic, then this game pushes them to be a bit faster. It also has a lot of opportunities for other types of mathematical thinking to arise, as Bowen has pointed out.

By: Bowen Kerins

Bowen Kerins — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 03:16:02 +0000

There’s even some rounds where instead of selling pizzas, people come in with offers:

“Will you sell me 5 Aaron pizzas for $23?”

Great stuff, active learning, friendly about errors. And yes, the penguins clearly should have asked for sardines and not pineapple.

By: Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 02:11:56 +0000

Love this game. My 2nd grader figured out that he is better/quicker at counting by 5s and 10s so all of his pizzas are priced based on that. This has led to some really good conversations about counting strategies, fluency with basic facts, and mental math.

By: Megan Schmidt

Megan Schmidt — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 20:34:25 +0000

I had to give the pizzas the same name as their prices to make the math in my head easier. Great game. Interesting that the penguins want pineapple on their pizzas :)

By: Bowen Kerins

Bowen Kerins — Sun, 20 Apr 2014 15:59:06 +0000

This game is terrific, with plenty of variety and thoughtful math. There’s even work on unit rates available when a second vendor opens, and one is offering 20 sardines for $4 while the other offers 90 sardines for $20.

It’s like a way-better “Lemonade Stand”. Or, for TI-84 fans, a way better “DrugWars”.