Stack the States
Mindprint Rating
Tags
Skills
Mindprint Expert Review
Pros
- The whole app looks fun including the great background pictures of famous landmarks.
- Multiple players can save progress.
- Students will improve intrinsic visual understanding of physics by seeing how the states fall from different heights and angles.
Considerations
- Directions and questions cannot be read aloud and incorrect answers light up in red.
- There is no activity for the user to place the states on the map of the U.S., so the app does not do a good job of teaching players where states are located on the map.
- Students with motor weaknesses may struggle a little with rotating the states.
Mindprint Expert Review
This is a truly fun app for learning facts about the states. The player answers random questions about state capitals, flags and landmarks in a visually appealing multiple choice format. Correct answers are rewarded with a picture of the state which students must try to position, rotate and drop onto a pedestal without letting it bounce off. As more questions are answered correctly, the student must decide how to drop the state to keep the stack balanced. Once a player balances the stack to the checkered line, the student earns a state for the U.S. map which can be saved and completed over time. There are additional bonus games, such as Map It, Puzzler and Capital Drop and digital flash cards for students to read about each state. This is a fun and addictive app to learn the capitals, shapes, abbreviations, flags, nicknames, border states and landmarks of the U.S. Note: This app was originally reviewed for iPhone/iPad. Some differences might apply.
Academic Benefits
Improves academic skills
- Provides sufficient and varied types of practice problems to maximize understanding and generalization of the targeted skill/concept
- Manufacturer claims alignment with Common Core/Known Standards
- Presents educational concepts accurately
- Explains answers so students can learn from mistakes
- Better for teaching the skill to new or struggling learners
- Better for practicing or refreshing the skill
- Skills are practiced through authentic, meaningful problems (not just rote practice)
Fun
Engaging for the Mindprint recommended age range
- Appropriate for a broad age range to use and enjoy
- Subject matter and problems are relevant, interesting and authentic to students
- Visually appealing to children in the target age range
- Provides virtual rewards or incentives after meeting specified goals or objectives
- Provides a "break activity" between academic problem sets
- Offers ongoing, progressive challenge
- Overall - Enjoyable. Given the option, students would choose this option
Easy to Use
Understandable for children in the Mindprint recommended age range
- Has a free or trial version
- Provides teaching guidance for adults to support the child and set appropriate goals
- Provides an age-appropriate tutorial/first time users can work independently
- Student should be able to use independently after first use
- Has a multi-player option to foster in-person collaboration or cooperation
- Multiple users can save a profile
- Student graduates to the next level or topic only after meeting a benchmark
- Can play without sound and not distract others
- Students can save work between sessions
- Can effectively understand and monitor student's progress (email report or in product)
- Provides options to play in languages other than English/Good for ELL
- Presents information in multiple formats (voice over, pictures and text, etc.)
- Overall - Easy to use