Times tables practice as a snake game kids actually replay

By making the child produce the answer, not recognise it. The fact sits above the grid and the snake has to eat the bubble with the right product while three near misses, such as 63 and 80 for 7 × 10, sit on the same grid. A wrong bubble sends the fact to the review queue, and the snake speeds up as answers land, so a table that is known plays fast and one that is being learned plays slow. The games-against-flashcards guide explains what a game has to do to count as practice.

Every table from 1 to 20, each with twelve facts, from 1 × 1 to 20 × 12, which is 240 questions in all. Tables open in order, the next when the one before is mastered, and the twenty levels mix the tables up to their number. School curricula stop at 10 × 10 or 12 × 12; the tables past 12 are there for children who want them.

Free to download and play tables 1 and 2 and levels 1 and 2, with their two creatures, the daily goal, the streak, the reminders and the review queue for whatever has been played. Premium unlocks all 20 tables, 20 levels and 20 creatures: a one-time lifetime purchase of $14.99 on the US App Store, or a weekly or monthly plan at the price shown in the app. There is no free trial.

Children learning or consolidating their times tables, which in most school systems means ages six to eleven. The App Store lists it in the 9 to 11 age band and the listing describes it for elementary school children aged 6 to 10. The 1s and 2s suit a child who has just met multiplication; the 13 to 20 tables suit one who has finished the school set and wants more.

No ads, no account and no sign-in; progress is stored on the device and the app works offline. Settings and purchases sit behind a parental gate that asks for an adult's year of birth. The app carries no analytics or advertising software.

A table is mastered by finishing its timed test, which asks the table's twelve facts and keeps the best time. Underneath, each fact is tracked on its own: it counts as learned after three right answers in a row, a wrong answer resets that count, and the table's creature grows only as facts are learned. Mastering a table opens the next one.

Twenty of them, one per table: Mango for the 1s, Nova for the 2s, Coco for the 3s, and so on. Each starts as an egg that cracks with every right answer on its table and hatches at the tenth. It grows to its second form when six of the table's twelve facts are learned and its final form when all twelve are, and it never shrinks, so a final-form creature means the whole table was known at some point.

The fact goes into the review queue. The Review tab lists what is ready to practise, most-missed first, in sessions of up to ten questions. A fact comes back ten minutes after a correct answer and a day after the next, and is retired after three right answers in a row, shown as three stars. The spaced-repetition guide explains why that schedule works.

Yes, for the recall part, which is all the check tests: 25 questions on the tables up to 12 × 12, six seconds each. The app's tables are the same twelve facts each, its tests are timed, and its levels mix the tables so the questions arrive out of order as they do in the check. The guide on the check sets out the format and how to practise for six-second answers.

Fourteen on the App Store: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. The app follows the device's language. These pages are in English and German.