Dinosaur Train Mesozoic Math Adventures Review

Dinosaur Train Mesozoic Math Adventures is a fun new math app for iPad that will teach math concepts in a way that children will find engaging.

My son really enjoys dinosaurs in general as well as being a fan of the Dinosaur Train, a PBS kids show that this app is based on, as well as math in general from a young age. Because of this, my boy was very excited to hear of this new math app and has been enjoying this app a great deal recently.

Dinosaur Train Mesozoic Math Adventures consists of four main areas.

Through the Window is a very nice counting game, allowing children to count the various objects one sees from different dinosaur periods, such as rocks, trees or bodies of water.

I enjoy the perspective of looking out of the train window at different dinosaur time periods after going through a time tunnel, as they are conversationally asked to pick out different numbers of seen items by dinosaurs Buddy and Tina, ultimately including two items to count per game in the hardest of three levels of difficulty.

Don’s Collection is an area consisting of Don the Dino showing off his various collections, grouped together by type and shown lined up in columns. Listen to Don’s questions about each of these collections as he may ask which column is greater or less than.

This section contains three levels, and I like how the levels vary from easy to medium to hard. In the simplest area, two columns are compared, and the questions can be answered without counting because it is easy to see that one section has many more or less than another, allowing children to follow along with these concepts even if they are new to addition.

In the moderately difficult section, three columns are in use, and the amounts found on each column become closer in number, making counting a necessity and include three columns to focus on.

Later, the number of columns increases to four, and the math becomes more advanced and includes simple ratios such as which column contains half of one or twice of another.

Another area of this app is Life Cycles, asking children to sequence different images that express different points in the life cycles of various dinosaur-related creatures.

I really enjoy this section as children are exposed to the word “hypotheses” as well as rewarded with a short animated sequence which gives more information about these animals, with excellent narration also offering fun facts that vary in detail from the easy to difficult sections.

The sophistication in terms of the sequencing also increases nicely, from three simple pictures often including an egg, small and large animals to organize to animals with more of a metamorphosis, and later adding an unrelated image to sort out as well.

Life Cycles is my favorite section of this app as I enjoy the animation and narration given that explain a great deal about the growth cycles of animals that are both enjoyable as well as educational.

A sticker section, Build a Scene, is also included which allows children to decorate scenes from the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous time periods. Although some stickers are included outright, children will gain new stickers from completing the other sections of this app.

Nice narration is also included within this sticker section which briefly describes these different time periods, but I feel that this element could have gone further with the conversational dinosaur information offered as I think this is a great way to engage children, further building on their vocabulary and listening comprehension.

Children are also able to save their landscapes to their iPad as well as continue working on their backgrounds later.

Parents and teachers will appreciate the section of this app explaining each section, game play and take-away points in a very straight-forward fashion that I greatly appreciate.

Dinosaur Train Mesozoic Math Adventure is a nice early math application for young children which focuses not on math concepts but on their ability to listen to directions as well.

This app will be a hit with children already fond of Dinosaur Train but will be of interest to other children not already familiar with them, as these dinosaurs who guide children through these exercises are inviting and colorful which is also seen throughout this app. I would love to see more narration included about these grand creatures as well as the time periods in which they lived.