My son used to slide off his chair onto the floor when I said the word “worksheet.” Not a tantrum. A slow, boneless protest that could last twenty minutes. He would happily spend those same twenty minutes on a tablet game with monsters in it.

So we stopped fighting the tablet and started using it. Two years and a lot of downloads later, here is what stuck.

This list covers the best math apps for kids in elementary school: what each one does well, what it costs, and which child it suits. Full disclosure: this post comes from the team behind MathHero, number one on the list. We put it there because it is what we build and know best, and we have been straight about what it does not do. Everything else we tested with our own kids.

What Separates the Best Math Apps for Kids From the Rest

Most math games for kids look identical in the screenshots. Bright colors, a cartoon animal, a number. The differences show up in week three, once the novelty wears off.

Math has to be the game, not the toll booth

A lot of math learning apps bolt basic arithmetic onto a game that would be more fun without it. Solve five math problems, unlock thirty seconds of play. Kids figure out that trade fast and start resenting the math half. The best math games make the math itself the way you win.

Difficulty that moves with the child

Quality math apps adjust difficulty as a child improves. Some do it automatically through adaptive learning. Others hand you the controls and let you pick the skill level yourself, enabling students to work on exactly what they got wrong last week. Neither is wrong, but the second kind needs five minutes of setup.

Instant feedback builds math fluency faster than repetition alone

A wrong answer should get corrected in the same second, gently, then reappear a few rounds later. That loop is why apps beat traditional flashcards for math drills, and how math mastery gets built without an adult running the session. No stack of cards retries a missed fact on a schedule.

Something for you to look at

Some apps ship a parent connect app; others put student progress on a web dashboard. Either way, you want to see which math facts are sticking without quizzing your kid over dinner.

The Best Math Apps for Kids, Ranked by Who They Suit

1. MathHero: best for kids ages 5 to 10 who say they hate math

MathHero is a story-driven adventure where solving math problems is how your child moves the story forward. They rescue animals, battle monsters, earn coins, buy gear. To do any of it, they answer short sets of math facts. Math is the action, not the toll booth, and the math skills come out of the playing.

It covers addition and subtraction within 10, 20, 100, and 1000, plus times tables and division. Those math topics are the core mental math curriculum of kindergarten through fourth grade, and nothing beyond it.

You choose the major math topic and then either open practice at a difficulty you set or a guided step-by-step path. Parents name the customization as the reason they stay: selectable math operations, individual times tables (only the sevens and nines, if that is where your child is stuck), monster speed, typed answers versus multiple choice. Siblings at different levels share one game.

The whole game can be finished for free, with no locked chapters and no ads. The free pace is five levels a day. A subscription with a free trial removes that cap, though five short sessions is roughly what teachers recommend anyway.

What it is not: MathHero does not teach counting or number recognition, so your child needs to know their numbers first. There are no instructional math videos either. It builds skill through structured practice, which is how math fluency gets built, but if you want a lesson explaining regrouping, look elsewhere.

Cost: free with a five-levels-per-day limit; optional subscription.

2. Khan Academy Kids: the best free math app, full stop

Khan Academy Kids offers personalized learning paths for ages 2 to 8, and it is completely free with no ads and no in-app purchases. Not a trial. The whole product.

It goes well past math into reading, social-emotional skills, and creative play, with animal characters that young kids get attached to. Khan Academy offers personalized learning resources for every age group; this is the version built for the youngest. For basic math concepts at the preschool end, it is hard to beat.

The tradeoff is breadth. Because Khan Academy Kids covers everything, the math track moves gently. A child who already has the basic math skills and needs focused math practice on one weak spot outgrows it.

Cost: free.

3. SplashLearn: curriculum-aligned math games for Pre-K through Grade 5

SplashLearn, which longtime parents may remember as Splash Math, offers over 4,400 games and worksheets for early learners. Everything is curriculum-aligned and sorted by grade level, so when the teacher says “we’re on place value,” you find it in ten seconds.

The interactive games are polished and the reporting is useful. Splash Math built its reputation on classroom use, and it shows how neatly content maps to what schools teach.

Cost: free tier; paid family plans.

4. Prodigy Math: a fantasy based math game with real pull

Prodigy Math covers over 1,500 math skills from 1st to 8th grade inside a wizard-battling world where you cast spells by answering math problems. Kids who like Pokémon fall hard for it. As students complete battles, new zones and pets unlock.

It leans on motivation based learning techniques, so the rewards do a lot of the work. Others find the push toward premium membership, which starts around $9.95 a month, wearing. The math content stays free; you pay for cosmetic upgrades.

Because it stretches to eighth grade, it keeps working for middle school students, which few apps here do.

Cost: free core content; premium from about $9.95/month.

5. Monster Math 2: adventure gameplay plus basic arithmetic

Monster Math 2 combines adventure gameplay with arithmetic practice for kindergarten through fifth grade. Your child plays as Maxx, a friendly monster running through a story, and the math is how he runs.

Monster Math adjusts difficulty as kids play, so children move at their own pace, and parents get weekly progress improvement emails showing which skills are strong and which need work. In the multiplayer version, siblings of different grades compete fairly, because each child gets problems at their own grade level. One of the few math games that handles a five-year age gap without anyone crying.

Cost: annual subscription, free trial.

6. Moose Math: math activities for preschoolers

Moose Math engages preschoolers with colorful interactive games: a smoothie shop, a dot-to-dot puzzle, a bingo board. It is free, from Duck Duck Moose, and aimed at ages 3 to 5. My daughter found the smoothie shop so much fun she asked for it by name.

Counting, sorting, addition, subtraction, geometry. Moose Math is what I hand to a younger sibling who wants to do “big kid math” next to an older child. It will not carry a second grader, but for young learners it is an ad-free place to start.

Cost: free.

7. DragonBox: basic algebra hiding inside a puzzle

DragonBox teaches algebra and geometry through puzzles, and your child will not notice. The early levels use little monsters you drag across a screen. Twenty levels later those monsters have turned into variables and your seven-year-old is solving equations.

It is the best example here of building mathematical concepts and problem solving skills through play rather than through direct math instruction. Nothing gets explained. Understanding arrives anyway.

Cost: one-time purchase per title.

8. Elephant Learning: personalized instruction with a big claim

Elephant Learning claims children learn a year’s math in three months in about thirty minutes a week. Treat that as marketing, not a guarantee. The approach underneath is solid: short sessions, personalized instruction, and a focus on conceptual understanding over speed.

Price is the sticking point. At $35 a month it is the most expensive option here by a wide margin. Worth a trial only if cheaper options have already failed.

Cost: around $35/month.

9. DoodleMath: self-paced learning that fits around school

DoodleMaths tailors content to students’ strengths and weaknesses, then builds a daily work plan of about ten minutes. It is popular with UK families and, increasingly, American homeschoolers.

What I like is the tone. It never nags. It just quietly tailors math content to whatever your child got wrong last time. Self-paced learning done properly.

Cost: about £7.99/month or £69.99/year.

10. IXL: practice exercises with diagnostics behind them

IXL provides math exercises for students from pre-K to 12th grade with personalized skill recommendations from a running diagnostic. The least game-like app here, and the most thorough.

No characters, no story, so it will not sell itself to a reluctant child. But if your kid is fine with math and you want structured practice exercises that keep pace with school, IXL is the one teachers name. It runs through high school students too, so a big age gap can share one plan.

Cost: $9.95 to $19.95/month.

11. Marble Math Junior: math problems inside a marble maze

Marble Math Junior is built for kids ages 5 to 8, and it does one thing beautifully. You tilt or drag a marble through a maze, collecting the numbers that answer the problem at the top.

It reinforces core math concepts: shape recognition, sequencing, addition, subtraction, multiplication to 100, fractions, counting money, telling time. Problems can be read aloud for early readers. No third-party ads, and it is one of the rare math games with a single up-front price instead of a subscription.

Cost: one-time purchase.

12. Buzzmath: for the kid who has moved past arithmetic

Buzzmath focuses on middle school and takes problem solving seriously. Instead of drilling, it hands over multi-step problems with detailed solutions when a student gets stuck.

If your fourth grader is already bored by everything above, this is where to go next.

Cost: $20/month or $120/year.

13. The Math Learning Center: free visual models for homework night

The Math Learning Center publishes a set of free apps built around virtual manipulatives: number frames, number lines, fractions, geoboards, money pieces. No points, no story, no rewards.

That sounds dull until the evening your child cannot picture what a fraction is. Then you open a Math Learning Center app, drag some visual models around, and watch it land. These are the apps for kids who need to see a thing before they can do it, and they quietly repair foundational skills that are never quite set.

Cost: free.

How to Choose Between the Best Math Apps

Start with the skill level, not the grade level

The most common mistake is buying by age. Look for apps that match your child’s actual skill level. A third grader who never nailed subtraction within 20 needs second grade content, and an app that drops him at grade level confirms his suspicion that he is bad at math. The best math apps for kids let you set that manually.

Decide how much math instruction you want to do

Some apps replace the explaining, which matters if you are teaching math at home. Others assume school handled it and focus on practice. Neither is better; they solve different problems. If your child understands the idea but is slow, you want drills. If the math concepts never landed, you want instructional videos or visual models.

Watch what the app does with a wrong answer

This is where math anxiety grows or shrinks. Good apps treat a miss as information. Bad ones flash red and reset a streak. Watch your child’s face at the first wrong answer and you will learn more than any review can tell you.

Read the in-app purchases screen before you hand the tablet over

Free math apps for kids are wonderful until a seven-year-old discovers a cosmetics store. Check what sits behind the paywall, turn off purchasing on the device, and tell your child what the free version includes.

Making Math Apps Actually Work at Home

Ten minutes beats an hour

Short and daily wins. Ten focused minutes builds more math skills than a Sunday afternoon marathon that ends in tears for everyone.

Let the app do the correcting

The best thing math apps for kids did for our house was take me out of the referee role. The app says “not quite,” not me. Fewer arguments, and my son gets independent learning practice without an adult over his shoulder.

Pair one app with one real-world habit

Count change at the store. Double a recipe. Those small math activities give the app somewhere to land, and they build the kind of logical thinking a tablet cannot.

Best Math Apps for Kids: Questions Parents Ask

Is a free math app good enough?

Often, yes. Khan Academy Kids and Moose Math are free and excellent. Paid math apps earn their keep on reporting, customization, and content depth for elementary school students who need a lot of repetition.

What age should kids start?

Around four or five for counting games, five or six once basic addition begins. Most of the best math apps for kids here target elementary students, though a few stretch up through middle school.

Can an app replace what school does?

No, and the good ones do not claim to. Apps are practice and motivation. Teachers handle the explaining, and a good app should motivate students to keep going between lessons rather than replace the lesson.

How much daily practice is enough?

Ten to fifteen minutes, five days a week. Consistency does the work.

What if my child is bored by every math game?

Try a different genre rather than a different app. A child who ignores fun math games sometimes loves a puzzle like DragonBox, a creative problem solving format, or plain virtual manipulatives with no game attached.

Pick one. Just one. Let your kid finish something before you download the next thing.