FirstCalculator app for iPhone and iPad

FIRST CALCULATOR.
Children, young adults, and those with a learning disability, sometimes find maths too abstract. If you’re one of those students, this app is for you. It is NOT a conventional calculator, nor is it meant to be. It’s a learning tool to help the student transition from using counters to seeing an equation happen in real time.

Our original concept was transitioning from counters to digital numbering. However, we found that asking a student to enter numbers 0 through to 9 was relatively straight forward. But when asked to enter number 10 many students stopped because they couldn’t find the number 10 on the keypad. Also, for some students the teens are difficult because we pronounce the last number first and in trials, we often got 81 for the number 18.

Re-thinking our objective for the app we found that it is ideal for teaching the compilation of numbers from 0 to 999. The added benefit of the app is that the student can start compiling numbers even before they can write independently.

This app is also a perfect assessment tool for teachers, parents and students.

USING THE APP
Exercise 1.
Ask the student to enter a number from 1 – 999 depending on the level of work.

This teaches the student/child to compile numbers before they have learnt how to write independently.
This also teaches that AC = All Clear!

Exercise 2.
For basic adding and subtracting in real time.

Give the student/child basic add or subtract equation to perform. Each time the master red button is pressed they will see their equation develop in real time.

Learning note: As with all our apps, be prepared to go back to re-enforce where necessary.


ACTIVE THERAPY FOUNDATION
Active Therapy Foundation is a UK charity with aims of promoting social inclusion, providing innovative and dedicated coaching therapy programmes, making "Active therapy" available to all, thus developing skills and enabling individuals to participate more fully in society.

Active therapy explores ways of developing higher achievement levels for people with disabilities. It pushes the boundaries of “accept and adapt” and has a direct approach to systematic problem solving.

The programme is practically based, working on the principle of self-achievement. It is designed to explore ways of giving a feeling of achievement at ALL levels of ability, breaking down the skills sufficiently so that EVERYONE CAN SUCCEED.