The Cat in the Hat can teach pre-school and early elementary kids math in a fun way that employs technology. How? Through a new set of online, mobile-friendly whiteboard games focused on cultivating math skills. The games are called the Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That: Math Safari.

The games were built to play on multiple platforms - tablets, computers and smartphones. They can develop early algebraic thinking, geometry, numbers, counting and spatial sense.

Here is a full description of the games and tools for parents and teachers. Play them, use them and tell us what you think!

In the Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That: Math Safari, kids join characters Nick, Sally and the Cat as they head off on a math adventure in the Thinga-ma-jigger. The group sets out to recover the missing pages of the Cat’s “Animal Safari Book” after Thing 1 and Thing 2 accidentally dropped it from the Thinga-ma-jigger, scattering its precious pages everywhere.

The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot about That: Math Safari offers six curriculum-based games to aid kids in their math skills:

Online Games:

    ·     Bee Hive and Seek: The Thinga-ma-jigger shrinks to bee-size for this honey of a hide-and-seek game. The fun begins with a map of a garden, featuring a variety of hive locations, as well as symbols for all of the key garden landmarks. Skill: Spatial Sense.

    ·     Meerkat Jubilee: Kids deliver invitations to the annual Meerkat Jubilee to all the meerkats by venturing underground and rotating the mixed-up tunnel sections to get to the meerkat lairs. Skill: Spatial Sense.

    Mobile-Friendly Games:

    ·    Do You See My Seahorse: The baby seahorses have become separated from their seahorse fathers! Kids use the number clues to ensure a happy reunion for all, matching the numeral on each seahorse baby with the same numeral on the seahorse father.
    Skills: Numbers and Counting.

    ·     Deep Sea Follow Me: Children head to the bottom of the Swirly Whirly Ocean with Sally, Nick and the Cat to help Gari Garibaldi search a very unusual coral reef for a new place to live. At every step of the game, players are presented with a different view of a coral reef, with audio clues prompting them to click the route that matches a directional cue. Skill: Spatial Sense.

    Online and Interactive Whiteboard Game:

    ·     Welcome to Beaver City: The beavers have drawn up dozens of fantastical log blueprints, far from the traditional dam, but they need help estimating the length they’ll need to cut each log before it can be fitted in to place. Kids can play individually or as part of a team. Skills: Estimating and Measuring Length, and Ordering by Height.

    Online Parent/Teacher Tool:

    ·     The Cat in the Hat Can Map This and That: To extend the mapping activities from “Bee Hive and Seek,” this online mapping tool gives parents and caregivers an easy way to create customized layouts of a room, yard, or local park. These layouts can be printed, saved, and used in a variety of ways to help preschoolers correlate their everyday, real-world surroundings with the symbols of a map. Skills: Geometry and Spatial Sense.