Three small learning apps I built for my ten-year-old. They are free, there is nothing to sign up for, and your child's work stays on your device. Take them if they're useful.
One evening I tried to teach my daughter fractions, decimals and percents. It ended with her crying that she was dumb, and me angry about her attitude.
She is ten, she is bright, and she would rather play than practise — which I understand, because I hated it too. I don't want her grinding through stacks of practice problems just to get faster at them (in Chinese we call it 刷题). I want her to understand what a number means, and to know how to work it out.
So instead of pushing harder, I built her an app. Then another for vocabulary, one word a day, so that by high school she will have met thousands of words without ever cramming. Then a third for spelling, after her teacher mentioned she drops letters when she rushes.
She opens them on her own now, every day. She started setting her alarm ten minutes earlier — not for school, but because one of the badges is called Early Bird and she wanted it. And lately she has been asking me how I built them, because she wants to make one of her own. That is a weekend project waiting to happen.
One word each day — what it means, how to say it, a sentence, and often the quote it came from. Badges, puzzles and a streak that forgives a missed day. Slow on purpose: a word a day for a few years is thousands of words, without a single cram session.
Open Word a DayThe one that started it. A ten-day course that teaches why ¼ and 0.25 and 25% are the same amount, using pizza and pocket money, with the rules coming last on purpose. Then endless practice, real calculations across all three, and a test on day eleven.
Open Three Ways to Say ItA flip card shows the meaning and a row of empty letter boxes. Type the word, flip the card, see whether you got it. Anything missed lands on a Tricky list with a hint, and comes back until it sticks. It reads the word aloud, the way a real spelling test does.
Open Spell It, Flip ItThere are no accounts and no passwords — the name your child types is how their work is saved. Three things worth doing on the first day:
If a browser gets cleared, or you move to a new phone, just type the same name again — the progress comes back. The PIN is what stops anyone else doing the same. One PIN covers all three apps.
I asked her why she is willing to do these, when she will not do a worksheet. Her answers, word for word:
It’s like playing a game.
I get to collect different badges every day.
It practises the parts I actually don’t know — it’s not boring like 刷题.
This app is made for ME!
Nothing in them punishes her — no timers, no lives, a missed day is forgiven. But that is not why she opens them. She opens them because the last one is true: they were made for her, not for thirty children at once.
These three exist because I knew exactly what my daughter was stuck on. If your child is stuck on something specific — long division, times tables, reading comprehension, kanji, verb conjugations — I can talk it through with you and build something shaped around that.
Tell me what they're stuck on:
[email protected]我给十岁的女儿做了三个学习小应用。免费，不用注册，孩子的学习记录留在你自己的设备上。你要是觉得有用，拿去用。
有天晚上我想教女儿分数、小数和百分比，最后她哭着说自己笨，我也气得不行。
她十岁，很聪明，但比起做题更喜欢玩 —— 这我完全理解，因为我当年也讨厌做卷子。我不想让她靠刷题把速度练上去，我想让她真的明白一个数是什么意思，然后知道怎么算出来。
所以我没有继续逼她，而是给她做了一个应用。后来又做了一个背单词的，每天一个词，这样到高中她已经见过几千个词，一次都不用突击。再后来做了第三个练拼写的 —— 老师说她写快了会漏字母。
现在她每天自己打开来做。她还把闹钟提前了十分钟 —— 不是为了上学，是因为徽章里有一个叫 Early Bird（早起鸟），她想拿到。最近她开始问我这些是怎么做出来的，因为她想自己做一个。这大概会成为我们下一个周末的项目。
每天一个单词：意思、怎么读、一个例句，常常还有这个词最早出现的那句名言。有徽章、有拼字小游戏，连续天数漏掉一天也不会清零。刻意做得慢：每天一个词，几年下来就是几千个，一次都不用突击。
打开 Word a Day一切的起点。十天的小课程，用披萨和零钱讲清楚为什么 ¼、0.25 和 25% 是同一个量，规则特意放到最后才讲。之后是无限练习、三种形式之间的真实计算，第十一天考试。
打开 Three Ways to Say It卡片正面给出词义和一排空格，把单词一个字母一个字母拼进去，翻过来看对不对。拼错的词会进入"易错清单"，带上记忆提示，隔一阵再回来，直到记住为止。它还会把单词念出来，像真正的拼写测验一样。
打开 Spell It, Flip It这里没有账号，也没有密码 —— 孩子输入的那个名字，就是保存记录的钥匙。第一天有三件事值得做：
浏览器被清空了，或者换了新手机，只要再输入同一个名字，记录就回来了。PIN 的作用，是不让别人也这么做。一个 PIN，三个应用通用。
我问她，为什么这些她愿意做，卷子却不肯写。她的原话：
跟玩游戏一样
每天都能收集不同的徽章
专门练我不会的地方，不像刷题那么无聊
This app is made for ME!
这些应用里没有惩罚 —— 没有倒计时，没有生命值，漏一天也会被原谅。但她愿意打开，不是因为这些。是因为最后那句话是真的：它是为她一个人做的，不是为三十个孩子做的。
这三个应用之所以管用，是因为我很清楚我女儿卡在哪里。如果你的孩子卡在某个具体的地方 —— 长除法、乘法口诀、阅读理解、认字、动词变位 —— 我可以先跟你聊一聊，再做一个专门围着那个点转的小应用。
告诉我他卡在哪里：
[email protected]