CAMathories Monkey King app for iPhone and iPad

Each CAMathories™ game contains a series of teaching notes to help parents to teach their children mathematics based on the content of the games as well as real-life situation.

Extensive research has shown that young children learn about mathematics best when they solve problems that attract their interest. Using well-loved or popular tales as a starting point helps to give children confidence and ensures that they feel comfortable as they learn. When these stories, and the games and puzzles embedded within them, are shared by children and their parents (or other caregivers), they will encourage children to talk about their ideas in mathematics. Such discussions are vitally important in enabling young children to acquire a firm grasp of basic mathematical processes.

Our CAMathories™ are based on these principles, derived from sound research.

Following our Woodland Series Apps that include, Goldilocks, Ugly Ducklings and Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf, we are pleased to present our first East Asian Classical Story App, the Birth of Monkey King!

CAMathories™ The Birth of Monkey King was adapted from “The Journey to the West”, which is one of the four Great Chinese Classical Novels published anonymously during the Ming dynasty in China in 1592. Some people believed that WU Cheng’en, who lived during that period, was the author of the novel.

The novel describes an adventurous pilgrimage made by a Tang dynasty Buddhist monk, TANG San Zang. He traveled from China to Central Asia and India to obtain a sacred Buddha text. The main character who appears in this app, SUN Wu Kong, the “Handsome Monkey King”, played a key role in assisting TANG in this legendary and exciting quest. 

Each chapter of the novel is highly imaginative and full of amazing interaction between mythical gods and goddesses, animals and human characters. The app shows how Monkey King was born and became the "Handsome Monkey King.”

This app aims to help 5 to 7-year-old children to learn mathematics by playing games with the Handsome Monkey King and his monkeys. How was the stone monkey born? How did he climb up the hills and mountains? How many fruits did the monkeys eat in total?  How did the stone monkey become the Handsome Monkey King? How did the Handsome Monkey King and his monkeys get in and out of the Water Curtain Cave?

The games in this app involve young children in helping the monkeys to get enough fruits to eat, to find the right path to the top of the mountain, and to the cave for shelter, and to jump into their new home! The monkeys need to split the right number of fruits to share equally, to count the right number of steps to reach the mountain top and the cave, to select the right numbers and symbols to complete a sequence, and to make an equation in order to get to the next step. 

The mathematics games and puzzles in the Handsome Monkey King’s early adventure involve the children in:
Counting numbers to see how many friends the stone monkey has made
Recognizing the symbols of addition 
Using numbers that are multiples of 3 to reach the top of the mountain
Allocating fruits to monkeys equally and formulating a correct equation 
Completing different sequences to reach different places, such as the top of the mountain, the source of a stream, or the cave behind the waterfall.

General notes on the CAMathories website provide guidance on how to play the games with your children so that they have fun and learn some valuable maths skills. Each game in the story is also accompanied with the same notes for that game under these 3 headings:

This game helps your child to learn about
(explaining the maths behind the game)

Talk about
(suggesting maths language you can introduce when talking about the game)

More ways to help
(giving examples of playful ways of extending the learning)

The icon of Notes for each game is at the top right-hand corner of the screen. Click on it and the notes will pop up on the screen.

Happy CAMathoring!