Quickly grasp and represent numbers and quantities – the basis for a sound understanding of numbers

Finger Quantities is an iPad app that helps children quickly recognize numbers without counting and represent them with their own fingers. The unique combination of simultaneous finger recognition and structured learning tasks promotes basic mathematical skills in a playful way.

The app was specifically designed for use in elementary school (beginning classes) and supports teachers in promoting their students' understanding of numbers. The simultaneous recognition of quantities and their representation with the fingers forms the basis for all further mathematical operations.

Finger Amounts uses multitouch technology to recognize hand movements. Children touch the screen with the corresponding number of fingers simultaneously – the app precisely detects whether the correct amount has been displayed. The goal is to place as many numbers as possible on the device simultaneously, overcoming the counting process.

The app offers ten different game modes that can be adapted to different developmental stages and can also be individually shown or hidden for each child via the settings.

Basic exercises

• Pay: Introduction to the operation and the concept of simultaneous finger presentation, with and without time pressure
• finger: Fingerprint recognition and reenactment
• points: Recording structured and unstructured point sets

Advanced exercises

• Recognize patterns: Acquisition of sets of points divided into subsets, which trains the composing of subsets to total sets.
• Mixed representations: Quickly recognize different number representations
• Power of 5: Mathematical problems with special reference to the five-fold structure
• Supplementary tasks: “Up to 10” and “How many are missing?” for number decomposition
• Jump and Run: Playful combination of quick quantity recognition (obstacle height) and placement of the quantity (player jumps accordingly high through the course)

Adaptive settings for individual learning

Teachers can adapt the app to the needs of their learning group, to individual learners, via user profiles and also create individual profiles if necessary:

• Number range: Flexibly adjustable from 3 to 10
• Flash time: Adjustable display duration for quantity images
• Time pressure: Can be optionally deactivated or extended to reduce learning pressure, if appropriate. The time limit is intended to encourage students to grasp the quantities quickly and without counting, and is therefore deliberately integrated.
• Help: Support can be displayed when needed and the displays can be customized
• Show and hide exercises: Individual task formats can be flexibly displayed or hidden, allowing exercises to be selected specifically for individual students and presented more clearly.

Fingermengen is available in several languages (German, English, French, Japanese, Spanish).

Diagnostic evaluation for targeted support

Once user profiles have been created, the app automatically creates detailed learning reports that provide information about:

• Reaction times for different quantities
• Frequency of correction attempts
• Particularly challenging number areas and tasks
• Progress in learning

This data helps teachers provide targeted support and set individual priorities. They can use the collected learning data (which is stored anonymously locally on the device) to generate an AI summary with individualized support recommendations, which can be used as a basis for further support planning after learning with the app.

Scientific research with the app

The app is based on current findings in mathematics education to promote quasi-simultaneous quantity recognition and was developed in collaboration with primary school and special education teachers.

For a research project on quasi-simultaneous quantity surveying, we would appreciate it if you would provide the learning data collected from your students anonymously in the app for our research project (Jun.-Prof. Dr. Christian Urff, Weingarten University of Education). All you need to do is give your consent in the app and share the data with us securely and anonymously at the touch of a button. I would be very pleased if you would support this scientific research and contribute to improving the funding. All data will be transferred in such a way that no conclusions can be drawn about individuals and will be used solely for the research project.

For a first impression you can Webapp with reduced functionality (only works on devices that can recognize multiple touch inputs simultaneously) try.

Quickly recognized with fingers,
numbers are named in no time.
No time for long counting,
You can choose quantities with your fingers.

See the crowd – immediately understood,
Fine-tuned sensitivity.
This makes learning great fun,
“Finger quantities” – I’m learning something from that!

Why is the “old” app no longer available?

The previous version of Finger Numbers – Finger Sets has been replaced by this new, expanded and completely reprogrammed version.

Unfortunately, the previous version will soon no longer be able to run on iPads for technical reasons and therefore had to be reprogrammed.

I've tried to integrate all the essential features from the old version. If you have any suggestions for improvements, please let me know, and I'll try to incorporate them.