Pibbit Charge-Up

About Pibbit Charge-Up

Pibbit the robot has run flat, and his battery is a ten-frame: two rows of five. He asks for seven sparks, your child drags them in, and the battery fills the way a teacher fills a ten-frame, top row first. Press Charge and Pibbit wakes up and does a trick that gets bigger with the charge, from a wiggle at two to a full light show at ten. Later he flashes his battery for a second and asks how many sparks were there, asks how many more make ten, and needs teen numbers built from a ten pack and a few extra sparks. Every line is spoken, so no reading is needed, and a wrong charge is never marked wrong: Pibbit just counts the battery out loud with your child and lets them fix it.

Pibbit Charge-Up is one of our free numbers & maths games for kids — play it right here in your browser, or browse all our free online games.

How to Play

• Listen to how many sparks Pibbit needs. Tap him or his speech bubble to hear it again.
• Drag sparks from the glowing jar into the battery, or just tap the jar. Tap a spark in the battery to take it back out.
• Press the green Charge button when you think you have the right number.
• In Quick Look rounds the battery flashes open for a moment. Tap how many sparks you saw, or press the eye to peek again.

Tips & Tricks

• Before your child counts, ask "Is it more or less than a full row?" That one question is the whole idea of the game.
• In Quick Look, ask how they knew. "A row and two more" is a much better answer than counting one by one.
• If they overcharge, let Pibbit count it out. Hearing "eight... I need seven" teaches more than being told.

What Kids Learn

Pibbit Charge-Up is built around the ten-frame, the two-rows-of-five grid that kindergarten and first-grade classrooms use to make numbers visible. Sparks always fill the top row first, so seven always looks the same: one full row and two more. After a few rounds most children stop counting from one and start seeing the five inside the number, which is the step that makes adding in your head possible later.

The levels move through four ideas teachers care about. First, making an amount (cardinality). Then Quick Look rounds, where the battery flashes for a moment and the child says how many, which trains subitizing. Then the pairs that make ten ("I have six, how many more make ten?"). Last, teen numbers built as a ten pack plus extra sparks, so fourteen is heard and seen as ten and four.

• Counting and building amounts up to 20
• Seeing small amounts at a glance without counting (subitizing)
• Number pairs that make ten
• Teen numbers as ten and some more

Curriculum links

For teachers and homeschooling parents, here is where Pibbit Charge-Up lines up with what children are taught at school:

• Common Core K.CC.B.5: Count to answer "how many?" for up to 20 things
• Common Core K.OA.A.4: Find the number that makes 10 with a given number
• Common Core K.NBT.A.1: Teen numbers as ten ones and some more ones

What Age Is Pibbit Charge-Up For?

Levels 1 to 4 are for ages 3 to 5: small numbers, everything spoken aloud, no timer and no way to fail. Levels 5 to 8 suit 5- to 7-year-olds in kindergarten and first grade, where making ten and teen numbers are on the curriculum. A grown-up can start any level from the opening screen, so an older child can skip straight to the make-ten rounds.

Tips for Parents

Keep an egg carton or an ice-cube tray handy. Cut it to two rows of five and you have a real ten-frame for the kitchen table.

Ask "how many empty spaces?" as often as "how many sparks?". The empty spaces are where the make-ten facts live.

Short and often works best. One level a day is about five minutes.

Try It Without a Screen

• Draw a ten-frame on paper and fill it with buttons or raisins. Call out a number and race to build it.
• Flash a ten-frame with a few coins for two seconds, cover it with your hand, and ask how many.
• Play "make ten" with fingers: hold up six and ask how many more fingers make ten.

Pibbit Charge-Up — Frequently Asked Questions