Count Critters

What your child learns

Every level in Count Critters is built around a preschool or kindergarten counting skill a teacher would recognize:

• One-to-one counting. Your child taps each bug once and hears the number. Tap a bug twice and it wobbles to say it's already counted.
• Cardinality. The last number you say tells how many. Mossy says this out loud after a miss.
• Seeing small amounts at a glance. In Quick Look, bugs sit in a dot pattern or a ten frame for a moment, then leaves cover them.
• Counting out a number. Fill the Frame asks for a number like 7, and your child places that many bugs on a ten frame.
• Comparing groups. More or Fewer shows two leaves, and your child picks the one with more (or fewer).
• Teen numbers as ten and some more. A full ten frame plus a few extra bugs shows that 13 is 10 and 3.

How it works

Tap Play and the first question is on screen. Each question is read aloud, and the big orange speaker button reads it again. Kids answer by tapping bugs, numbered lily pads, a leaf, or boxes on a ten frame, so nothing needs reading. With voice off, every prompt still shows as text.

A round is 8 questions and takes a couple of minutes. After each right answer, Mossy eats the bugs one at a time, which turns out to be a very satisfying way to see a group get counted.

The six levels

Levels and how it adapts

Each level starts with the easiest numbers and adds harder ones as your child gets them right on the first try. Numbers your child misses come back more often. If a question takes two tries, the next couple of questions get easier and the same number returns a bit later.

Wrong answers are where most of the teaching happens. After a first miss, Mossy counts the bugs together with your child, lifts the leaves for another look, or lines two groups up side by side so the extra bugs stand out. After a second miss, the game shows the answer, explains it ("5 and 3 more make 8") and lights up the right lily pad. There are no timers and no way to lose.

For ages 4 to 6, levels open in order: earn 2 stars on a level to open the next. A round with 7 or 8 first-try answers earns 3 stars. If you set the age button to 6 to 8 or 8 to 11, all six levels are open from the start.

Garden friends, stickers and the daily challenge

Every finished round grows new flowers in Mossy's garden, and twelve animal friends move in over time, starting with a snail after the first round. Stickers go into the Sticker Book shared by all our learning games: one for finishing each level the first time, sometimes one for a perfect round, and one a day for Today's challenge, 8 mixed questions that are the same for everyone, with a streak counter.

Tips for grown-ups

• Count real things together: stairs, grapes, socks in the laundry. Touch each one as you say the number, just like tapping the bugs.
• Make a ten frame from an egg carton cut down to 10 cups. Drop in buttons and ask "How many? How many more to make 10?"
• At snack time ask "Who has more crackers? How can we check?" Line them up side by side, the way Mossy does with the bugs.

Privacy and safety

Count Critters has no ads, no accounts, no chat and no leaderboards. We don't use analytics or tracking on our learning games, and nothing is sent anywhere. Progress and stickers are saved only on your device. It's free in the browser on a phone, tablet or computer, with nothing to download.

Questions