We’re happy to announce that our newest math game, Tiny Polka Dot, is now on Kickstarter!

Tiny Polka Dot is a math game deck for 3- to 8-year-old children and their families. Over the past several years we’ve designed series of games through our work with pre-K and K-2 teachers. Tiny Polka Dot is the culmination of that work: a deck of colorful cards that pulls together the best of those games.

If you or anyone you know would like this game to exist, please support the campaign now. Learn more here.

Why Tiny Polka Dot?

The most common question we get asked about Prime Climb is: “can my 4 (or 5 or 6 or 7) year old play this game?” And although some people have reported having fun playing the game with young children, Prime Climb was designed with older kids in mind.

We had some great card games to recommend, but the most mathematically relevant ones usually involved removing the face cards or a bunch of elaborate rules. (Cribbage jumps to mind.) And the design of standard playing cards makes simple games like memory or war or their variations less mathematical than they ought to be.

Why is there no deck of cards that’s expressly designed to bring out the mathematical nature of these games? Three- and four-year-old kids often need practice counting different arrangements of objects, while Kindergarten-aged kids transition from counting to adding and subtracting; the right series of games and a thoughtfully-designed deck of cards could back up the entire sequence of early numeracy.

And, in the pivotal moment that often occurs in these stories, we suddenly realized that we should build it.

And so we did!

If you have a 3- to 8-year-old in your life, please consider backing the campaign, and spread the word to folks you know who would be interested! We’re really excited about this game, and with your help we can get it produced before the year is out.