Product: Plugo Count by Shifu
Price: $50.91
Cheapest Place to Buy: Amazon.com
Warranty: 6 months
Ages: 5 – 12 years
Return Policy: Within 30 Days of Receipt
My Rating: 4.5 out of 5
The Plugo Count, Product Overview
Math is a subject that some kids will naturally take to and in some the thought of it instills dread and despair. Unfortunately, my middle child falls in the latter category. He just doesn’t take after me. I love math and working with numbers, and I am pretty good at it. My son just does not have the same relationship with numbers. I recently acquired the Plugo Count to review and assess and thought it a good idea to get my son to try it. And Wow! He loves it. I can’t stop him from playing with it. And here’s the kicker, he is actually learning and enjoying math without realizing it.
The Plugo Count is a fun learning system where the real world meets the digital world. Kids solve fun math problems and learn at the same time. Reinvent the way your child learns math! Plugo Count, is an augmented reality powered educational game, that makes STEM learning super fun.
The engaging story-based games help kids fall in love with numbers with interwoven puzzles on counting, arithmetic, and word problems.
Plugo app has five interactive games with 250+ levels for Count that adapt to your child’s grade.
Ease of Use
Plugo Count is pretty entertaining and hands-on. Installing is self-explanatory. My son has no issue setting up and switching back and forth with games. You can add curriculum and set up difficulty levels according to their grade level. The best part is some games are set up like a story to keep kids engaged. Younger kids would find the shape games engaging and most kids will find the puzzles fun and exciting.
This Is How Shifu Describes Plugo Count On Their Website
“Plugo Count reinvents math with engaging stories that help kids understand and fall in love with numbers.
• 5 story-based games in the app
• 250+ challenges and puzzles
• Age-adaptive challenges,
• Skills: math (+ – x /), problem-solving, logical reasoning”
Plugo Count In The Classroom
Teachers can use Plugo Count to have students play games to practice basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts as well as adding and subtracting numbers within 1,000. Most kids would prefer these games over traditional learning material. Teachers will find that questions increase in difficulty, and students will receive immediate feedback on whether they answered correctly. Although the games can be played individually, students will likely benefit from working with a partner to solve problems.
You may notice your students gravitating toward the puzzle games, which are more likely to appeal to Grade 4 and lower.
You will notice that students focus intensely and use logic and working memory to solve these puzzles. These games lend themselves to partner work. In this context, students will also practice their cooperative skills.
Plugo Count is a great STEM education toy for many apparent reasons. It teaches logical reasoning, critical thinking, problem-solving, and is very math orientated.
Customizable Learning
One of the best features of Plugo Count is the available learning customization. Head to the settings section, and you can choose what type of math problems you want to appear in the games. This is great for two reasons. Firstly, you can select age-appropriate problems to solve. For example, if your child is at the learning numbers phase, then you can just have
‘Counting’ turned on. The second main benefit is to target learning. For Example, your kids might be good at counting, but not multiplication, so you can just have multiplication turned on.
Specifications
Plugo app is free on iOS and Android. Compatible with – iOS – iPad 3 and above, iPad mini 2 and above, iPad Air 1 and above, iPad Pro 9. 7 & 10. 5 inch, iPhone 6 & above | Android – Samsung tablets & smartphones, 2015 or newer with more than 2GB RAM | devices – Kindle Fire 7 – 2019, fire 8 – 2018 & newer.
Before you start playing Plugo Count, you need to download the Plugo App. The App is available for iOS and Android. Here are the links:
My Final Thoughts
I think the Plugo Count System by Shifu is a great STEM toy, and due to the available customization, it should last your kids many years. It blends the real world with the digital world. The unique learning experience it creates makes learning mathematics fun and keeps the learner engaged and entertained.
The only negative in my opinion, is device compatibility. iPad’s are listed as compatible devices, but not a lot of android tablets are listed. Perhaps they support a lot more devices than listed, but it would be helpful for them to have a complete list.
This toy is really well-built, and the Application by Plugo is well-designed and easy to navigate. I am certain that your child will love this educational toy.
If you have enjoyed this review and if you have any questions about Plugo Count, or if you have your own opinion about the product, please leave a comment below
Volkert
Thank you for sharing such a great review article about plugo count. The easiest and fastest way of teaching or engaging children into learning math. Is though cartoon characters. This creates a lot of fun and entertaining way of doing so. If plugo count uses such techniques, then it is ideal to download the app for kids.
Matiss
This is absolutely brilliant. I love math games. And I think this facilitates the fun of learning profoundly and thus, results in a way, way more enthusiastic kids as far as learning goes. And that’s always a good thing. That’s how it should be.
I think that customized learning is great for another thing. I think it’s great for learning certain skills one at a time. The way I see it, it’s just the most efficient way to do it. For example, you get that counting down and you move on to subtracting. You get subtracting down and you move on to multiplication. Otherwise, I bet it can get really frustrating for the kid if the software is throwing everything at him or her but they haven’t even started learning it yet.
Overall, I really like it. And I do agree that they should list 100% of the devices that the software can be run on. Cheers. 🙂
Leslie
Hi Matiss
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment on my review.
I will have to concur with you on learning one skill at a time.
This could help kids remain focused and avoid information overload.
Ann
My boy has been struggling learning math at school. And I have tried a couple of things but it seems that he’s not interested. So, I decided that probably making math fun would help. And Plugo Count seems to be a great option to achieve this. I really like how it combines the physical and the digital world together. Let’s see how it works for us.
Leslie
Hi Ann
As with most things in life, if you have fun doing it, you remain focused and engaged for much longer.
Whatever tool you decide to use, I hope that your boy starts to have fun and develops a better understanding of math.