STEM
MathCircle
Pass-and-play multipeer math circle for 2 to 4 kids on a single iPad. Rotating Scribe / Checker / Proposers table operationalizes cooperative math problem solving. 60 hand-curated circle problems. Ages 9-14.
▶ Play it nowBuilt for sittings of about 20 minutes on the screen. That is our design budget, not a measurement.
Meet your mentor
Every Spark & Anvil app has a friendly mentor character that demonstrates, asks, and patiently scaffolds learning. On-device AI personalizes the mentor's responses to your kid's progress — never connecting to a server, never collecting data.
Mentored by Circle Circe
#D97706 MathCircle puts 2 to 4 kids around a single iPad with rotating roles — one Scribe who writes, one Checker who reviews, and one or two Proposers who suggest the next move. Problems come from the math-circle tradition (Berkeley Math Circle, Zvonkin, MATHCOUNTS) — picked to spark discussion, not to drill speed.
Characters who teach
Meet the cast
MathCircle's cast helps a table of kids solve one problem together: one steps back so you talk to each other, one says your idea back so everyone hears it, one gives everyone time to think, and one shows that a wrong try can teach you something.
Circle Circe
Steps back so the kids can talk to each other
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Echo Edie
Listens, then says your idea back so everyone hears it
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Patty Patient
Gives everyone time to think — no rush
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Tortoise Hare
Tries a slow way and a fast way, and lets a wrong try teach something
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Tess Try-Small
Specializing — when a problem's too big, try the smallest version first
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Gemma General
Generalizing — turning a pattern from a few cases into a rule for all of them
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Hattie Hunch
Conjecturing — daring to guess boldly, then testing the guess honestly
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Reva Reverse
Working backwards — starting from the goal and reasoning back to the start
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Wendy Wonder
Notice-and-wonder — slowing down to observe and ask before rushing to solve
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Cass Check
Sense-checking — asking whether an answer actually makes sense before trusting it
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Browse all chapters → · What's distributed-narrative methodology? →
What's inside
Rotating Roles
Scribe, Checker, Proposer — rotate every problem. Everyone takes turns thinking out loud.
60 Circle Problems
Hand-curated from Berkeley Math Circle, Zvonkin, MATHCOUNTS hardest, and other math-circle classics.
Wait Time Built In
Patty Patient holds space when the table goes quiet. Productive struggle is the point.
Pass-and-Play
One iPad, one device. No accounts. Nothing leaves the table.
Mentored by Circle Circe — on-device AI, no data leaves the device.
How MathCircle handles your kid's data
- ✅ All progress, settings, and AI-generated content stays on the device
- ✅ No analytics, no tracking, no third-party SDKs
- ✅ Free — no ads, no in-app purchases
- ✅ No personal information collected from children — in line with COPPA (updated by the 2026 FTC amendments)
- ✅ No chat with strangers — play-together rooms use a short code and preset emotes, never typed messages
For you, the grown-up
Spark & Whetstone, our free site for grown-ups, tells what MathCircle teaches in a short course of its own.
MathCircle runs on ForgeKit — the open-source Swift Package Manager framework that powers every Spark & Anvil app. ForgeKit ensures consistent accessibility, COPPA compliance, and design language across the portfolio, so your kid's progress and preferences feel coherent across every app they touch.
Coming to the App Store
MathCircle is in active development. Email us to hear when it ships — no marketing, no spam, just a one-shot launch announcement.
Email me at launch
