About ScorePals

ScorePals makes a first-grader the family’s official scorekeeper. For a young child, keeping score for a real game is the thinking: you add each round, carry across a ten, compare who’s ahead, and read the bar graph at the end. Board-game platforms usually automate the bookkeeping — here the bookkeeping is the whole point. Ages 6–8 (grades 1–2).

The cast

A small friendly crew, each of whom shows one scorekeeping job (their illustrated storybooks are on the way):

• Marky — the scorekeeper who tallies: writes down every point as it happens.
• Deca — carries a ten to the next column when the ones fill up past nine.
• Moe — compares: “Who has more? And how many more?”
• Barlow — draws the round as a bar graph so you can see the game at a glance.

What it does NOT do

• No AI near the arithmetic. The score check is a plain, exact calculation — never a guess from a model.
• Gentle, never a fail-state. A wrong tally gets a warm “let’s count again,” not a buzzer. No timer, no streak-guilt, no pressure.
• No accounts, nothing leaves the device. The only thing stored locally is how many games you’ve kept score for.
• Big buttons + read-aloud. Built for little hands and early readers.

Honest yield

ScorePals is authentic practice with addition, place-value carrying, comparison, and bar graphs (CCSS 1.NBT / 2.NBT / 2.MD.10). It is not a claim that using it raises test scores or makes a child “smarter.”

Part of the Spark & Anvil portfolio · Program #113 (Board-Game Platform & Together). Web-pioneered — the iOS app is a separate, founder-gated build.