Zoo Game for Kids: Zoo Keeper Math
Getting your game ready…
- Ages
- 6–10
- School years
- Grade 1–Grade 4
- Skills
- Adding money, multiplying prices and working out change in your own currency, Deciding whether you can afford something and how much more you need, Area by counting squares and by rows × columns
- Time
- 8–10 minutes a zoo day
- Cost
- Free, no sign-up
- Updated
For grown-upsZoo Keeper Math is a free zoo building game where every job is a real math problem. Children sell tickets and give change in their own country’s money, adopt new animals they can afford, build each enclosure on a squared grid so it has the right area, fence it, feed the animals on time and read the visitors bar chart. Their zoo grows day by day.
How to play Zoo Keeper Math
- Choose your school year and press Play. Each zoo day has eight jobs, shown along the top.
- At the ticket booth and the snack stand, add up prices and work out the change. The money you take is yours to spend.
- At the animal shop, choose a new animal you can afford, then work out how much money you will have left. Read its fact card to learn what it eats, where it lives and something amazing about it.
- Build its enclosure: drag on the grid (or use the arrow buttons) to make a rectangle with exactly the right number of squares. Bigger animals need more room! Then count the fence panels all the way round.
- Feed the animals at the time on the clock and answer a question about the visitors bar chart. At closing time, your new animal joins the zoo map and you can spend your savings on trees, a fountain or even a zoo train.
What your child learns
- Adding money, multiplying prices and working out change in your own currency
- Deciding whether you can afford something and how much more you need
- Area by counting squares and by rows × columns
- Perimeter: the distance all the way round a rectangle
- Telling the time to the hour, half hour, quarter hour and 5 minutes, and working out how long things take
- Reading bar charts with scales going up in 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s
About Zoo Keeper Math
Zoo Keeper Math mixes a building game with the math children meet in their first years at school. Money, measurement, time and data all come up in one zoo day, and each one has a real job to do: the money taken at the ticket booth pays for the new animals, the area of an enclosure decides whether a giraffe has enough room, and the clock tells you when the penguins want their fish. Children see why the math matters, and every wrong answer is followed by a short worked tip, such as counting up from the price to the money paid, before they try again.
Year levels set the math. Grade 1 counts money to 20, gives change from 10, counts the squares in small enclosures and reads o’clock and half past. Grade 2 works with money to 100, quarter past and quarter to, and bar charts that go up in 2s. Grade 3 adds amounts with cents or pence, finds area and perimeter, and reads the time to 5 minutes. Grade 4 solves two-step money problems, works out what a fence costs, and finds how long things take across the hour. All money is in your own country’s currency. Each of the 18 animals has an accurate fact card: what it eats, its habitat and the continent where it lives in the wild. Your zoo is saved on your device, so it keeps growing every time you play.
| School year | Suggested level |
|---|---|
| Grade 1 | Money to 20 and change from 10, counting squares, o’clock and half past, simple bar charts |
| Grade 2 | Money to 100 and change, area and fence panels, quarter past and quarter to, bar charts in 2s |
| Grade 3 | Money with cents (or pence), area and perimeter, time to 5 minutes and time taken, bar charts in 5s |
| Grade 4 | Multi-step money problems, area, the cost of a fence, time across the hour, bar charts in 10s |
Move up a level after getting three stars two or three times in a row.
Leaderboard
Full leaderboardPlay a round to get on the board! Create a free account to save your scores.
Frequently asked questions
What math is in Zoo Keeper Math?
Money (adding prices, multiplying, change, and deciding what you can afford), area and perimeter on a squared grid, telling the time and working out how long things take, and reading bar charts. The questions match the school year your child chooses.
Which money does the game use?
It uses the currency of your country’s site, such as dollars and cents, pounds and pence, rupees or rand. Every price, ticket and note matches the money your child knows.
How does area work in the game?
Each animal needs a set number of squares: bigger animals need more room. Children drag on the grid to make a rectangle with exactly that many squares, by counting squares or by multiplying rows by columns. Then they count the fence panels all the way round to find the perimeter.
Is my child’s zoo saved?
Yes. The zoo, its animals, extras and savings are saved on your device (in the browser), so the zoo keeps growing each time your child plays on the same device. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Is there a timer?
No. Children can take as long as they need. There is a pause button, and the game pauses by itself if you switch to another tab or app.
Are the animal facts accurate?
Yes. Each fact card gives the animal’s diet, its habitat and the continents where it lives in the wild, plus one amazing fact, all written simply and carefully checked.
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