I Saw a Paper Game in My Kid's Classroom. So I Built an App with AI.
Every week, I volunteer at my kids' school. I show up, sit at a table with a small group of the first graders, and help them work through their math. It's one of my favorite parts of the week, not because I love subtraction (though I'm getting pretty good at it), but because I get to watch six-year-olds think.
Last week, I walked in and the kids were playing a paper game called "Tic-Tac-Toe: Missing Numbers." It's a worksheet — basically a tic-tac-toe grid where each square has a math equation with a blank. Something like 7 + ___ = 13 or ___ - 4 = 8. Two players take turns. You pick a square, solve the problem, and if you get it right, you color it in with your marker. First to get three in a row wins.
The kids were into it. Like, genuinely competitive. They were racing through addition and subtraction problems just to claim their square before the other kid. They were doing math, and they didn't even realize they were practicing. They thought they were just playing a game.
I sat there checking their answers and thought: This is brilliant. But what if it was an app?
The Spark
Here's what went through my head. The paper version is great, but it has limits. You need to be in the same room. You need a printed worksheet for every round. The problems are fixed: once you've played a sheet, you've seen all the answers. And if you're a parent who wants your kid to practice at home? You'd need to print new sheets, find markers, and hope your kid doesn't lose interest before you find the scissors.
But the concept: competitive math disguised as a game, that's the magic. What if two kids could play from different devices? What if the problems were generated fresh every time? What if it could scale from kindergarten addition all the way up to fifth-grade multiplication and division?
I went home that night and couldn't stop thinking about it.
From Idea to App — With AI
Now, I want to be transparent about something: I'm not a software engineer by trade. I don't spend my days writing code. But I do understand how to take an idea and figure out how to make it real — and right now, AI makes that gap between "I have an idea" and "I built the thing" smaller than it's ever been.
I used AI (Google AI Studio) to help me build this. I described what I wanted: a multiplayer math tic-tac-toe game where kids pick their grade level, choose a color, and compete in real time. I shared photos of the original paper worksheet so the AI could see exactly what I was trying to recreate. And then we went back and forth, iterating, fixing bugs, adding features, testing it, breaking it, fixing it again.
It wasn't instant. It wasn't "type one sentence and get a perfect app." There was real problem-solving involved — figuring out how to handle multiplayer connections, making sure the math problems matched the right grade level, and getting the game flow to feel right. But the point is: the barrier to turning an idea into a working product has dropped dramatically.
Within a relatively short time, I had a working app.
What the App Does
The game stays true to the original classroom concept, but now it lives online:
Pick your grade level. The app supports Kindergarten through 5th Grade, so the math scales appropriately. Kindergarteners get simple addition. Fifth graders get multiplication, division, and order of operations.
Choose your color. Just like the paper version where kids picked colored markers — blue, green, purple, yellow — the app lets each player pick a color. It even has a color wheel for the kid who wants exactly the right shade of teal.
Multiplayer with room codes. One player creates a game and gets a 6-digit room code. Share that code with a friend — they can join from any device on the same link. No accounts, no downloads, no friction.
Play 5 rounds. Each round is a fresh tic-tac-toe board with new math problems. Get the answer right, you claim the square. Get it wrong, you lose your turn. After 5 rounds, the overall winner is crowned — with confetti, because what's a win without confetti?
My kids have been playing it nonstop. They challenge each other. They challenge me. My first grader is voluntarily doing extra math at home, which honestly felt like a parenting cheat code I didn't know existed.
Here is a quick demo of the app:
The Real Takeaway
Here's what I want you to take from this story. It's not "look at this app I built." It's this: AI has already changed what's possible for people with ideas.
I saw something in a classroom. A simple paper game that made kids excited about math. And instead of just thinking "that's cool" and moving on, I was able to come home and build it. Not because I'm a developer, but because the tools exist now to close the gap between having an idea and making it real.
And here's the thing: this app doesn't need to make money. It's not a startup. It's not going on the App Store with a subscription model. It's a free little game that makes math more fun for kids. That's it. That's the whole point.
We're living in a moment where if you see a problem, even a small one, even a playful one, you can build a solution. Not a perfect one. Not a polished, venture-backed one. Just a thing that works and makes someone's day a little better.
For me, that someone is a group of first graders who think they're playing a game. They are. They're also getting better at math.
Want to Try It?
I'd love for other parents, teachers, and kids to play with this. If you want to try Math Tic-Tac-Toe with your kids, drop me a note, I'll share the link with you.
And if this story made you think about the gap between an idea you've had and actually building it — that's the space I work in every day. I help organizations figure out how to close that gap with AI — not with hype, but with practical, human-centered approaches that actually change how people work and learn.
Sometimes the best ideas come from the smallest moments — like sitting in a tiny chair, watching a six-year-old race to solve 9 + ___ = 15.
Wei Kelly, Ph.D., is an AI-powered learning architect who helps organizations close the gap between AI's potential and how people actually adopt it. She writes about AI, learning design, and building things that matter at weikelly.com.
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