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One of my students described a fishing game to me, and I went home and built Fish Lab: a free maths fishing game for P1 to P6. No ads, no sign-up, and it changes whenever someone tells me something.

She looked at a page of sums and said a number before working anything out. I opened my mouth to stop her, and then I didn't. What her guess was actually telling me.

Halfway through a page of sums she put the pencil down and asked what any of it was for. My first answer was rubbish. Here is the one that actually worked, and what it changed.

She could do 42 minus 17 in her head. Dressed up as a story about oranges, the same sum stopped her completely. What I found when I stopped teaching maths and started reading with her.

I used to time her sums, because fast looked like good. Then I watched what the clock was actually teaching her — and stopped.

My daughter still counts on her fingers and I kept wanting to stop her. So I looked into what fingers are actually doing when a child counts on them — and stopped trying to take them away.

I saw a friend's five-year-old doing sums on a tablet and realised I had built nothing for my younger daughter. What I found when I looked up what preschoolers actually need surprised me — and changed what I built.

A friend posted a Tom and Jerry short and I noticed the orchestra never stops reacting. So I rewrote the music in our block puzzle — jazz harmony, a lyrical section, a chase, and real swing. Here is what I learned trying.

Another friend came to play today. Three children have used StudyLab so far — not three hundred. It was never built to sell anything, so three is fine.

AI can now make endless practice questions for almost nothing. So the questions aren't the valuable part any more — being noticed is. A note from the parent who built StudyLab.

A note from the parent who built StudyLab: Block Lab scores now count on the friends chart, and my daughter's classmates have started playing together.

Her progress vanished every few days. The cause was my own mistake. Here is what went wrong, why I added a nickname and password instead of accounts with emails, and why the questions changed too.

Why I built Block Lab: a simple, free, ad-free block puzzle for kids. No sign-up, no timer pressure, nothing to buy. A note from the parent who made StudyLab.sg.

No ads. A real feedback channel. You decide what your child sees.