🚀 The free case — every grade starts here
Starlight Station is the case every cadet gets for nothing, at every grade, and it is deliberately the most welcoming of the six. The station's systems have been sabotaged and the crew are all suspects; your cadet has to bring the ship back online one system at a time, and each system is a different piece of mathematics wearing a spacesuit. It is the only mystery whose story is rewritten for each grade rather than merely re-levelled — the Kindergarten version is about missing star snacks, the Grade 5 version about a scrambled master equation and a locked reactor vault. If you want to know whether this approach works on your child, this is the case to find out with, and it costs nothing.
The space station's lights went dark and the star snacks vanished! Count along to fix the station and find out who did it.
Each round is a different interactive mechanic — not the same question in a new coat. Crack all four to unmask the culprit.
The same story, re-levelled for each grade against its own Common Core standards. Pick your child's grade:
| Grade | Skill focus | Standards | XP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kindergarten | Add/Sub within 10 | K.OA.A.2 K.OA.A.5 | ⚡ 80 XP | Play free → |
| Grade 1 | Add/Sub within 20 | 1.OA.C.6 1.NBT.C.4 | ⚡ 90 XP | Play free → |
| Grade 2 | Add/Sub within 100 | 2.NBT.B.5 2.OA.A.1 | ⚡ 120 XP | Play free → |
| Grade 3 | Add/Sub within 1000 | 3.NBT.A.2 3.OA.C.7 | ⚡ 150 XP | Play free → |
| Grade 4 | Multiply, divide & multi-digit add | 4.NBT.B.4 4.NBT.B.5 4.NBT.B.6 | ⚡ 150 XP | Play free → |
| Grade 5 | Order of ops, multiply & divide | 5.OA.A.1 5.NBT.B.5 5.NBT.B.6 | ⚡ 170 XP | Play free → |
Earns the 🏅 Cadet Sprout badge.
Across K–5, Starlight Station covers these 14 standards. Mastery is tracked per standard for each agent. Official Common Core wording:
| 1.NBT.C.4 | Add within 100, including adding a two-digit number and a one-digit number, and adding a two-digit number and a multiple of 10, using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used. Understand that in adding two-digit numbers, one adds tens and tens, ones and ones; and sometimes it is necessary to compose a ten. |
|---|---|
| 1.OA.C.6 | Add and subtract within 20, demonstrating fluency for addition and subtraction within 10. Use strategies such as counting on; making ten; decomposing a number leading to a ten; using the relationship between addition and subtraction; and creating equivalent but easier or known sums. |
| 2.NBT.B.5 | Fluently add and subtract within 100 using strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction. |
| 2.OA.A.1 | Use addition and subtraction within 100 to solve one- and two-step word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions, e.g., by using drawings and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem. |
| 3.NBT.A.2 | Fluently add and subtract within 1000 using strategies and algorithms based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction. |
| 3.OA.C.7 | Fluently multiply and divide within 100, using strategies such as the relationship between multiplication and division or properties of operations. By the end of Grade 3, know from memory all products of two one-digit numbers. |
| 4.NBT.B.4 | Fluently add and subtract multi-digit whole numbers using the standard algorithm. |
| 4.NBT.B.5 | Multiply a whole number of up to four digits by a one-digit whole number, and multiply two two-digit numbers, using strategies based on place value and the properties of operations. Illustrate and explain the calculation by using equations, rectangular arrays, and/or area models. |
| 4.NBT.B.6 | Find whole-number quotients and remainders with up to four-digit dividends and one-digit divisors, using strategies based on place value, the properties of operations, and/or the relationship between multiplication and division. Illustrate and explain the calculation by using equations, rectangular arrays, and/or area models. |
| 5.NBT.B.5 | Fluently multiply multi-digit whole numbers using the standard algorithm. |
| 5.NBT.B.6 | Find whole-number quotients of whole numbers with up to four-digit dividends and two-digit divisors, using strategies based on place value, the properties of operations, and/or the relationship between multiplication and division. Illustrate and explain the calculation by using equations, rectangular arrays, and/or area models. |
| 5.OA.A.1 | Use parentheses, brackets, or braces in numerical expressions, and evaluate expressions with these symbols. |
| K.OA.A.2 | Solve addition and subtraction word problems, and add and subtract within 10, e.g., by using objects or drawings to represent the problem. |
| K.OA.A.5 | Fluently add and subtract within 5. |
Yes — at every grade from Kindergarten to Grade 5, with no card required. It's a complete case, not a demo: the full four rounds, the badge and the XP. The other five mysteries need a membership.
The one they're actually in. Grades aren't locked, so if it's too easy or too hard you can move them without losing anything — the same story exists at all six levels.
Nothing punishing happens. The case simply waits, and they try again. There's no timer scoring them down and no way to fail out of a case.