Snag AcademyExplorer
Look closely. Something is not there!
How the difficulty is pitched
The fault is visibly absent or obviously odd — something a child can point at.
At this age a case should be a story with a person in it: Vicky, Ammu, Sam, Mom, Grandpa. The reasoning is everyday experience, not chains of cause and effect.
What a child at this stage can actually do
Recognition arrives long before recall. A child of six can point at what is not there in a picture well before they can describe it in a sentence, and that gap is what this band is built around: every fault is something they can put a finger on.
What they cannot yet do is hold a chain. "No seal, so no pressure, so the food stays hard" is three linked ideas, and it belongs to the next band. Here a case has one step, and it rests on something the child has physically handled: a tap, a fan, a plant, a plate of food, a road they cross.
Reading is often the real constraint rather than the reasoning. Every case has a Read it to me button that uses the phone's own voice, offline, so a child who is still decoding words is not shut out of a puzzle they could otherwise solve.
The four kinds of snag, at this level
- Missing — the part is visibly absent. A fan with no blades hums and moves no air.
- Wrong — the part is there but is the wrong one, or the wrong amount. A plant watered three times a day is not short of anything.
- Extra — something is in the picture that should not be. A steel spoon left in the mixer jar.
- Order — the steps are right and the sequence is not. Crossing a road; putting out a fire.
The four names are used consistently across all twelve years, so a child meeting "extra" at seven is learning a category they will still be using at sixteen.
Cases at this level
The Lazy Fan
The motor hums, the room stays hot. What is a fan without its blades?
The Curd That Never Set
Warm milk, covered all night — and still milk in the morning. Something had to be added.
Make Way!
A siren behind you at the crossing. What everyone should do, in order.
The Standing Grandmother
Nobody broke a rule. Something is still missing.
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Where children usually get stuck
Naming the symptom instead of the cause. Asked what is wrong with the fan, a child will often say "the room is hot". That is the evidence, not the fault. It is worth one gentle follow-up: that is what is happening — but what is missing?
Guessing quickly to reach the animation. This is extremely common and not really a problem. "Run with snag" plays the failure out on purpose, so a wrong answer is still a small lesson in consequence. Children generally slow down by themselves once the novelty passes.
Picking the biggest or brightest thing. The cases are drawn so that the fault is rarely the most eye-catching object, which is deliberate and takes a little getting used to.
What the first week usually looks like
Two to four cases in a sitting is a good session at this age, not twenty. The Technical Note at the end of each case is written for an adult to read aloud rather than for a Class 2 child to read alone, and reading it together is worth more than the next puzzle.
The single highest-value habit is asking the child to teach the case back to you afterwards. It is slower than moving on, and it is where the understanding actually forms.
Ready for the next band?
Two signs. They stop describing the symptom and start naming the part. And they get the ordering cases right first time rather than by trial and error.
Bands can be switched at the top of the app at any moment, and nothing is lost by trying the next one and coming back. Progress is kept per child, so a sibling switching bands does not disturb anyone else.
Alongside the app
- Notes — writing about diagnosis and safety, with every claim checked against its source.
- How to get more than screen time out of it — the "teach it back" habit is worth more than the next case.
Other shelves
🔍 Investigator (Class 6–8) · 🕵️ Inspector (Class 9–12) · Under 5 years? · High-contrast cards for babies