Elmo's Number Journey is an educational game for preschoolers aged three to six, where players control Elmo as he takes part in activities that involve number recognition and basic math skills. The game's difficulty can be adjusted with three skill levels. Elmo can walk around Sesame Street in a 3D environment and talk to characters such as Big Bird, Count, Cookie Monster, and Ernie to see what they are doing while there is a parade going on.
The gameplay involves various activities such as finding numbers, practicing addition, and solving exercises. For the Count, players need to walk around in the castle garden's linear maze or the castle itself and pick out specific numbers provided by him, or groups of bats with that number. The bottom of the screen shows how many numbers there are left to be found. Similarly, for Ernie and Cookie Monster, the mechanics are identical, but the environment is different, with a carnival section involving bumper cars for Ernie, and snowboarding and jet skiing for Cookie Monster.