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Supplementing math with educational videogames
- This topic has 5 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 4 months ago by
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Ok so I can’t especially tell you why, but the idea of supplementing my son with video games to motivate him to enjoy math practice has come across my brain. My eldest is much older, 20, than the child I am teaching, who is 8. Eldest was on the computer at age 2 before I knew about CM. It was a big mistake. He is totally technologically crazy. On the computer ALL THE TIME. He is waiting to go in the USAF. I would love to be a fly on the wall at Basic Training. I don’t know how he will survive over 7 weeks of no technology… Alas I digress. My dear son, 8, is struggling a bit in math. He is only allowed to play video games for about an hour on Sat and Sunday. So in an effort to enthuse him about math I was thinking about something like dreambox. But something doesn’t quite sit right with me about it. I think I’m concerned that if he loves it, regular math instruction in the fall will be insufferable. I don’t really believe we have to entertain our kids to teach them but right now his math attitude is a bit anxious and he’d rather not do it at all even though he’s really not that bad. A little behind but definitely making progress. Any thoughts? Jennifer
We’re pretty low tech here. This summer we’re trying incorporating math computer games though, to practice math facts. However, what that means is my kids are doing more math than they would without it …LOL. They don’t have ‘fun games’ as an option once they’ve done math, just math games. So daily this summer they are practicing math facts on xtramath.org – this is strictly math facts. Then if they want to, they can spend 13 minutes on multiplication.com playing the math games. Don’t let the name fool you – they have sections devoted to each math operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division). So the kids get even more fact practice but this time it is with a ‘game screen’ built in, instead of plain facts on the screen.
Will we do this during the school year? No. But they know that it’s just for summer, that we go back to Math U See this fall. But I think they are enjoying the ‘game’ aspect even though every single game has you answering math facts to play the game, just for something different.
(In general my kids don’t get any electronic games to play except for 30 minutes on Saturday. None. So offering them math games was a big deal to them, exciting. LOL. I have 8 kids age 14-1, 6 boys and 2 girls, with another boy on the way.)
What about using math games like board games and card games instead of on the computer? RightStart or other games using dice or cards and keeping score can be a fun way to re-inforce math concepts. Or living math books like Mathstart by Stuart Murphy, the Sir Cumference series, or Life of Fred? Check livingmath.net for more math titles.
There is a free trial you can try for Dreambox. We tried it, but it was not a good fit for us. And I noticed a change in behavior when my children were on the computer more, even though it was for school. We do use xtramath.org for math facts, which takes less than 10 minutes per child per day. I like how it works and has helped my children with their facts, plus it is free, and ad-free. The other one I thought of using is k5learning.com, but I did not want my kids on the computer.
If you wanted to do it for the summer….
Timez Attack is pretty good for math fact practice (all of them) – I just use the free levels…
Prodigy Math Game is really good for K-8 math in a video game format that is more fun than Timez Attack…. Also Free
I just watched this video today, but she talks about Dreambox and it seems pretty neat… I have no experience with it though.
She starts talking about it at around 14:30 .
I second the Times Attack suggestion, lots of fun and they learn. The new version has more options than the old one. Just to say it does feature an ?ogre/ big looking thing, but my children, who are sensitive, are ok with it and actually think its funny though I do not like him at all!
Xtra math is not fun, not games, but definite math practice of basic facts, free.
Sumdog is free, and fun, but has heaps us stuff like “rewards” games that I need to monitor time spent, to ensure the chdrn actually do enough math. Maybe there are parent controls, I can never figure these things out.
IXL math is good and thorough and recommended where I live. I don’t think it is fun though.
Shepherd software has some fun educational math. Mostly early concepts.
At one stage we used the “games” part of the easy peasy curriculum. My child would just scroll down the days to the next time a game was listed and then do it. Some were fun, some better than others, some lame. Less work and monitoring for me, and game done, computer time over.
Lindy
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