Wednesday, December 16, 2009

TOS Homeschool Crew Review - Mathletics



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Mathletics is an online math program that helps your child practice their math facts and topics in math, it is not a complete curriculum, but would be a great supplement.

Note: the pictures below are not from my son's actual tests and program. They are samples of how things look in the program
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Once you purchase your membership the first thing you do is choose your character. There is a boy and a girl character and then you pick facial features, hair, clothing, and accessories. This was one of Christopher's favorite parts. When you use the program you get points and the points allow you to purchase new clothing, hats, backgrounds, glasses, even new facial features and hair! You can try on several different things and see what you would like to purchase with your points before actually using the points. This make the game fun and makes the kids want to earn points... by doing more math!!

Next you pick the level of math your child is doing or the level you want them to practice.

To use the program the student picks a topic, like Geometry, and then chooses a sub topic like perimeter, area, circumference, etc. Then the student is given questions to answer.

During the practice your student can click on the question mark if they need help with a topic and it will give them a mini lesson to help them out. Then they will be redirected back to their practice page. 

If you get the answer correct you get a check mark. If you get an answer wrong they put a red x next to the little box where you type in your answer. Then the correct answer is shown. The questions are randomized but if your student gets wrong answers and wants to improve his score he can do that sub-topic over again and it will give similar types of questions. He can keep doing that section until he gets 100% if he wants to.

The bars on the main topic page, in the picture to the left, are on the student's main page. The results are taken from the test scores. The sub-topics are for practicing and then you take the test and the test scores are what shows up on your main page. If you get a good enough score you can get a gold bar, if not it is blue and the student needs more work on that topic. If you get 100% on the test you not only get a gold bar but the gold bar says PERFECT on it.

On the left hand side of my son's page he had a rocket ship. I am not sure what the item on the left hand side of the picture above is depicting. This part of the main page gives you your weekly points and a place to click to see your awards. On the right hand side of my son's page there was also a pie chart telling him how many gold bars he had achieved and how many more he had to do.

Students get a bronze certificate for getting 1000 points in a week. You can earn a silver certificate by getting 7 bronze certificates and you can get gold by getting 5 silvers (he thinks it was 5, he never got that far). He is not sure if there is something beyond the gold certificates.

There is a parent/teacher section where you can view and print your children's records for each week, what topics they covered and how they did as well as how many points they earned.  Each activity is given a date so you can also see what they accomplished each day of the week. You can print certificates, too. Good to put in your portfolio!! In the parent/teacher section you can also view and save pdf's (print now or later) for all the levels of Mathletics. If you have enough hard drive space you could save them all. I only saved a few from the level Christopher was doing. The pdf's have worksheets that you could use for your child's school work, to further practice certain topics he/she may be weak in.

Mathletics covers grades K-8 Christopher did 7th though he is a little above that in Math. It was a good review for him and he enjoyed the program.  

On the Mathletics website you will find more information. There is a homeschool brochure on the "About Mathletics" page. Also on that page is: "Why choose Mathletics", "The Mathletics Curriculum" (which lists the topics for each level), and a few other things too. There is a "Testimonial" page, an "International Schools" page, a "Purchase" page and a "Sign In" page.

From Mathletics:
Mathletics is a subscription and each annual subscription is for one child, as it's an individualized learning path for each child, keeping track of their results and progress as they work their way through their individual grade curriculum. Each child also earns points as they are individually rewarded and as they achieve mastery of concepts.

An individual subscription to Mathletics is $59.00 per child per year. If you know the Human Calculator's Favorite number, and you will once I tell you the answer is '9', you can purchase a single child subscription for $49.95 per child per year. The "secret" answer was given to you with permission of Mathletics. To purchase go to www.mathletics.com and put in the answer '9' then click submit to receive this special price.

Out of five stars, Christopher and I give Mathletics:


We liked this program. If you only have one child, or your student is having a struggle with a certain portion of math, this may be a good solution. It gives practice in a fun way. But because of the cost and the fact that you have to have a seperate subscription for each child I have to give this my break the bank icon. We could never afford to do these kinds of programs with our kids. We need non-consumables for Math that we can pass on from child to child.

Check out the other reviews of Mathletics here at the Homeschool Crew Blog.

***Mathletics provided me with a 45 day subscription to the website so that I could do my review. Though I received this product for free I have given an honest review of them here in this post.

Debbie

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