Online Math Supplement #hsreviews

Do you need a source of extra math practice for your children?  I know that my oldest boy has a love of math but he doesn’t always enjoy his workbook math as they tend to repeat things more than he wants(he gets bored).  We have tried some online math supplement programs before so I wasn’t sure what we’d think of our new venture.

With that in mind, we were excited to get to review an online math supplement from 3P Learning.  The program is called Mathletics and it’s according to my son “awesome” and a “super fun” way of practicing some math skills!  Mathletics offers math for children ages K-12 so there is something for everyone!

3P Learning was very generous to us.  We received a full year subscription for two children to Mathletics.  The two grades that we received are 3rd  and 1st.  My oldest boy started third grade math for this 2014-2015 school year and has really been enjoying his time with mathletics.  The other grade level we received was 1st grade math for one of my girls who struggles with school.  I wanted to compare both a gifted boy and a learning challenged girl to see what this program really had to offer.

You can access and sign up for a free trial of Mathletics as well.  They have a parent/student section for homeschoolers of a teachers/schools section for schools.  The free trial is for 10 days.  After that it is $59 per student per year with family discounts available.  Right now there is a discount which is why the $99 per student(normal price) has become $59 which is a great deal considering it is for a full 12 months or year of service.

 

 

 

 

Mathletics functions on a set of 7 Key Points.  These points describe what they are and how they work for your child.  They are:

1. Engage:  Mathletics involves and engages your child.  They offer a reward system for correct answers and offers fun play things to help keep your child engaged as well.
2. Target:  The program has over 1200 practice activities with pre and post testing to help your child learn.  This allows you to focus on or target an area they need more work on versus an area they totally get.  
3. Diagnose:  Mathletic offers a diagnostic testing and then a report of that so that you can know exactly where your child is.  You know their strengths and weaknesses and can then work on those specifics to get them where they need to be.  One of my favorite points.
4. Assess:  An assessment test can be assigned by you the parent for your child to do.  You then get the results and suggestions from Mathletics on how to improve the area for your child.
5. Report:  The reports from Mathletics let you know what your child has done, how many times they had to redo a section before mastering it, and any areas that your child still hasn’t seemed to master.  I really love these reports!  They are detailed.  They are precise as well though so they can pinpoint the exacts.
6. Fluency:  Mathletics helps your child to become fluent in math.  In all the different areas of math, each can be compared to a different language, so by the time your child is done with their area they can be fluent in many different components of math comparable to many different languages.
7. Mobile:  They offer a mobile app that your child can use when you’re on the go as well.  We did not use this.  I do not have a lot of devises that could access this and my children have none so we used the computer for our entire learning.

Because I used this program with two totally different children who have different learning styles, I will have two slightly different opinions.  One opinion for how well it worked with my son and one for how well it worked with my daughter.  And then I’ll share an overall opinion of the online math supplement program.  I do want to emphasize here and probably will somewhere else that this is a supplement program.  It is not intended to be the only way of learning math for your child, but rather to help them further learn and understand something that has already been taught to them.

Okay!  So we’ve learned about Mathletics and how it works for you and your child.  That’s it right?  No!  You mean you want to learn more?  Okay then!  I’ll gladly oblige!  So let’s talk now about how we used the program.

Before starting the program each child makes an avatar for themselves.  This is such fun!  My son has to change his almost on a daily basis to give him a different shirt and background.  It’s pretty fun!  Then anytime they finish a lesson or login they can see themselves!

 

 

Let’s start with the first grade program.  My daughter is still struggling with math in this area.  She has some developmental delays as well as learning delays that cause her to really struggle with school.  She also has RAD(reactive attachment disorder) that makes learning even from day to day to be an adventure for me as she may not remember what we learned the day before.  We started out with the first few lessons of the first grade stuff.  She did okay with the first one, not too bad with the second, but by the third she was overwhelmed.  That’s when I noticed this awesome little button.  It says something easier.  So you can go easier.  That helped a lot with this.  She started out doing simple things like making graphs by adding the amounts they told her.  

 

 

As you can see, it was pretty simple stuff, but as she mastered those simple ones it gave her the confidence to go and master more.  It let her decide that she COULD do this!  And on days that she was really having problems we could go back and redo those lessons.  There was no lock out or you have already done this so you can’t do it again.  The questions would change but still have the same concept.  This was wonderful for her.  

That being said.  There were some downsides to the program with her.  She does not get computers yet at all. She just could not figure out how to work the mouse or buttons on her own.  I had to sit with her anytime she did a lesson.  So, she only did 3 lessons per week.  Well 3 sessions per week.  Some weeks we did the same lesson at each session because she was still having troubles.  But this did require me to take the time to sit with her and explain to her and help her do each question.

So with a learning disabled child at that age or grade level, I have to say that while I really like the program and the way she learns with it, it would probably not be something I would purchase for her to use just because it would require me spending the same amount of time teaching her as a workbook would.  When I’m looking at online programs I am looking for something that is helpful that does not require any extra time from me.

I do think this is a wonderful program though!  And you’ll see just how much as we venture on to my son who is doing third grade math and really loving the program!

Patrick is 7 years old and working at a 3rd grade math level.  He does really well with his math and loves to use the Mathletics program to do it on his own!  He loves using the computer and calling me over to see that he finished a lesson and has increased his gold bar count.  The gold bars are given for finishing lessons correctly.  He has come across a few lessons that he has had to do over  a few times, but he still does them and does not stop until he receives that 100% correct mark.  Did I mention he’s a bit of a perfectionist too?  

He and I both enjoyed that when he finished a lesson it would tell him his score and what questions he missed.  At first he thought that meant when he redid the lesson that the questions would all be the same and it would be easy to just fix the ones he missed.  Wrong!  The questions change and shift so they are all new and he’s essentially doing 10 new problems on the same concept.

 

 

Using Mathletics for him is fun.  He also has really enjoyed doing the times tables which is something that he started learning in 2nd grade but hadn’t done a lot with.  There is a little fun spot that has Times Table Toons on the right hand side of our screen.  There you can listen to the disco cat teach you the rhyming times tables!  They learn from 1-12 which is wonderful!  I know when I was in school we learned the times tables by song too or rhyme and most of those are still sticking with me today!  In fact, when he listens and watches those(cute little cartoons too) most of the other children come to absorb the learning too.  I like that!

 

 

You can also see on the above shot that it shows his daily points, his points for the week and gold bars.   The Times Tables Toons is on the right near the bottom.  You can see the funky disco cat too!  He’s pretty fun to watch.  As you can tell there are fun things the kids can unlock and do gamewise after they have gotten so far with their problems.  Patrick has almost completed this section!  He loves getting to see the Perfect! Score on the ones he’s done and the empty spaces where he still has more to do.  You can go back and choose a different concept and then have under it several areas like this that he can do.  It definitely has enough that it should keep him busy for the full year!  

So as an overview.  This program to us is wonderful!  We love it!  My 3rd grader can do it entirely on his own and in fact does not want me or his siblings near him while he’s doing his math.  I let him choose how often he chooses the program.  There are some weeks he uses it 6 out of the 7 days!  Seriously he really likes it.  Our daughter did like the program but again it required more of my time to help her.  Math to her is still a one on one subject whether it’s online or in a book.  But she really enjoyed the extras that the online program gave her too.  It’s fun watching gold bars appear and getting Perfect! scores!  This program definitely makes learning fun and makes me want to check out the other programs that 3P Learning offers such as Spellodrome, IntoScience, and Reading Eggs.  I think my kids would really like them!

Think this sounds like something you’d like to use with your children?  It’s perfect for homeschool students or public school children so it’s an all around great program.  You can connect with them on facebook or twitter.   Make sure to head over to the Main TOS Crew Blog Post to learn more about Mathletics and the different grade levels specifically.