Customized Math Lessons

Homeschool Review Crew

Have you ever wished you could have a customized curriculum just for each of your children?  Something that works for them with no tweaking?  Recently we’ve been reviewing customized math lessons through Smartick.  We received a six-month subscription to Smartick.  This is an online site that teaches customized math lessons to your child.  I really loved that they offered an unlimited number of children on their subscription!  It’s so hard to find companies that will do that for large families these days!

About the Program

This is the first program I’ve ever heard of that works like this.  It’s adaptable to your child which means each of my children has their own customized math lessons waiting for them daily.  The recommendation is to use the program four to five times a week for fifteen minutes a day.

My kids have loved this program though.  I have seven children who are actively using this program every day. By every day I mean they even use it on Saturday when I let them and ask on Sunday but that’s an automatic no from me.  It really surprised me how much they wanted to use this program.  I thought after a few days they’d get bored and I’d have to keep them going.

But no!

Because this is customized math lessons each day is different and the questions and topics change.  Plus they have a reward system set up in the form of earning ticks.  The more ticks you earn the more things you can buy at the online store.  After a child finishes their lessons they can go into their online world and play games, visit the store, make friends, etc.  This is the part that I am hesitant or skeptical about.

I am very cautious of what my children do online so the thought of them being able to friend and interact with kids that I don’t know online gave me a bad feeling.  It’s not something that I want them doing.  And they did get friend requests from people I didn’t know, but you can let them be friends with their siblings.  I would like to see a function where you can ban them from receiving friend requests unless approved by the parent.

Diplomas

Another reward system that is offered are diplomas.  As your child learns and masters different concepts they have different levels.  At each level, they will receive a diploma.  The diploma can be gold, silver, or platinum and reflects how well they’ve done.  My kids have been using this program around 5 days a week for several weeks now(over a month), and yet they are all at different levels.  Some have received their first diploma while others haven’t.  

I’m not really sure what all these levels are.  The names are not familiar to me but they’re fun so that’s all that matters.

Other activities though are really fun and my kids have enjoyed them.  They love that they can buy things and customize their rooms, purchase pets and feed them, etc.  It’s a great motivator to doing well on their math lessons and answering as many questions as they can during their session.

The session is timed.  They can see a bar letting them know how much time they have left, how much they’ve completed, and how many ticks they’ve already earned this session.  I think this is a good visual to have so that they can see where they’re at.

Parent Portal

There is a parent portal but this is not a parent intensive program.  You don’t play a teaching role.  The parent portal lets you take a look at how your child is doing, what they’ve mastered, their tick earning and spending, as well as any awards or diplomas they have earned.  Here in the parent portal, you can control whether your child has a secondary tutor, when they are allowed to play games, and a few other things.

The thing I centered in on the parent portal was the ability to make it so they can only do the games section on certain days or after doing a lesson etc.  I chose to make it only available for my kids on the weekend.  Yes, that means they have fewer chances to win ticks on the games because they’re not doing them as often.  But it also means there is less fighting about how long each child can be on the computer because we only have two and they each have to use them for math. 

A few of my children were not happy with my changing them from daily to weekend only game use but that really made me decide it was the best move.  In a day and age when screens are everywhere, I still try to limit our screen usage.  It’s just school use during the week with a movie together on the weekend as a family if we have time.  This works for us.  My kids don’t have tablets or phones or anything like that yet.  

More Portal Functions

I like the parent portal as it shows me what they’re doing.  This way I don’t need to be right there watching them over their shoulders to see what’s happening.  It gives them freedom but it also gives me freedom.  And I get to see what they’ve created for their avatars which is laughable at times and so reflective of my children and their unique personalities!

I can look at their progress and see which areas they are working in, which areas they’re done with, which maybe they’re having trouble with, and the ones that haven’t been accessed by them yet.  I’m interested in what will happen when a child has accessed and mastered all of them.  Will they graduate from the program or are their higher levels that can be dug out?

Through seeing this information I can tell my child hey why don’t you work on the tutoring for geometry.  And then they can work on that and it will help them better understand things.  They don’t ever have to do the tutoring sessions but they can be very helpful if you notice they seem to be struggling with something.

You can click on each day and see if they had an outstanding or satisfactory or needs improvement day and what they worked on that day as well.  This also can help you know if doing a tutoring session in one of the areas would be helpful.  

Between the two screenshots above you can see how it differs from child to child.  Obviously the first priority is getting them to master counting but after that they mix and add in other things at what to me is no particular order.  So basically your child doesn’t have to master one topic before moving to the next.  It’s a customized math lessons experience though so it doesn’t really seem like they’re moving on and doing harder and harder things. 

Last thing to mention.

Another rewards option.  You can name your own rewards and motivators for your children. 

I have not used this yet but I could see using this once the newness of the program wears off.  Or if it does.  Some fun things like get to go on a solo trip to town with mom or you choose the menu for the week.  Just fun things that won’t necessarily mean more work for me but will mean lots of fun for my kids.  

Our Thoughts

I’ve interspersed a lot of our thoughts on the program within this review as it’s a harder one to write without putting them in for why I mention certain areas or things over others.  So you’ve probably already guessed that while we like the program there are a few things that aren’t my favorite.  But there is nothing that would make me not recommend this program.  It just makes me want to give everyone else a heads up on them. 

So here’s our official stance.

We like this program.  This program gets our thumbs up and recommendation.  It has great customized math lessons that are teaching my children a lot more than they have been learning and that make sit a great one for us.

Will I purchase it after our trial is up? 

I have to be honest and say I haven’t decided yet.  We have a program we’ve used and loved for years but I am really thinking of switching.  That’s a big step for us and the fact that I’m even considering it makes me think we will probably end up as paid subscription users of Smartick.  I really love the customized math lessons versus everyone doing the same thing regardless of how they learn.

The program combines math skills, understanding, and logic/reasoning into everything so it’s not just memorizing math facts.  I sat with a few of my kids as they did questions the other day and was actually shocked at some of the questions they were answering.  Things that I remember doing in high school or questions like them on my ACT where they give you a lot more information than needed and then ask you a question that causes you to actually look back and go hey wait you didn’t give me that information instead of just grabbing the first number that crosses your path!

I really like this. 

Teaching our children how to think and learn has always been something I strive for rather than just making sure they can regurgitate information. 

The program does offer a talking feature for kids who might not be able to read well or just understand better when it’s verbal/auditory.  I encourage my kids to use it if they need to but not if they don’t because it can get distracting for others.  Recently, we added headphones assigned to each computer for the kids that do need that. 

Learn More

You can learn more about Smartick by reading all of the reviews linked up on the Main Blog Post over on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.  They can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.  If you’d like to check out more on the customized math lessons just click here to venture on to their website as well.