Now, a few caveats. If you’ve been reading this blog a while, you’ve no doubt learned that I do not think quickness at basic facts is all that important at the end of the day, though I do think knowing the facts solidly and with a certain proficiency helps. And if knowledge of the basic facts lags too far behind the child’s other math skills, it causes problems. I am starting to run into this more and more with Daegan, who has very strong problem-solving skills, but who gets tripped up on the basic math facts in solving them. So today, for example, our Math U See lesson was about averages—a logical topic in Delta, the book focussed on division. I gave him some enrichment problems from the Math Olympiad book, which I’ve been enjoying vicariously via videos (also found on youtube) from Mike’s Math Page, like:

You are play 5 levels of your favourite video game, and defeat an average of 10 zombies per level. On the first 4 levels you defeated 7, 8, 11, and 20 zombies respectively. How many zombies do you defeat on the 5th level?

Daegan’s basic reasoning is strong, and he tells me that with 5 levels and an average of 10 zombies per level, that’s 50 total zombies defeated. So what we need to do is add up how many zombies you defeated on the first 4 levels, and then figure out how many short you are—which would be the total for the 5th level. So he writes:

7+8+11+20=

and then goes, “7 plus 8….uh, uh….I don’t know!?! Is it 13?” Sigh.

Hence, the xtramath site for extra math fact practice. Daegan liked the ‘addition placement tests’ he did today, and said he was happy to practice on this site “twice per week…maybe more, but let’s start there so I don’t get sick of it.” Okay by me, son. Some things Daegan particularly liked:

-you get a checkmark if you get the answer right within (a generous) 10 seconds. So his first goal is simply getting a checkmark on all his facts (displayed on a grid at the end of each session). You get a smiley face if you can do it in under 3 seconds.

- If you get a question wrong, or run out of time (10 seconds), the answer is given to you to type in. This is a HUGE deal to Daegan who cannot stand programs that do not allow him to correct his mistakes quite quickly.

- It can be done entirely independently, and is short. Today’s intro videos and 3 addition placement tests took him less than 10 minutes, with no help from me other than showing him how to log in.

Things I like:

- It tracks progress and creates reports. We can see quickly which facts are mastered (under 3 seconds), known (under 10 seconds), and need work.

- The program automatically adjusts to give him more practice with the questions he needs it on, and less on those mastered.

- I too love the difference between the smiley faces and the checkmarks. (There is also an ‘x’ for those got wrong, and an hour glass symbol for those where the child did not answer and ran out of time). So many games and programs I have found are “all or nothing”—you either know the math fact, and quickly, or you don’t succeed. Xtramath, in contrast, breaks success into two distinct phases: accurate answers and speed. I like that simply getting accurate answers—even slowly—is rewarded.

Gareth also wanted to try the program, so I set up an account for him too, and he did the same three placement tests (though the questions began to differ). He too said he likes it—though right now he likes anything his big brother gets to do—and wants to do it ‘”once per week or so”. As Gareth is still learning his basic facts; any practice he does is a bonus in my eye. And if he decides he doesn’t want to right now, fine as well. He’s six!

Anyways, if you are looking for a no frills option for basic math fact practice, that tracks your child’s progress and adjusts to their strengths and weaknesses, give this one a try. You’ve got nothing to lose: It’s free! Again, the link to xtramath can be found here.

Khan Academy

From wikipedia:   The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization created in 2006, by Bangladeshi American educator Salman Khan. With the stated mission of "providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere", the website supplies a free online collection of more than 2,300 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics, history, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics and now computer science.

While Daegan likes to browse this site once in a while, the lack of engaging visuals (Khan simply draws and writes on a virtual blackboard as he talks) and lack of personal contact (the viewer sees only the blackboard and drawings, never Khan himself) makes this a better choice for kids older than mine. A great resource for some tricky concepts in math and science, though, as each micro-lecture is clear and focussed. Note that there is a broad ‘Khan Academy’ app, as well as apps (lecture series) on particular topics, like Khan Academy: Chemistry 1, or Khan Academy: Trigonometry.

An app my boys enjoy tremendously, and one better suited for their ages, is:

BrainPop Featured Movie

Each day you can watch a new animated movie and take a short quiz, and the topic range is huge: since we installed BrainPop less than a week ago, my boys have watched videos on dolphins, grammar, American history, and space science (comets and asteroids). Those with the app can also access a small number of other movies for free. My boys absolutely love this app—one of their first questions each morning is “Can we watch the new BrainPop movie?”—and I think it is a fabulous way to ‘strew’ a variety of topics in their path. So for our family, a ‘new movie of the day’ randomizing element to our learning works well; if you want to use BrainPop in more depth and for research on particular topics, you’ll want to head to the website and look into their monthly or yearly subscription rates.

An app I really like is:

WatchKnow Educational Videos

This app selects thousands of the best videos out there on youtube, teachertube, etc. and puts them together in a searchable, organized fashion, removing all advertisements, viewer comments, and pop ups / links to other videos. You can search by video title or topic, or use their very handy directory to find what you are looking for. As the videos come from a variety of sources, from a 10-year-old’s school project to TV show clips to professional documentaries, there is a wider range in the quality of the material than on Khan Academy or BrainPop. On the other hand, there are far more varied visuals, as both Khan and BrainPop stick to the same format for each video. Today we all watched a video I found in the Directory via Mathematics > History of Math > History of Math Overview > Development of Math. The 7-minute video is titled Mathematics: The History Behind Number Development and Other Methods of Counting, and you can find it on youtube too. But here, my kids can watch it without reading “you idiots” “ethnocentric bastard” or “hell no” in the comments section; there are no ads; and I have no worries about what videos will pop up once this is done to suggest ‘related’ items. The video looks at the number systems that developed across the globe, from Palaeolithic peoples to the Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Romans, Zulus, Chinese, Russians, and so many more. It looks at counting, number symbols (numerals), fractions, and computation. Daegan rated the video a 9.75 / 10, by the way, and both boys were inspired enough for us to make models of the “Egyptian bread” out of construction paper. We then divided the 3 paper loaves among 5 people, as was done in the video, to compare the Ancient Egyptians’ methods of understanding fractions with our own modern intuitions / concepts. I am currently spending some time each evening browsing the directory creating a playlist of items across a variety of topics from this app. Right now we’re learning about the human body and body systems, which you can find via Science > Life Sciences > Anatomy & Physiology > Human Anatomy. 53 video entries for the first subtopic, Circulatory System, alone—I love this app!

There are two other apps I’ve downloaded, but haven’t been able to investigate yet:

Open Culture

VideoScience

Open Culture includes far more than videos, such as free audio books, university courses, foreign languages and more. I’ve browsed a bit under Science > Science Friday Video (from NPR), where there are lots of 2-4 minute video clips on topics of interest to my boys. Note that this app is intended for adults and some links contain controversial / explicit content—unlike BrainPop or WatchKnow, you may not want to let your young child browse here alone.

VideoScience features clips of a teacher instructing parents / teachers on how to do various science experiments and demonstrations, as he does them step-by-step. The idea intrigues me, but I haven’t spent any time here yet so I can’t say how the quality is.

Anyone have any other learning via video apps to share? And don’t forget for those with Netflix, to download the free Netflix app so you can watch videos on your IPad et al.

I thought I’d start with some language arts apps that Gareth is enjoying. Gareth is now past the very beginning stages of reading and writing, but if your child is at that stage you can search the app store for terms like “learning to read” “phonics” “ABCs” and so on and you’ll find a ton of things, many of them free. But once you get past that very beginning—match the letters and sounds / here’s how you print the letters / let’s make simple CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, like ‘c-a-t’—the pickings slim down considerably. Two of the best I’ve found so far are:

Sight Words by Little Speller

and

Sight Words by Photo Touch

both from the same company, GrasshopperApps.com. The first is a spelling game; the second a reading game. Both games use the same 220 Dolch sight word list, broken up into 5 levels/grades: preschool / K / 1 / 2 / 3. Preschool (Level 1) words include ‘away’ and ‘said’; grade 1 (Level 3) includes ‘could’ and ‘know’ and grade 3 (Level 5) includes ‘eight’ and ‘laugh’. The words do not overlap between lists, meaning you’re getting a unique group of 40-50 words per level. Both games are highly customizable (just go to the settings button), right down to recording your own voice reading the word—something that came in handy as the Sight Words by Photo Touch reading game had an incorrect pronunciation (the voice said “ask” for the word “as”), so I simply recorded my own voice over it. It also means that depending where you live in the English-speaking world, you can customize pronunciations to reflect regional differences, something as a Canadian I appreciate with the grade 3 word ‘about’! The customization options are very detailed and well thought out; let’s looks at the Sight Words by Photo Touch game in more detail.

You play this game by selecting the word being said aloud from a group of cards showing various words on them (like a flashcard). As you progress and do well, the game gets harder by adding more cards to choose from for any given word. You can customize whether or not to give hints, the minimum and maximum number of cards to display, whether or not have error and success sounds, whether you are picking words from only one level/grade, or a few, or all.

The spelling game works similarly, with kids having to put jumbled letter tiles in order to spell the word given. For younger kids you can leave the hints on the screen (the word spelled underneath the jumbled tiles in the centre of the card, as well as shaded in lightly in the tiles area, so kids are matching letters more than spelling. Gareth plays the game with the hints off, so he only has jumbled letter tiles and a blank tiled word space below:

Simple game concepts, but very easy for kids to navigate, and parents to customize. Gareth has played both and likes them, as they are perfect for his literacy level right now.

Another game Gareth enjoys, and which feels more “like a fun game like Mom and Dad play” and less like edutainment, is:

Whirly Word.

This is your basic “make words out of this collection of letters’ game, like Scrabble or Boggle, and there are tons of variants of this game available in the app store, many (like Fishtropolis, Textropolis, and Chicktionary) with free versions.  But Whirly Word is Gareth’s favourite by a long shot, and for several good reasons. First, the letters are displayed in a circle, around a central ‘enter’ button, a layout I think helps new readers / spellers see more easily how various letters can go together to make words; there is no long chain where the first and final letter are far from one another. Second, the game limits itself to 6 letters. Third, it allows 3-letter words. Lastly, you go from one level to another in the game in one of two ways: either by making the longest (6-letter) word, or by making enough words for your progress bar to get past a certain line. This game is VERY generous in that progress bar, allowing my beginning 6-year-old to find enough words (often simple 3-letter CVC words) to make the ‘green light’ come on and allow him to choose to go to the next level. You don’t NEED to go to the next level, however, and for older kids (or adults) you could play to find more or all words before going on. But Gareth LOVES this game, and I can see why. He can play it without help, spell words, and go from one level to the next based on his efforts—just like Mom and Dad do on the far more complicated games like Fishtropolis, which starts at 4 letter words (not 3), and has far more letters (than 6) to combine.

Finally, I’ll mention a game I love, and is a good stretch for Daegan (age 9) or older kids:

Word Jewels

In this game, you have a honeycomb of letters and need to make words, moving from any letter to a connected one (does not have to be in a straight line). But there’s a twist: to go from one level to the next, you need to use all the letters that have a red background. The game starts deceptively easy: in Level 1 there is only 1 of 25 honeycombed letters that is red, and you are given just one turn to eliminate it by spelling a word that includes that letter. (Any letters you use to spell disappear, and the rest of the honeycomb letters slide down with new ones added at the top, like Bejewelled Blitz). In round 2, 2 red letters and 2 turns, and so on, but you soon max out on the number of turns you get to eliminate all the letters (9 turns is the max). I found it fairly challenging by the early teen rounds (eliminating, say 14 red letters in 9 turns), and the highest I have ever gotten is level 26 (yes, one past all 25 letters being red and needing to be used). You have one other helper in the game, and that is the ‘shake’ button, which reshuffles the letters on the screen, allowing you to proceed if you get stuck. (Take my advice—get rid of those Js early, or they have a way of getting stuck in corners!) You get points for the words you make, more points for longer words, as well as points for any unused moves (if you are able to clear the red letters in 3 moves instead of the 4 you were given, for example). ‘Shake’ carries with is a points penalty, but it does not count as a turn.

Have fun, and I’ll share some more apps later!

Thank goodness the boys have had their new Nintendo DS and the Fossil Fighters game to keep them busy! My aunt sent them the game for Christmas, and the boys saved up their money to buy the DS system, which was an interesting math exercise in itself.  

In Fossil Fighters, you need to find fossils, with the help of radar:

then dig up and clean the bones. There are many kinds of dinosaurs to be found (Daegan thinks around 100), but you must find the heads first, as that brings the dinosaurs back to life. (They are called vivosaurs in the game for that reason, vivo + saur = life + lizard). Here’s Gareth engrossed in cleaning some bones, including ‘blowing’ on the screen, as he is doing here:

Once you have cleaned bones, you have a vivosaur ready for battle. As you find more bones of the viviosaur, it acquires more moves to be used in battle, and as you win battles, you increase the strength of the vivosaur along various dimensions. Here’s Gareth checking out what bones he still needs to find of one of his vivosaurs, Shanshan: (note the dust! Renos will do that, ya know! )

Each vivosaur has a power type—earth, fire, air, water or neutral—and are stronger or weaker against various competitors. I am quite impressed that Gareth, who is not yet reading fluently, can cope just fine with the strategy in this game (which includes text, graphics and numbers), saying things to me like, “Vivosaur X is weak against earth-type attacks, but strong against air attacks.” Here’s a typical page you see when deciding which of your vivosaurs to put forth in a battle, which requires considering your opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, as well as your own, as you pick a small team of vivosaurs to compete, allowing you to ensure a weakness on your team in one player is compensated by a strength on your team in another:

The boys are loving the game, and with provisos in mind to keep Mom sane (we use a timer system to ensure the boys don’t spend all day on this one activity), it’s been a good find for us. Gareth certainly has incentive to keep on learning to read! Gareth says his favourite thing is the battles, getting to use his vivosaurs, and see them and their moves. Daegan days his favourite thing is reviving the vivosaurs, and finding new bones which mean new moves by his vivosaurs in battle. Both boys think kids who like dinos and computer games will enjoy this one.

Any other favourite DS games? This is the only one we have so far.

And there are related online games here. Thanks goodness we parent in the age of google and youtube, eh?

Online Games (mainly found by Daegan):

BBC’s Skeleton Jigsaw, in which you put together the skeletons of 4 different prehistoric creatures (Basilosaurus, Gastornis, Australopithecus, and Woolly Mammoth). There are different levels of complexity, with the smallest bones pieces for the more advanced levels (like what is found on real world dig sites), and large complete bones for beginner levels.

BBC’s Making Fossils, in which you set various conditions in the attempt to make fossils. And just like the real world, “sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.” – Daegan.

TVO’s Dino Dig, a cartoonish game aimed at the youngest paleo enthusiasts, in which you dig for fossils and use what you’ve found to construct a specimen for a museum. The fossils are found in different areas of the world, and you need to use the correct tools at different points during the dig. The Smithsonian has a more complex and realistic version of a similar game.

On CD:

Zoo Tycoon 2 (Canada) (US), in which the boys set up and run a prehistoric zoo. The game requires the boys to think about which animals they want to keep and how many to have, how to keep the animals happy (type of food? type and size of enclosure? other needs?), and how to balance the various roles of their zoo to keep it running (needs of animals vs. needs of visitors, various sources of revenue to offset various expenses, entertainment vs. educational vs. research institute roles, etc.). If things go poorly, you may end up with a “dino rampage”, which requires prompt action by the staff: a robot is used to distract the dino while a tranquilizing team steps in. The boys find this a very fun, if complex game, and it is the one they play the most. 

“I Can Be a Dinosaur Finder”, which is an older game a friend passed along to us. The boys are playing it in these pics:

What are your kids favourite computer games? (I’d love some suggestions that are not dinosaur-related as well!)