online math

60% Off Online Math Program!

October 6, 2013 By Valerie Mcclintick 2 Comments

Huge Subscriber Offer: 60% OFF + BOGO at CTC Math
You must use that link for the discount. Homeschool Family Pricing Available.

Math is one of those subjects that your child either LOVES or HATES.

My daughter HATES math.
VERY MUCH SO.

She does her math homework first thing in the morning.
Which if you know her, really means she dislikes it.

~~Some days~~ Most days she bombards me with questions like,
WHY?
WHY?
WHY?
It’s TOO HARD!
(which isn’t a question)
And WHY?

She is not behind in math,
She might even be a tad ahead, but she really EARNS that position,
it most definitely doesn’t come naturally to her.

My son, on the other hand, enjoys math.
He is a thinker.
a problem solver.
a riddler.

If you happen to be new,
and anywhere within 100 or so feet of him,
he might surprise you by pulling a brain teaser out of his pocket
and demand that you match wits to see who can solve it first.

Math is his favorite subject,
something he looks forward to,
and if it were up to him,
math would be the only subject of the day.

He says things to me like:

“Math is my favorite subject”

and

“If it were up to me, math would be the only subject of the day.”

But, even though they are both so very different in their enthusiasm towards math,
they both really like CTC Math.

Which is good because CTC Math sent us a free subscription to try out their program and let our readers know what we thought.

So, are you interested in an online math program? Here’s the deal:

CTC Math is a supplemental online math program for K-12.

A Subscription to CTC Math Includes:
1,367 animated and narrated math lessons (VIDEOS!!!)
A bank of over 57,000 interactive questions
Diagnostic tests
Instant feedback to students and regular reporting to parents
Algebra, statistics, geometry, trigonometry, probability plus more

Here’s how all that looks:

Getting Started:

Essentially, you can start your child at any grade level and any topic that you want. Just choose your grade, choose your stream, and then choose a specific topic.

If you don’t know where to start, each topic includes an optional comprehensive test, and an instant report you can view to diagnose problem areas.

I actually already know that Bubba needs to work on Statistics and Probability so I put him in 3rd grade; Statistics; Graphs and Charts.

Clicking on the topic takes me directly to the video lesson.

The Lessons:

Each video lesson is under 10 minutes long. (Can I get an Amen?) They are simple, easy to understand, and usually include interactions within the lesson.
Children can pause, stop, rewind any of the videos on their own. Big buttons. Real simple like.

Not to mention the teacher is Australian.
(Seriously, what kid can ignore a math teacher that sounds like The Crocidile Hunter?)

Follow Up Questions:
Direcly after the video lesson, children complete the follow up questions. This is all done online and often involves click and drag positioning to answer some questions. I want to point this out because the response of the actual graphics is fantastic.

I’m very impressed with how easy the tools and objects on the screen move around and respond to user interaction. They also make sense. (Which, if you’ve ever sent your children to a state required math assessment, you know how frustrating bad computer graphics and response can be.) CTC Math is crisp and easy to work with, there are no technical frustrations and children are free to focus on learning.

Reports:

After taking the required questions, children are given an immediate report and it’s easy to visually see where the child missed the mark. For example, in Bubba’s report above I can easily determine that my child understands the concept of picture graphs, but mixed up the numbers. I can see that I don’t need to keep teaching pictographs, but I need to give him tools to SLOW down and carefully approach math problems so we don’t make simple mistakes. Additional reports are saved in the parent login area so you can always access and pull up you’re children’s work.

Pros:

Family Pricing, CTC Math has competetive homeschool pricing. Even Better: CTCMath is offering our readers 60% off + BOGO, which means when you purchase a year subscription, you’ll actually get two years!!

Optional Testing. I can’t tell you how many online programs MAKE you test, or email the administrator to change the grade level of your children. With CTCMath comprehensive tests are offered for each subcategory, but they are NOT required to begin working at a particular grade level…..which leads me to my next pro:

Ability to bounce from grade level to grade level. CTC Math covers Kindergarten through Trigonometry. This is a helpful feature if you have a child who struggles with fractions but is amazing with division. You as the parent can assign them to different grade levels to continually build on their knowledge without any lapses.

Reports are Easy to understand. You can easily see what areas your children are proficient in, or what areas they need more instruction with.

No Visual Distractions. It’s not gimmicky. There are no flashing ads, no “design your own” avatars, and all that jazz. It’s simple. With a highly distractable child, this is something I can really appreciate.

NO CD’s!! Video lessons are streaming online, which keeps things simple. No disks to loose, scratch, or turn into flying saucers in the middle of a lesson.

Cons:

I actually don’t have any cons for CTCMath. (is that possible?) I WAS planning on complaining that the lessons weren’t available on our mobile devices, but I just pulled out my Kindle Fire to find that CTCMath is compatible with iPad and Android devices. I didn’t even have to download anything, it just pulled right up using HTML5 instead of Flash.

That was pretty impressive.

And if you still have any doubt, you can try CTCMath for free.
None of that credit card baloney either, just enter your email and you’ll immediately be able to take quite a few lessons…..see for yourself why over 200,000 students use this program.

If you do, let me know what you think below!

IXL: A TOS Review

June 21, 2012 By Valerie Mcclintick 3 Comments

So.

Not to overwhelm you, but this will be my third math post this month.

You might say that math is on my mind.

Actually, math has been on my mind
ALL YEAR LONG.

3 Grader + Oregon = Statewide Math Test

It was our first BIG one.

It was required.

I was so nervous…

I wanted her to be prepared for it.

I wanted her to pass it.

I feared that if she didn’t pass the first time
that my imaginary liscence to homeschool would be revoked.

I poured over all the requirements.

I purchased any and all math books
that said “state standards” or “correlated topics” on them.

And pretty soon, Sissy was using FOUR different math books every day.

Yes. FOUR.

You see, I purchased ONE because it was the type of math I liked to teach.
ANOTHER because it dealt specifically with word problems, and
ANOTHER because it taught graphing and beginning algebra connections, and
STILL ANOTHER because it promised to get us TEST ready.

So I watched all year long.
My little girl, dragging her pile of math books to the kitchen table,
and I can remember thinking;

Wouldn’t it be nice to just have one math program,
that took her through each standard to the point of mastery.

And while I’m not for ONLINE math as the foundation of our curriculum,
I’m pretty sure that I could have replaced THE OTHER THREE filler
Math books with one simple subscription to IXL.

In fact, it would have made things quite a bit easier.

Here’s Why:

Colorful and engaging.

I know that might seem like a small “PRO” but when you’re staring at a website
every day, it’s nice to have one that appeals to children and adults.
It’s easy to tell that IXL is a professionally designed website,
because I don’t have to squint to see the font, navigation is simple and easy and there is enough
color to keep children interested without burning out our retinas with flashy gimicks.

State Standards:

When you register with IXL, YOUR state standards are made available.
Everything is easily outlined by grade and
you can simply click which one you want your child to work on.

Explanations:

If a child receives an incorrect answer, they are given an option to have the problem explained.
This is a great because sometimes topics are on IXL that aren’t covered in our usual Math book.

Ability to Change Grade Levels:

Unfortunately my son figured this out as well and spent an afternoon on KG math because he was simply having too much fun getting ALL the questions right. Aw well….After reading the user guide I learned that you can easily change the settings to hide the grade level navigation bar from your children.

Reports!

I love being able to take a quick glance and see how a particular child is doing in a specific area. I also recieve an email report with details of their progress.

Here are some more specifications for IXL:

Membership benefits:

Complete coverage of math curriculum from pre-K to algebra.
Unlimited questions in over 2,000 skills.
Fun and colorful practice formats.
Questions that adapt to your child’s ability, increasing in difficulty as they improve.
Immediate feedback and question-specific explanations to solidify understanding of each concept.
Audio for all pre-K through first-grade skills.
Weekly e-mail updates on your child’s progress.
Informative, detailed reports pointing out successes and trouble spots.
Awards and certificates for you and your children to print out as they reach important milestones.

Pricing:

Pssst…..I just broke out my calculator,
and you’ll be happy to know that
$79 bucks a year is about $6.60 a month.

Read more about Membership options here.

Disclaimer:
As part of the TOS Crew Review I was given a family subscription for three of my children in exchange for my honest opinion about IXL.com

ALEKS: A TOS Homeschool Review

February 14, 2012 By Valerie Mcclintick 2 Comments

When I started homeschooling one of my biggest concerns was:
How will I know that my children are really learning?

In fact, during the first couple of years I had nightmares
that we’d fall victims to the “Fill-in-the-blank” cycle of teaching.

You see I would spend a week teaching my children all about “Rounding to the nearest 100”
They would complete their worksheets with great accuracy,
then we’d move on to the next subject.

Half a year later, we’re doing problems that require rounding to the nearest 100,
and both of my children are sitting their completly stumped as to what I’m even talking about.

That ever happen to you?

This happens to me in every single subject.
I teach, they listen,
I test, they regurgitate,
I grade, we move on.

Of course NOW….we’ve learned to REVIEW.
(we actually have “Review” as a subject on our weekly calendar.)

And, usually our review sessions are short little verbal quizzes
in which we simply sit and play “Mom against the kids”
to see who can score the most points.
(Mom getting the points for a missed answer)

These types of reviews can usually be done on the fly,
with very little prep work, (and sometimes even in the car.)

But then there is math….
Math is a bit harder to review.
Sometimes it requires an actual sheet of paper to work out the problems.

But most often it’s hard to really know what math concepts my children understand,
and which ones their skirting around or finding other ways to solve.

So our ALEKS reveiw couldn’t have come at a better time:

ALEKS stands for Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces is a Web-based, artificially intelligent assessment and learning system. ALEKS uses adaptive questioning to quickly and accurately determine exactly what a student knows and doesn’t know in a course. ALEKS then instructs the student on the topics she is most ready to learn. As a student works through a course, ALEKS periodically reassesses the student to ensure that topics learned are also retained. ALEKS courses are very complete in their topic coverage and ALEKS avoids multiple-choice questions.

Did you read that last line?
“AVOIDS MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS.”

As a student I used to LOVE multiple choice questions.
As a teacher….eh, not so much.

Here’s what I really enjoy about ALEKS:

–Initial Test to see exactly what my child knows.

–Subsequent lessons, reviews, and testing surrounds only subjects that my child needs to work on.

–There is an “Explain” button.…oh how I love that button
Sissy: “Mom, I need help!”
Mom: “Hit the explain button!”
Sissy: “Oh, I get it!”
Mom: “Zzzzzz” (that’s me snoring and taking a nap on the couch)

ahem. kidding.

–Data is presented in a pie-chart that my child can understand
(seeing your own progress is a great motivator)

–Daily review with each log-in.

–Quick tables are great for speeding up those Math facts

–State standards are easily assessed

–Quizzes show progress made and in what areas.

–You can PRINT out a worksheet to take on-the-go

You can read more about all the different features here

Now, ALEKS is a bit heavy, and more intensive then I first thought.
My daughter is in third grade, the very first level of ALEKS,

And there are initial training programs for children to learn how to use the tools and the functions, so that they don’t miss questions because of a lack of technological ability. This was something I was concerned about for our upcoming state test this year, so I’m glad that Sissy got in some practice.

You can subscribe to ALEKS in a variety of ways:

$19.95 a month,
$99.95 for 6 months of access,
$179.95 for 12 months.

(For families with more than one child, discount pricing is available.)

ALEKS also offers a Free Two Month Trial:

I would definitly recommend trying out the program to see if it’s a good fit for your family. If nothing else, after the initial test you’ll have a great idea of what areas to work on with your children!

Disclaimer: I was given two free months of ALEKS for purposes of this review. All opinions are mine honest thoughts about the product. Read what other TOS Homeschool Crew members thought of ALEKS here.

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