A website for education

In my last post I talked about a website I adore for the sheer pleasure it brings children and adults alike who play it. This post is about another website that isn't as sophisticated in its games as that but holds many which are more obviously mathematical. This website is called Maths Playground and houses games and teaching aids which will be of use for children between the ages of about 6 - 15 years.
You will notice there are several areas on this site; two of which are games pages and others which are Word Problems, Math Videos and Logic Problems.

There is also a reference to IXL a maths practise site which offers targeted work for different years. This is an excellent resource but you must also be aware that this is a subscription site and although there is some free-ware there, you have to pay to get into the site properly. If you are interested in controlling much of what your children do in maths, or want to give them a boost without having to leave home, then this is a good reference point and will have a lot of very good work to use. I know it is used in American schools and there are many children who are home-schooled who use this as their major input for their maths learning. If you are interested then I would suggest a stroll through the free intro work and make sure you know what you are paying to get involved in. The pre-school stuff is good however.

Right so let's get back to the web-site I use, the math playground. Like the cool maths site there are no chat rooms or any interaction with others, so the chances of the children being groomed is removed. There are adverts, however, and I have no idea where they lead, so if you allow you child to use this or any site then teaching them not to trail adverts is probably a good idea.
A good place to start playing is with Stay Sharp Arcade where you will find loads of basic arithmetic skills in the form of arcade games which they will enjoy and do, but be aware these will not hold their attention for more than a couple of games, so give them the opportunity to choose. What I do is to give them a restricted choice [the whole page to choose from is like putting a chocoholic in a chocolate factory and saying 'take one lick only'] of say 3 games and give them 10 mins to play then take them off  the computer a do something different. It keeps them motivated to go back and play again without getting them to O.D. in one sitting then tell you they're bored.There is a lot on that page and covers all 4 rules of number in whole numbers, fractions and decimals; a nice way to do arithmetic revision. During the summer, how about doing it as a competition? Spend some time with them, and create a competition, them against you. Have a prize of a packet of sweets or whatever is their favourite - nothing huge like a MacDonald's meal or anything, just a little something they can eat there and then if they win, and of course they will win most of the time won't they?

Let's quickly talk about the origins of this web-site; its American and therefore talks about the American

AMERICAN GRADE	AGE OF STUDENT
1	6
2	7
3	8
4	9
5	10
6	11
7	12
8	13
9	14
10	15
11	16
12	17

grades/year groups. They are different from ours so be careful. As you will see from the table above, the grades talk about specific ages groups, as they are in September of that year, so our 9 year olds would be in grade 4. On the whole its pretty similar but as a rule of thumb, the work done in the grade one less than their UK school year group is similar standards to that which they will come across in school.

I would suggest you have a good exploration of this site and have a look at what it offers. There is so much here, and it really is one for when they go back to school. Explore the videos: if you can cope with the American accent, then the videos are really helpful and some of the best I have found on the net.