Great things I've heard as a mom:
"I go potty!"
"More broccoli!"and, "Mom, can I go do math?"This last one is not something I expected to hear from my math-phobic second grader.
This is the same daughter who has driven me to purchase three separate math curricula for our home school, in an effort to find something that "clicks". The one who has caused more than one tear to be shed at the kitchen table as we struggle through lessons.
But I was fortunate to try Dreambox Learning's newly launched website on behalf of Parent Bloggers Network. Now, my daughter, who we call Belly, asks if she can run upstairs to "play" Dreambox. "Play" on an internet site whose main objective is to reinforce and teach math facts to kids in grades K-2. In fact, all three of my children (preK, Kindergarten and 2nd grade) are equally enthusiastic about getting online to play Dreambox whenever they can.
And I, being such a great mom, let them.
It is easy to see why my kids like Dreambox. They start off by picking their own avatar from a whole melting pot of cartoon characters. My son, D, enjoys this so much that he has already been a skater dude with blond hair, an African-American kid in sunglasses and a little girl in pigtails.
After picking their avatar, they are ready to play. Fortunately, navigation is very easy to understand, even for my youngest. With "Stella", the friendly guide, to show them around Dreambox land, they are able to log themselves in and play without constantly yelling, "MOM, come help!".
Of the three areas (the House, Adventure Park and Carnival), the Adventure Park is where my kids spend the majority of their time. D immediately embarked on a Pirate Adventure, while my older girls started with Dinosaurs and Fairies.
Once in an area, they were all presented with a "challenge" to help solve (for example, the pirates need help finding treasure they buried). I love the silly animation and entertaining story lines because they really draw my kids into the program and make them want to continue playing to see what happens next.
To solve a challenge, like finding that buried treasure, they complete math lessons which are structured to be in line with standards set by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. For those homeschoolers who are familiar with RightStart Math or Math U See, you may see the synergy with Dreambox which uses manipulatives to help kids "see" the answers and not just memorize math facts or guess at the answers. I was pleased to realize that Dreambox would work well with either of these programs in our home.
While my kids work on math lessons, they earn tokens along the way to play games at the Carnival or to "win" friends that they can later visit at their home base. This reward system is a huge incentive for them: in fact, I have to set a timer so that no one child monopolizes the computer for so long that the other two do not get a turn!
So, yes, my kids love Dreambox. But, what's so cool about Dreambox from a homeschooling mom's point of view?
* It is dynamic: as my kids are playing/learning ("plearning?") in the Adventure Park, the program is accessing how they are answering the questions. Did my four-year-old whiz through that challenge or did he seem to have trouble understanding that concepts? Did my daughter take a long time to answer that group of questions? Are there certain areas that need reinforcement?
This is not a program that plods forward, getting harder and harder with each lesson. Rather, it adjusts as it goes to make sure a child is really mastering the work before moving on to the next level.
* Accountability: If I'm going to pay for a math program to supplement what I'm teaching at home (or what my child is learning in a classroom), I want to know how my child is doing. Dreambox does a great job of keeping me in the loop with status emails. They'll even send me a friendly 'nudge' if one of my kids has not been on the site for several days.
If I want even more information, I can visit their site and get detailed reports on where they are in terms of grade-level learning. On the sample page below, the navy and orange shading indicates that the student has completed the Kindergarten-level exercises and is now beginning first grade.
Want more? They have it, including detailed descriptions of exactly what skills are being worked on in the most recent lessons. In Belly's case, her latest update included the following information:
(Belly) is solving problems by examining equal expressions within bigger ones. By learning to treat expressions as objects, rather than simply as procedures, she is building an important foundation for algebra.
(Belly) is developing the strategies of using doubles (for example, 7 + 8 = 7 + 7 + 1) and "making ten" (for example, 9 + 7 = 10 + 6) to develop automatic recall of the basic math facts (this is known as "automatizing").
* Free Trial and Guarantee: Dreambox offers new users a 14-day free trial, and a 30-day money back guarantee. You don't know how much I wish I had those options with some of the things we've bought in the past.
Remember that "I hate math" daughter of mine? Well, in about 14 days, she has already completed 66 lessons and logged seven hours on Dreambox. Best of all, she is starting to see how what she is doing online applies to what she does with her workbooks at the kitchen table.
The only thing I wish? That Dreambox went on to even higher grades. It'd be nice to have their support in a few years when we get to the really tough stuff, like Calculus.
