Crevette has been trialling The Maths Factor, Carol Vorderman’s online Maths practice site for primary school aged children, and we decided to share our experience.
Recent research and academic report shows that a ‘little and often’ approach to maths can boost progress, the key to building maths confidence and increasing attainment – click here for more information.
“Primary-aged children, who regularly completed 15 minute sessions on The Maths Factor, have demonstrated how Maths learning can accelerate dramatically. Those who completed an average of three or more sessions a week for 12 months saw their ‘Maths age’ advance by 19 months. That’s seven months of additional progress in the course of one year.”
The Maths Factor adventure started before Crevette even tried the programme for the first time. As we signed in, he had to choose his own username and password. He was pretty excited as it was his first time doing that.
Crevette’s first task was to choose his avatar. He went for a penguin and had a quick tour of The Maths Factor to understand the sequencing: video, warm-up, practice.
Crevette found out about the rewards he will get when giving correct answers: correct answers count up as well as new games which will unlock when completing activities.
Crevette started with a simple mental Maths activity. He was given 40 seconds to complete as many simple sums as he could (e.g. 3+5), before moving on to more complex sums using numbers 1 to 99 (e.g. 68 + 4). This activity dis not have a time constraint, but Crevette found it quite difficult to start with. He was worried he would get some of the answers wrong and counted on his fingers to complete the sums. He still managed to get 23 out of 24 correct.
The following session was a video of Carol Vordeman giving a clear explanation of how to add 2 to any big number on a 100 square. Focusing on units rather than the big numbers really helped Crevette not panic. As the demonstration, was unfolding, Crevettte started finding answers more quickly.
He was then able to complete the following activity, dragging sheep to complete sums. No fingers were used!
After each session, I receive an email to keep me updated. I think this little email makes a lot of difference. It means I can allow Crevette to be completely independent in his learning. There is no need to check on what he is doing. I know I will get a report on his progress and I can help him later on if needs be.
Since each session takes an average of 15 minutes, it is not a daunting exercise for Crevette. It has now become part of his after-school routine, just like reading and practising spellings. He has been making progress in micro-steps and enjoying his successes.
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post.
maths – i found it fun
I’m a great believer in little & often – much better than trying to pile it on all at once – & it’s good to have a bit of “science” to back this up!
Mademoiselle uses Abacas at school, but it doesn’t work on the iPad (yeah, I know!) only on the PC & I don’t get reports or always know where she’s at with it. This maths system looks great and you could easily turn it into a 15 minute game whilst using on the iPad. Glad Crevette is enjoying his maths
xx
It really is great for improving step by step. It’s not an app, but it works really well both on my phone and iPad. xxx
I loved music as I was good at it and found it easy! X
Reading – I love books!
My favourite was PE as I was a good allrounder at it
history i loved finding out all about the past
I enjoyed science, especially when we got to do experiments!
I loved Art lessons with Mrs Holt : )
My favourite subject was English as I loved that I could be so creative with words
oooh this looks a fun way to do maths.
It’s a good way to practise for 15 minutes per day as part of his after-school routine.
English – I’ve always had a love for the written word.
Media Studies
art because makes creativity
My favourites were the ones I was good at – German and science 🙂
Maths- I used to love sorting money and work I.g out percentages, my son is the same 🙂
I always loved maths, have always loved numbers 🙂
I loved Art 🙂 I loved being creative x
I loved English and all those stories!
Art, I wasn’t very bright, but I could draw.
I enjoyed english language as I have a good imagination – not sure how I ended up being an accountant !
I loved DT and I became a French teacher!
I liked Maths 🙂 I like numbers.
I liked most classes, but reading was my favorite in elementary school. I loved having an excuse to have my nose in a book.
I loved maths
I loved art – loves expressing myself!
Literature – love reading!
geography, i love learn where places were too
Food technology – it was the only subject I was any good at! (@PeanutHog)
english. because my teacher was a hottie and it made me try hard to impress him
Ha ha!
My favourite subject was art – I loved to draw and could spend hours sketching away!
I loved English and science.
History – more to do with the teacher than the subject lol
Im trying to get my 5 year old into maths, he has such a short attention span :/ x
I liked art but maths was in my top 3
Music as I loved to play on the piano
Biology, I found it interesting and had a great teacher
Maths I have always loved it!
I loved art ! I love been creative.
I liked history finding out about the past
Craft and design!
I always found history fascinating and my teacher was great!
I loved English literature, I loved escaping into a different world with a book.
I loved maths, I enjoyed solving problems especially algebra