While some people successfully homeschool math without a curriculum, I recommend using a curriculum at least to loosely follow. It can help make sure that there aren’t any gaps in education and can also take some of the pressure off of you as the homeschool parent.
We use Primary Mathematics from Singapore Math and couldn’t be happier with it. It really depends on the individual, and it can sometimes take some trial and error to find the curriculum that works in your family.
What I would like to share, though, is the websites we use to supplement our homeschool curriculum for added practice and to help explain topics that might be a struggle. In this post, I’ll review some of the best math websites for kids that we use in our home.
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Math Prodigy
Math Prodigy deserves the first spot on the list. Why? Because my kids beg to play this math game. Even on the weekend, when they could be playing video games, they often ask to play Math Prodigy instead.
Math Prodigy is an online role playing math game that gets kids to practice math in a fun, engaging way. The creators of the game have built a rich fantasy world in which kids create their own character that goes on quests. If your kids are into Pokémon, they will fall in love with this game.
While trying to complete levels, kids have to battle other kids (if playing online vs the offline version) and creatures. As they go, they can add pets that battle with them and build up strength as they progress.
Each battle helps kids level up and earn money, which can be used to buy things for their houses, new clothes, or pets.
Okay, but where is the math part?
Each battle is punctuated by math questions. If you answer correctly, you hit your opponent. If you answer incorrectly, your hit misses, and you risk losing the battle with consecutive wrong answers.
A great feature of the game is that parents are sent updates on their kids’ progress as well as monthly report cards. These tell you how many math questions were answered during the period, how many correct and incorrect answers, and the grade level of the questions.
You can also see specifically which topics were covered (geometry, fractions, etc.) and which was the child’s strongest and weakest areas. This has been great for seeing what we need to spend some extra time on during lessons.
I’m always amazed when I check the progress reports. Not only because their reports are so thorough but also because of the number of math questions each of my kids answers while playing. Each week, my kids answers hundreds of math questions, and that is outside of our regular math work that we do.
This is the reason Math Prodigy is number one for us. Anything that will encourage extra math practice and make it fun enough to compete with video games with no educational benefit is a winner for me.
Nothing is perfect, though, so here is my rundown of Math Prodigy’s pros and cons.
Pros:
It’s FREE! (You can pay for a membership which allows kids to unlock extras in the game. We use the free version and have no complaints.)
Kids have so much fun that they don’t realize how much math they’re doing
The regular report cards help parents know exactly how kids are doing
It’s responsive, meaning the content adjusts as kids play. If there are a few wrong answers in a row, the program will change the level to something easier. If levels are mastered, the program moves up to harder material.
It’s safe. This is a big one for me. I’m always hesitant to let kids play online games because of safety issues. Math Prodigy takes safety really seriously, and I’m completely comfortable letting my kids play it. They aren’t able to use their own names. They can send messages to other players, but the things that can be said are limited to pre-written phrases they can choose from.
There are seasonal “Fests”, like Winter Fest, Summer Fest, and Pumpkin Fest. They are awesome and make the game feel new every few months. Where kids may tire of games that stay the same, there is always a burst of renewed excitement with Math Prodigy each time a new fest arrives.
Cons:
It doesn’t teach math concepts well, so it’s really best for practicing what has already been covered outside of the game.
Buying membership is pushed constantly throughout the game. My kids know that we don’t have plans to buy the paid membership anytime soon, so they have stopped bothering me about it. I could see this being a problem for some kids, though.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a free online learning resource that provides lessons and practice by grade level all the way from Kindergarten to college level. It covers many subjects, including math, science, humanities, language arts, and computer programming.
We mainly use Khan Academy for math practice, especially when someone has difficulty understanding a specific concept. The instruction videos are really thorough.
Sometimes having things explained by someone else with a supporting video can help drive an idea home better than their textbook or I can alone.
While we use Singapore Math as our math curriculum, you could actually use Khan Academy as a complete homeschool math curriculum.
Once you sign up for a free parent account and set up individual accounts for each child, they can take placement tests to see exactly where they need to start so that it isn’t to hard or too easy.
Once their level is established, they can start learning and completing practice activities. In each section, kids earn mastery points to show how close they are to completing a topic. They can work through each until everything in a grade level is mastered.
Or if you are like our family, you can just use Khan Academy as extra practice instead of working through entire grade levels. For us, we have a solid math routine set up and having the kids work through Khan Academy at this point would be math overkill.
However you use it, Khan Academy can be a fantastic free resource for homeschool math.
Pros:
It’s a comprehensive free math curriculum. Finding something of this scope and quality that is also free is amazing.
Children can work at their own pace to complete grade levels.
You can use it as a free tutor to explain hard to grasp concepts.
Cons:
Especially for younger kids, the site itself is boring, so it’s probably not something they will use unless assigned. Instead of a game like Math Prodigy, this should really be considered more like a workbook or extra curriculum.
MathPlayground.com
Some math topics are best learned through memorization, like the times tables. We can only do so many flash cards before people start revolting over here, so I’ve found a way to get kids do do flash cards without them knowing it. Sneaky, right?
Math Playground has a ton of online math games that cover a specific math skill, like multiplication or adding up to 10.
The site has ads and is kind of spammy looking, to be honest. The beauty of it, though, is that the kids feel like they’re playing arcade style games instead of doing math drills.
In some games, the math part is front and center, where the goal is to answer questions correctly to make their car go faster or their spaceship shoot the right alien.
Some of the games, though, don’t seem like math games at all but will pause and ask a few math questions in order to continue playing.
Twenty minutes of playing is like going through a whole stack of flash cards, and I find that after a while of using this they can answer times table questions much faster.
Multiplication is really the main reason I started using this, but my Kindergartener saw his older siblings using it and wanted to as well. I let him do ‘adding to ten’ games, and he became incredibly fast in his response time.
If you or your child hates doing flash cards, this is a super alternative.
Pros:
It’s fun, so kids will want to play this.
It’s much, much better than flash cards and will help a lot with memorization of math facts.
Cons:
The ads are really annoying.
Mathseeds
The math websites I’ve included so far are all completely free to use.
Mathseeds is the only paid math website I am recommending, but let me tell you: It is SO worth it.
While Math Prodigy falls short on teaching, Mathseeds offers a full, comprehensive game-based curriculum that kids work through.
Kids can start at the beginning, where they learn counting and numbers, or they can take a placement test and start at their ability level.
Each level has instruction followed by game-based practice. Correct answers earn points, in the form of acorns, which can be spent on clothes, items, and pets that kids can put in their house.
We’ve been using Mathseeds for a few years now, and I highly recommend it.
You can try it for FREE for 30 days here.
I love that they have such a long free trial, so you can have enough time to experience the whole program and really see if it makes a difference in your child’s learning before signing up.
On top of that, the free trial gives you access to their entire program which includes their phonics and reading programs as well!
We did the free trial and loved it. We’ve been using it ever since.
Conclusion
Like a lot of parents, I’m pretty picky about how much screen time my kids get. I’m always trying to balance screen time with non-screen activities in our homeschool.
That said, there are times when using online activities to supplement what we’re working on can make a huge difference. It’s much better than doing worksheet after worksheet, in my opinion, and often has better results.
Just like the reading game I use to get my emerging readers to practice, making math practice fun will get them to do more than they might if I just ask them to use their workbook. It’s all about mixing things up and making things more fun.
If you’re looking for a way to make math more engaging or make practice less of a chore, check these math websites for kids. It has definitely made a difference in how quickly concepts are mastered in our house.
[…] you’re not familiar with Math Prodigy, I’ve sung the praises of it here in my review of online math programs we use. This has been an indispensable part of our homeschool this […]