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Best online maths learning tools?

2 replies

abriscall · 25/05/2021 14:41

I am curious what fellow mums believe are actually useful online learning resources to help children (primary school aged) learn basic maths like times tables etc.?

Ideally stuff that is fun and straightforward for the child so they actually want to learn with the tool!

One very interesting resource, that my son and myself have been invited to trial, is Jelly Maths. It is a new mobile app for learning basic maths, that tries to be very quick and simple. The link to learn about this app is //www.jellymath.app

Curious to know if this might be the best possible option for learning maths, or if anyone has any alternatives?

Thanks! x

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Saracen · 26/05/2021 00:20

How old is your child? Have you been home educating long? in the long run you may be surprised to observe just how much maths your child learns spontaneously through daily life: measuring up to make dolls' clothes, working out how much they can buy with their pocket money, planning how to reach the next level in their video game.

You probably didn't have to teach your child to add 2+2 because they had so many opportunities to discover it for themselves. It is the same with other mathematical concepts and calculations: if you wait long enough they tend to pick much of it up. There will be some things they'll need to learn through explicit instruction or memorisation eventually, but by leaving them to discover the rest for themselves first, they will find it easier to fill the gaps.

In addition, by waiting rather than pushing instruction when they don't yet want it, it won't be down to you to motivate them. They find for themselves WHY they should want to know how to multiply. You don't have to work to "make learning fun" when it is meaningful to the child.

Schools struggle to motivate kids because they are often pushing ideas (especially abstract maths) before the kids are ready. Mass instruction and external targets conspire to prevent them from letting kids develop individually. The school system thus creates the idea that you need to go to great lengths and develop special games to get kids to enjoy learning.

In "How Children Fail", the pioneering educator John Holt observed the extent to which school demands can detach children from their own common sense. A quicker read is a fascinating school-based experiment in NOT teaching maths to primary children, as described by Peter Gray here. I'll dig out a link to the full research paper if his summary interests you. In 1929, the superintendent of an American school district directed some of the local schools to drop maths from the primary curriculum. When tested at age 11, the pupils who'd had no instruction in arithmetic performed BETTER than their peers on tests of mathematical reasoning, and (as you would expect) worse on computation. He then arranged for them to be taught computational skills in their last year of primary school - not intensively, just the usual number of hours per week which their peers were accustomed to spend on arithmetic lessons. Within a single year, they had caught up with the others on computation and remained ahead on reasoning skills. This was especially striking because for his experiment, he'd selected schools in the poorest areas.

My eldest child started at school aged ten, with no prior instruction in maths, and was on a par with the rest of the class. They left school after just a term and continued without formal maths lessons of any sort until they began GCSE study, which they completed within a year with good results.

So I think you may be looking to fix a problem which doesn't necessarily exist for home educated kids.

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JLennon · 29/05/2021 13:46

Having had three go through mainstream school and one currently in Juniors I am interested in finding better methods of teaching/reinforcing/helping with times tables. That Jelly app looks very interesting! Our school encourages use of TT Rockstars which for me is far too busy and clunky. It puts my youngest off. Then things like Squeebles and Hit the Button are too frantic. It's not necessary to time everything they do at this age. Their learning should be fun and enjoyable and I know a few parents who don't like the timed element for their children. I did like maths factor, but again a little clunky and for a ten minute session about five minutes is spent watching the counter go round and moving around the site.
Something quick, simple and effective that captures her imagination is just what I am looking for.
Intrigued also by the comment above - very interesting! Thanks

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