The Mathsfactor.....worth the money?

[Emstheword]

Hi, thinking about getting this to help my Year 1 daughter better understand maths concepts and make maths fun. What's the general consensus about value and for what ages? Many thanks

I just posted about trying to find a fun maths programme for 6+ and then stumbled across your post. Spooky. Maths Factor looks good. I'm going to give it a try. Pls share if you come across anything else. Thanks.

Hi Sukiking.....thanks for your reply sounds like we're in the same boat worth mentioning we've just discovered you can get 20% cash back via quidco if you use that (if not...sign up is free), so think I'll go for it too.

It's quite reasonable value and carol vorderman is genuinely a good teacher. It surprised me. Ds is quite able but this has helped him fill a fewgaps.

That's encouraging, thanks howtodrainyourflagon...,great name btw!

If like me your looking for a building blocks approach - so you need to know how to add before tackling multiplication (which is multiple additions) and you need both skills solid before working with fractions - then from personal experience and hand on heart Mathsfactor is brilliant.

It's good old fashioned learn through doing and practise makes perfect approach - which may not suit everybody....but worked amazingly well for DDs.

It sounds like exactly what DD needs too pastsellbydate and I'm a big believer in practice makes perfect. DD has responded very well with this method with reading and writing, so think it's a big thumbs up for Mathsfactor. I think we'll give it a try tonight and see how she gets on. Thanks all

Ermstheword:

What I will say with young ones - be prepared to help with doing the number typing at first. I actually think it's a very nice phase because you can see how the programme works and how your child reacts to it. Most of the easier level homeworks don't take more than 10 - 15 minutes - so it isn't a huge time burden for you as a parent.

We started Y1 with DD2 because she was jealous of DD1 - started right at the beginning (so counting numbers/ even and odd number kind of things) and she's still working away (now ratios/ proportions/ percentages) - I'd say about some point mid-Year 3 both DDs complained I was typing too slowly and wrested control of the number pad away from me!

The programme will test your child and start from where they're at - and my experience was that the maths (and how it was explained) was correct for age and ability.

Thanks pastsellbydate we signed up to a 3 month trial. It started DD on at year 1 and started off extremely basic, such as counting to ten...but has now moved onto counting to 100. We're impressed with what we've seen so far and DD seems happy with it too. We're just doing a little session after having tea every evening. It's good to know that there's plenty to get her teeth into, yet it will go at her pace. Thanks for the advice, you've been so helpful