reviews

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Goal setting is an important part of growing up. It really helps you to succeed in life if you have specific things you’re working toward. TRIVE understands this, but they also know that goal-setting is not an easy (or intuitive) thing to do, so they’ve developed a game for teens and adults ages 15 and up to help them learn this vital skill.

TRIVE is a game to be played with a minimum of 4 people, and up to 6. Because of the nature of the game (it’s designed to help you with life, not just have an objective and when you accomplish it you win), players should be 15 and up. You can play with more than six people, but be aware that if you do, it will take longer due to the discussion aspect of the game.

There are three basic steps to TRIVE: Discovery, where everyone comes together to discuss their goals and choose leaders and private coaches from within the group. Achievement, where you split up for six months and work on accomplishing the goals you set for yourself with the help of your coach. And Review, where you come together after the six months is up and see how everyone did.

In order to start the Discovery process, you need to gather your game materials and group together. Choose one person to be the TRIVE leader. This person is responsible for writing down everyone’s goals in a shared notebook (provided with the game) and touching base with group members during the six-month Achievement time. He or she maintains contact with every member of the group to encourage them on their journey, and at the end of the six-month timeline establishes rewards. This person can be a member of the TRIVE or just an overseer of the members.

When everyone gathers together for the Discovery meeting, each person is given a minimum of 3 Goal Cards (there are 50 included in your game) and a pencil (game includes 6). Players need one card per goal, and at the beginning of the meeting they take some time to write down their goals. This can be done with words or pictures and is kept private. When everyone has finished with their goal cards, the game begins.

Everyone’s goal cards are put in a pile in the middle of the table and shuffled. One player then selects a Quotable card from the deck (100 included). Players go around the circle and take turns trying to correctly identify the speaker of the quote. When the quote’s speaker has been identified, one of the goal cards is revealed and players try to determine which person from their group made that goal. When the goal-maker is revealed, they tell why they made this goal and what it means to them. Discussion is highly encouraged during this phase of the game. This process is repeated until all of the goal cards have been revealed and discussed.

Each Quotable card has a point value. When the Discovery round is complete, the person with the most points gets first pick of the other members to be their coach. Selection continues until everyone has a coach. There are two rules regarding coaches: each player can only coach one other player, and no one can coach themselves. At the end of the session, all the goals are recorded in the leader’s notebook. The leader keeps track of this notebook until the review session, which should be scheduled before everyone leaves.

During the Achievement period, participants work toward all of their goals, working closely with their coach and the TRIVE leader. Goals may be modified or changed during this period with the consent of the player and their coach.

When the group reconvenes six months later, coaches take turns talking about their mentees’ achievements. Coaches give their “students” a score in two areas: goal difficulty and goal commitment. There are bonus points given if you complete your goal within the six month time frame. At the end of the Review session, an award is given for TRIVE champion (the player who received the most points for the achievements) and Best TRIVE coach (a vote from the group).

TRIVE is a great way to gather up a family or group of friends who all have the goal of making and achieving goals. It gives a sense of accountability that you don’t often get from just setting the goals. Anyone will tell you that you need someone to help keep you on track if you want to accomplish anything, and with TRIVE you get the benefit of having that someone be a person who’s intimately invested in your success. Their success is your success due to the game nature of this unique goal-accomplishing formula.

Make sure to hit the Homeschool Review Crew website to read more reviews and find out how members used this special game.

Blessings,

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

Sometimes, when a review opportunity comes up, the product looks too good not to request. Pursuing Gold by Cynthia L Simmons/Heart of the Matter is one of those. This historical fiction novel takes place during the Civil War, but what makes it special is not just the novel. It’s the economics curriculum that comes with it! Yes, that’s right… it’s an historical novel and the Pursuing Gold: History and Critical Thinking Curriculum. As I was reading about it on Amazon to decide whether it would be a good fit for us or not, I decided that I really wanted Scorpion to read this book and study along with it. It seemed way too cool to pass up. Not only would he get a new viewpoint on the Civil War (history), but he would also get a better understanding of currency and how it all began in America.

Before I get too much further, let me offer you Scorpion’s thoughts:

Synopsis:

When his father dies and his partner is injured, Peter Chandler suddenly finds himself in charge of the C&R Bank. Not only is he in charge, but it’s the middle of an economic crisis. What is he going to do? Peter has only a college degree – not a lick of experience – so he has to join forces with his injured partner’s daughter, Mary Beth. The Civil War rages around them. Political pressure to loan the government unsecured loans of gold pile up. Tempers and prices rise. When Mary Beth finds counterfeit money one day, things are suddenly much, much worse. When the signature on that counterfeit money is Peter’s, things are dire. Will Peter and Mary Beth be able to find the forger in order to save their bank? They must. In their desperation, they turn their focus on God to help them find hope and peace in this direst of circumstances.

Review:

I haven’t read a lot of historical fictions recently, but this one has one of the greatest and most interesting back stories of any. I really enjoy learning the story and with a good connection to the characters.

In this novel, it felt like even though we knew some of Peter and Mary’s history, you still get lost in the story. 

The story did start a little slow, but the first few chapters introduced the elements of the story and seemed to bring you as the reader up to speed in what was happening in the story. With each chapter, we’re carried along with Mary Beth and Peter as they hunt the mystery counterfeiters, and it’s a very good read. I would highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys a good historical fiction, and I’m looking forward to seeing what else this author can do. 

Scorpion seems to be eating this book up. I’ve discovered him sitting in his room and reading it on more than one occasion since it arrived. Five years ago, that wouldn’t have been such a surprise, but he’s less of a bookworm now than he was then, so it’s nice to see him reading – and enjoying – a book again. The curriculum that goes with the book has also captured his attention. I don’t have to remind him to keep up on it. He’s doing exactly what the author suggests and reading a chapter, then doing the corresponding workbook pages. Every few chapters, he brings it out to show me and I’m always impressed with his work ethic.

Even though he hasn’t finished this book quite yet, he will definitely be keeping up with it. We definitely recommend it as a fascinating, unique look at the Civil War. Whether you need a supplemental book for a high school Civil War unit, or something that explores the origin of currency in America, Pursuing Gold is a book you should check out.

Make sure to head on over to the Homeschool Review Crew website for more information and reviews as well.

Blessings,

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

One of the biggest benefits I get as a member of the Homeschool Review Crew is the Ultimate Membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com a division of The Old Schoolhouse®. I have used resources from this site off and on for years, amongst many of my children, and they never disappoint.

Over the past year, we have focused on two main areas of the website. First, Ballet Boy entered the Virtual Art & Photography Fair last fall. He entered a couple of his photographs, as well as a painting that he made with his now-ex-girlfriend. Because he’s doing a lot of work with his dad, that includes learning how to use Photoshop. This means he’s being given ample opportunity to learn to “spice up” all the pictures he takes, which are mostly for his Instagram account where he does awesome things with his ukulele. He won first place for one of his photographs as well as honorable mention for the painting, and he was really proud of that.

The other thing we’ve spent a lot of time on is 4th grade science with Grasshopper. Together, he and I have been working through the Discovering Disgusting Creatures course. This topic utilizes the partnership with World Books and has reading comprehension question that go along with it. Grasshopper was quite unsure about this class when I told him the name of it, but he’s been loving it. Dragonfly (K/1) has even listened in on some of the books and learned a lot! Occasionally, he’s faster on the comprehension answers than his older brother.

If you need more than just “fill in the gaps” curriculum, SchoolhouseTeachers.com is the place for you! You can get a digital curriculum box for grades K-12 (and there are boxes for Pre-K and parents coming soon!). We haven’t actually used these boxes, but they include quite literally everything you need for homeschooling. If you’re worried about the high school years in particular, don’t be! These digital full-curriculum boxes will walk you through everything you need to do to successfully homeschool your child. All you need is paper, a printer, and basic school supplies. Everything else is planned out for you! If you’re concerned that it’s “not enough,” you can simply add an elective (or two) from the website also to flesh out your child’s school day. Every single subject you need to teach these upper grades is included and all laid out in one place. Math, Literature, Writing, Spelling, Science, History, Art… it’s all there. It really couldn’t be easier to homeschool your high schooler!

SchoolhouseTeachers.com has over 400 different resources for you to use, covering every single grade. You can get access for one family price – not a per child price – which makes it a great value. There’s even a digital storytime each month, which would provide a fantastic opportunity to keep your littlest children occupied and give you some time to get through a more difficult concept with an older child while the baby is busy.

Overall, I’m very glad to be a member of SchoolhouseTeachers.com. But don’t just take my word for it; 37 other members of the Homeschool Review Crew are talking about this website this week. Take a look at what they’re all saying!

Blessings,

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Generally speaking, my husband prefers us to use the Bible (and only the Bible) for spiritual things. For that reason, I was a little unsure about reviewing The Wonder of Creation: 100 More Devotions About God and Science from Indescribable Kids and Tommy Nelson Books. The difference for me was the science aspect of this book; I was really interested to see how they combined science and faith. (For the record, I think it is absolutely possible to believe in both, so I wasn’t looking for a “gotcha” or the need to feel vindicated on anything. I just wanted to see how the author, Louie Giglio, went about it.)

This book is a lovely, hardcover edition with full-color illustrations (some drawings and some photographs) and covers a wide variety of topics. There are devotions on space, animals, weather, and the ocean (among many, many other topics). We started at the beginning and just read through the book, reading one devotion a couple of times a week. Grasshopper (age 9) did the reading mostly on his own.

Once you get into the actual devotions, you’ll find that they’re mostly science with a little bit of faith thrown in at the end. Each one takes up a two-page spread in the book. There’s approximately one half-page illustration per devotion, and some of them have photographic illustrations to help explain the point also. Additionally, the title of each devotion is nice and big to set it apart from the text. Below that is a Bible verse that the lesson is based on.

Then you get to the meat of the devotion, which is usually about a page, maybe a tiny bit more. It covers a lot of the science stuff, like I mentioned before, and then the last paragraph or so ties that science back into faith. For example, in the first devotion, titled “Get a Little Closer,” talks about how scientists say they know more about the surface of Mars than the bottom of Earth’s oceans. Mr. Giglio, the author, talks about how scientists are working to fix this by sending divers and machines down there to map the ocean floor. He then brings this to spirituality by reminding children that if the only time they meet with God is once a week at church, they might learn some things about him, but they won’t really know him. Just like the scientists need to actually get down into the bottom of the ocean in order to really understand it, people need to spend adequate time with God in order to really know him.

One other aspect in each devotion is the “explore the wonder” section, which is a graphical add-on that has even more science information for students to study. These bits would make great jumping off points for further study, if one was so inclined.

To wrap up, here are some of Grasshopper’s thoughts on his favorite devotion to date, called “The Twilight Zone.”

Did you know that it snows in the ocean? But this snow is made out of dead animals and their poop, so you wouldn’t want to go down and build a snowman. The “Twilight Zone” is between 650 and 3300 feet below the surface. Almost no light gets down here. Because the ocean is part of God’s creation, we should do our part to take care of it.

I think this book is super interesting and it can teach a lot of people a lot of things. The pictures are super cool too.

Overall, we feel comfortable recommending this book. It’s mostly science, so it won’t take the place of your Bible. But it is a nice way to show children that God and science are not mutually exclusive.

Make sure to head over to the Homeschool Review Crew to read more reviews too!

Blessings,

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Math Mammoth is a staple for many in the homeschooling community. I know we’ve used their products in the past, and I’ve been on Maria Miller’s mailing list for a long time. Their workbooks for elementary and middle school students are excellent. Because my fourth son, Dragonfly (6 years old), has been working through only some very basic math in other programs, I decided to request the Math Mammoth Grade 1 curriculum for him. We also received the Math Mammoth Skills Reviews workbook (same grade level), which I’ll talk about later in the review.

Math Mammoth was designed and written by Maria Miller, a homeschool mom who saw some serious learning gaps when she was teaching math at a co-op one day. She decided to use her math knowledge to create a series of books to help parents teach their children in an easy-to-follow and easy-to-understand way. Her Math Mammoth Light Blue Series is a complete homeschool math curriculum available for grades 1-7. You can purchase the curriculum as a digital download, a CD-ROM, or a printed workbook (we received a digital download). Everything you need to teach and have your child practice the concepts is included, and each year is separated into two books (one for each semester). The coursework is designed as a “worktext,” which means it’s a combination textbook and workbook. Everything you need to teach the math is all in the same file as the practice problems. This makes a truly open-and-go product, which is perfect for many homeschooling families.

Because we received a digital download, I was able to easily print out the pages we needed each week. I then hole punched them and placed them into a folder (one of those that you can get for a quarter at Walmart). This kept everything tidy, while also not being overwhelming for my 6-year-old, which very easily could have happened with a giant printed book. Because we worked just a week at a time, he never had to worry about feeling like he wasn’t doing enough each day. (Knowing Dragonfly, he would have easily had that feeling. He is very much an overachiever who hates when he gets a wrong answer or leaves work undone.) I was able to go over the concepts with him and then he could easily work on his own for a few minutes to get the worksheet portion of the day done.

In addition to the Light Blue Series, we also received a copy of the complimentary Skills Review Workbook. This is a product (available in the same formats as the Light Blue series) that offers additional worksheets that you can print when your child needs extra help with a specific concept. Because it’s designed as a supplement, it doesn’t have quite the same level of explanation as the Light Blue series books; it really is just extra practice worksheets. This was also particularly helpful for Dragonfly because he is a memorizer. He is very good at memorization, and simply printing extras of the regular worksheets wouldn’t have worked for him because he would just remember the answers. (This trait of his has made it tricky to teach him to read because he easily memorizes his books after just one read through.) He really needs different problems for additional practice, not just more problems.

If you’re in the market for a new math curriculum, I highly recommend Math Mammoth. The books are reasonably priced considering how much you get in it. There is literally nothing else you need thanks to the instruction and practice being an all-in-one.

What’s your favorite math curriculum for the younger grades?

Blessings,

Remember to check out additional reviews from other members of the Homeschool Review Crew!

Each year, the Homeschool Review Crew members vote on their favorite products of the year. Here are my choices, and the list of winners. Links take you to my reviews of the product.

Image by Peter Lomas from Pixabay

Favorite Literature Reading Resource: The Reading Game
Winner: The Reading Game

Favorite Literature Resource: Progeny Press
Winner: Progeny Press

Favorite Vocabulary Resource: (no vote)
Winner: The Critical Thinking Co. Vocabulary Virtuoso

Favorite Language Arts Resource: Words Rock!
Winner: Words Rock!

Favorite History/Social Studies Resource: Figures in Motion
Winner: Home School in the Woods

Favorite Science Resource: The Critical Thinking Co Science Mind Benders
Winner: Greg Landry’s Homeschool Science

Favorite Math Curriculum: CTC Math
Winner: CTC Math

Favorite Math Supplement: Triad Math
Winner: MathRider

Favorite Bible Resource: Bible Breakdowns
Winner: Teach Sunday School Easter Escape Room

Favorite Children’s Bible Resource: Tommy Nelson Roar Like a Lion
Winner: Roar Like a Lion

Favorite Fine Arts Resource: (no vote)
Winner: ARTistic Pursuits

Favorite Martial Arts Resource: Practice Monkeys
Winner: Practice Monkeys

Favorite Elective Resource: The Fallacy Detective
Winner: The Fallacy Detective

Favorite Book/Book series: Buck Academy
Winner: YWAM Publishing

Favorite College Prep Resource: ACT Mom
Winner: ACT Mom

Favorite Helpful Tool or Resource: Fermentools
Winner: Fermentools

Best Resource I Didn’t Know I Needed: ACT Mom
Winner: WORLD Watch

Favorite Preschool Product: Reading Eggs
Winner: Buck Academy Baby Buck

Favorite Elementary Resource: Words Rock!
Winner: YWAM Publishing

Favorite Middle School Product: (no vote)
Winner: Teaching Textbooks

Favorite High School Product: Triad Math
Winner: CTC Math

Favorite Mom/Teacher Product: Fermentools
Winner: The HomeScholar

Kids Choice, Grasshopper: Words Rock!
Kids Choice, Dragonfly: Reading Eggs
Kids Choice, Bumblebee: Reading Eggs
Winner: Reading Eggs

Teen Choice, Scorpion: Practice Monkeys
Teen Choice, Ballet Boy: Triad Math
Winner: LightSail Education

All Around Favorite: Practice Monkeys
Winner: Creating a Masterpiece

What has been your favorite homeschool product you used this year?

Blessings,

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Several months ago, my husband took a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class. Without telling anyone. Then when he came home, he challenged Ballet Boy to a roughhousing match (they horse around all the time – have since Ballet Boy was small), and took him out. This was quite a surprise for Ballet Boy because as he’s grown, he’s gotten closer and closer to being able to win in these matches against his dad, but after the secret self-defense class, Dad gained the upper hand once and for all.

Then we found out the Practice Monkeys review. Ballet Boy was quite interested in taking their self-defense class. That incident with Dad was a motivator, but he likes being physical in general, so he would have been interested in the class even if it hadn’t happened.

The self defense class (for ages 5 and up) through Practice Monkeys teaches Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), and when you sign up the first thing you have to do is schedule an initial assessment. This, and all the classes, are live sessions taught via Zoom. The assessment is a private meeting with the teacher of the class, Dr. Peter van Kleeck. Once you’ve had the initial assessment to determine which level your child needs to start with, he will add the proper lesson to your dashboard. Classes are taught live with Dr. van Kleeck and his son, Titus, four days a week. Each class lasts 15 minutes and students are encouraged to practice an additional 15 minutes each day on their own. Each student needs a partner for this class (unlike the music classes that Practice Monkeys offers), so Scorpion took the class with Ballet Boy. Our initial plan had been to have Grasshopper and Dragonfly also take the class, but after just a lesson or two they decided they weren’t interested. It is helpful to have the students be of similar size for the class.

After our initial assessment, the kids were put into Level I. This wasn’t a surprise as they hadn’t had any sort of training in this art before. The classes were at the same time every day (Monday through Thursday), so I set an alarm on my phone to help us remember to sign in for the live classes. To access the Zoom call, you have to first sign into the Practice Monkeys website. From there, you can find the Zoom link on your dashboard. Because of the nature of Zoom, the daily classes aren’t private. All of the students at your level in your course are there together, but you don’t see them; on your end, you only see Dr. van Kleeck and Titus. They teach the material and then have your students practice while they watch. It was pretty rewarding on my end to hear him praise my kids during the lessons (“Yes! Good job, Robertsons!”), and I also appreciated hearing him talk to the other families taking the course. It really showed that he was watching all the kids and making sure they got the material.

What if you miss a live class? While the live classes are better because of the feedback you get from Dr. van Kleeck, you don’t miss out if you can’t make it. All of the Zoom calls are recorded and at the end of the week added to your “treehouse.” This is where you go to watch past lessons, either for extra review or because you’ve missed one (or more) live class. I do wish that these classes were uploaded later on the same day they were recorded, but I understand why that might not be feasible for the van Kleecks.

After you’ve been in the class for a while, you’ll be invited to take an assessment in order to move up a level. In the self-defense class, this was an individual Zoom call with Dr. van Kleeck. You have to schedule them through your account in the Practice Monkeys website, and then you access the Zoom call the same way you do a live class at the right time. The assessments take 25 minutes. To determine whether my sons were ready to move from level 1 to level 2, they were given a spoken instruction and Dr. van Kleeck watched to see if they succeeded based solely on the name of the move. They did, and by the time of their next class, our account had been updated to allow them into the level 2 class instead of the level 1 class (same thing, just 15 minutes later).

Ballet Boy and Scorpion have been having a blast learning self-defense with Practice Monkeys! We haven’t made it to every live class, but they do their best to make up the classes on their own when we miss one. The classes take place in the middle of the afternoon in our time zone, so it’s not always feasible to make it live (sometimes Ballet Boy is working, for instance). There have also been times when Zoom was acting up and the kids could see the class but couldn’t hear the instructions, so to avoid the inevitable frustration that would cause they opted to do those classes later as well.

Practice Monkeys’ main emphasis is instrument instruction, so if you or your child have ever wanted to learn violin, cello, piano, or guitar, then you should absolutely give them a chance. Practice Monkeys is priced per instrument (or BJJ) for the entire family. So if you have two guitar students, they can take the class together (at the same time). If you have a piano student and a cello student, though, you would need to purchase 2 subscriptions for those lessons.

I can’t recommend Practice Monkeys enough; Ballet Boy is even interested in continuing his BJJ lessons beyond our review subscription (that’s something he’ll be talking to Dad about!). Make sure to head over to the Homeschool Review Crew site and learn more about all the different types of lessons, though.

Before I finish up, the biggest question still remains: Can either of the kids “take out” Dad now?

Not quite. But with the skills they’ve learned, they don’t go down quite so easily.

Blessings,

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Getting enough math practice done in the elementary years is vital for future math success. I Know It is a supplemental curriculum that can help your children with just that – practicing all sorts of different age-appropriate skills in a no/low-stress environment. We have been using I Know It with Dragonfly (age 6, kindergarten) for the past few weeks.

I Know It is a supplemental math practice website for kids in grades K-5. Each child will need their own account, but they all fall under just one log in, which is nice because you can have an account for each of your children without the need to remember several usernames and passwords. When you get logged in, you’ll get a pop up that shows each of your children with individual icons, and you just need to choose the child who’s working at the moment. Once you select the right icon, it will load up the proper lessons so your child can get started with their math practice right away.

As I mentioned, I’ve been working on I Know It with Dragonfly for the past few weeks. Since he’s in kindergarten, that’s the level we’ve been working at and that’s the level I’ll be discussing in today’s review.

I Know It provides lots of opportunity for math practice, but it’s not a teaching program. You won’t be able to use it on its own (unless you’re ready to teach the concepts and then use the program as an online “worksheet”), but it makes a great supplement for any other math curriculum. Because Dragonfly is just in K, we actually have been using it exclusively, but he already knows the basic concepts being practiced in the kindergarten lessons. We’ve just been having him get lots of extra practice to get him ready for more advanced things in the coming weeks and months.

The kindergarten level has 12 topics, and each topic has between 5 and 10 different lessons. The lessons each have 15 questions and they’re all related, based on what topic and lesson within the topic you’ve chosen. The questions are reasonably easy; my kindergartner didn’t have any problems getting 100% on every lesson he did (except one at the beginning, where he missed a single question). With each correct answer, your student gets an approving message (“Yes!” “Great!” etc) and the robot mascot does a little dance. If your student gets a wrong answer, there’s no robot dance or words of affirmation. Instead, the program pops up a window to explain the correct answer.

When the lesson is complete, depending on the child’s score they’re given a “trophy.” These trophies collect in their progress dashboard. I found that Dragonfly really got off on earning trophies more than he did the robot dances. At the end of every lesson, he’s excited to learn what award he earned that day. Today, he was an “Awesome Adder.” He enjoys going back and looking at his past trophies, too.

If you’re using the program with an older child, you can show them how to log in and then send them on their way. It’s a very intuitive program to use – easy enough for a child. There’s also a way to assign specific lessons, but since I have been working right along with Dragonfly I didn’t explore that aspect of the program.

Are you a co-op parent or public school teacher? You can use I Know It in those situations, too. They have special pricing for teachers vs families vs entire school districts. So I Know It really can be used in any situation.

Overall, we’ve had a lot of fun firming up Dragonfly’s math skills using I Know It for daily math practice. I’m very happy with his progress in the program, and he enjoys doing his “robot math” each day, too.

Please click through to find out what my fellow Homeschool Review Crew colleagues thought of this program.

Blessings,

Disclaimer: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

Knowing math facts can be difficult for young kids, but it’s absolutely vital in the early/mid elementary grades that they master them. It’s easy to think about “math facts” as just the “times tables,” but addition, subtraction, and division are just as important. Without those foundational facts memorized, all math is harder for kids. Flash cards are a great (non digital) way to reinforce those facts, but what if you had a computer game that was as engaging as it is beneficial? Now you do with MathRider.

Math Rider is a one-time fee downloadable computer game that teaches kids math facts in all four areas: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It’s an easy download, and the game is simple enough that you’ll only need to teach them how to play once and they’ll be able to handle it on their own after that. We have been using the game with Grasshopper to increase his speed with addition facts.

When you click on the icon to open the game, you’ll need to choose which child is working and sign in with their password each time. The password requirements are quite simple; we have chosen something that is easy for Grasshopper to remember on his own, so I don’t even need to help him with that.

The game itself is centered around quests. There’s a story that includes simple animation and text that is read aloud to your child. Once they’ve heard the story, they move on to the map, where they can then choose “play” and get into the math portion of the game. Depending on what math facts your child is assigned, that’s what the game will offer them to answer.

There are 30 facts per round, and your child simply has to read the problem and type the correct answer before his horse gets to the problem. (To be honest, it looks more like the problem is coming toward the horse though; the horse is always on the left and the problem moves toward the middle of the screen.) When they’ve answered all 30 math facts, they’re given a score based on their speed and accuracy. Then the game takes them back to the map, where the path they just “rode” is highlighted in pink. When they get to the end of the path, they’re given a new quest, and that continues until they’ve achieved 100% mastery of the math facts. I’m not entirely sure what happens after that, because Grasshopper hasn’t quite gotten to that 100% mark yet.

MathRider has been really fun for my son to play. He gets so excited to see his path turn pink, and he’s engaged by the story. His recall of those addition facts is getting quicker, resulting in higher scores each day. He always asks to do “horse math” first thing in the morning. Grasshopper really responds well to learning games, so I’m happy to let him play things like this that really cement things in his mind and help him to keep learning. We will absolutely keep having him use this game as long as he’s engaged and his math fact recall continues to improve!

Make sure to read more reviews on the Homeschool Review Crew website this week.

Blessings,