Kamis, 26 Mei 2011

Tux Math - review

You may have never heard of Tux Math, but among Linux users it's a fairly well-known children's arcade game for math facts practice.

My girls remembered about it just lately  and have had somewhat of a frenzy of practice sessions with it. It's simple, free, yet fun. So I decided to give you, my readers, a quick review of it.



You "shoot" meteorites that are falling down by answering math problems (type the problem's answer and press Enter/Return). If you can't answer one, the meteorite does some damage to one of the penguin's igloo. Then after enough damage, the penguin in that igloo leaves (walks away).




But, once you answer a red "fiery" question that falls down real quick, you can get a cloud that comes and fixes the igloo. Then your penguin comes back! I think that's so cute!! You can only lose if all your penguins go away.


The background is always an image from space.

The options include any of the four operations, or have them mixed. You can practice specific times tables for example, which is good for my younger daughter at this time. As you go along in a game, then the questions start coming down quicker. At first they come down quite slow.

There's a training section, and there's a section where it gives you random questions. In that one, you play as long as you want, and when you stop, it'll tell you if you are in the top ten highest scores for you. If so, then you go in the "hall of fame."

Once you finish any particular type of problems (for ex. addition 0-5 or multiplication by 4), the star for that turns glowing yellow, and that's what my kids are after--they want to turn all those stars yellow. That's only in the training part, though. In the training part you have to answer a certain amount of questions.

You can make as many new "accounts" as you want and fill the "hall of fame" with you and your various nicknames.

It's just simple free game for math practice; there are no special features such as reports or training the facts you answer wrong.

Tux Math, or Tux of Math Command is software that is available as a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Download it here.

Kamis, 19 Mei 2011

Win a free calculator

CalculateWhat.com is running a summer calculator giveaway. The prize is a brand new TI-83 Plus graphing calculator, a $99.99 value! Also, the second runner up will get a $25 Amazon Gift Card.

Note... This is not my giveaway... I just want to pass the word. Please read the contest rules and enter at CalculateWhat/contest. Essentially they want you to link to one of their online calculator pages to enter the contest.

Selasa, 03 Mei 2011

Review: CAMS & STAMS books from Curriculum Associates

I have just finished my review of CAMS & STAMS books from Curriculum Associates... It is a series of assessment books, student worktexts, and teacher guides for struggling students that presents each math topic in a highly scaffolded manner.

These books are supplemental to any basal math curriculum, and have been specifically designed to support struggling students. Each level consists of:

  • a student book (consumable worktext) with instruction and exercises. This is the heart of the program, and always covers the most important topics of the grade level, as given in the NCTM Focal Points and Connections.
  • A test booklet, which contains a pretest, a postest, and four "benchmark" tests. The benchmark tests are to be used to monitor student progress throughout the year.
  • A very detailed teacher guide for the student text, and another, much thinner teacher guide for the assessment booklet.

Read the review!
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...