We recently have had the opportunity to use CTCMath Homeschool Membership from CTCMath.
I used it with my 6 year old son to see how he would do with an online math program since we have been using a math curriculum with a math workbook. Since he doesn’t like to write that much, I thought maybe that would be a good fit for him.
The CTCMath Homeschool Membership from CTCMath is a complete, online math curriculum and available for grades K through 12. We used the Kindergarten program to start and then realized it was too easy and moved to the 1st grade curriculum.
What was cool about this program is that it is all online and has comprehensive diagnostic tests to help ensure you are placing your student in the correct level and ensuring there are no gaps in their math program and studies.
My son liked working his math online and the lessons were short, video lessons that play through the lesson and then give you some questions to work through to grade your lesson comprehension.
The question are short and easy to work through and very intuitive how to use the program to work through. At the end of the questions the student is given a percentage grade and told how many missed and how many were right. They are given IMMEDIATELY feedback when answering a question so they know if they have missed one. At the end they can do MORE questions on that lesson or move on to the next lesson. The parent can set the minimum percentage that must be attained in order to move to the next lesson, which i think is a good part of the program. That way, the student can not move on if they don’t have a firm grasp of the concept.
The parent access allows the parent/teacher to assign tasks for each day, including new diagnostic tests, and set whether the student needs to get a specific percentage score before being considered complete or just complete everything. You can send a note with the assignment and choose which students to assign the tasks to. So if you have multiple children in the same grade in math, you can assign them the same tasks without having to go into the parent panel twice. You can also look at the student dashboard and see how they are progressing.
Another great feature of the parent dashboard is that you can see when the students logged in and specifically when they did including how many games they played, lessons they completed, and questions they attempted as well as how many correct and how many they missed.
The program also includes a fun game, Speed Skills, which both my children enjoy. You can race to top your last score and try to get a new high score. The student can choose whether they are working on just Addition and Subtraction or also Multiplication and Division or also Division With Remainders and Orders of Operations (Level 4). The student races to do the math problems in 15 seconds. The student can choose to work on levels 1 through 4 on each operation. So levels 1 through 4 are available on just Addition and Subtraction as well as levels 1 through 4 on Orders of Operation and everything in between.
There are a couple of other games to work on those math skills in the CTCMath program as well. Times Table Shoot’em allows the student to practice multiplication by working on x1, x2, x3 etc in a simple game like asteroids where you shoot the answer as the answers come slowly down toward the bottom of the board. Once the student has all the answers eliminated a group of pac-man looking guys come more quickly and the student has to shoot them with his laser to get them before they get him. You acquire points and can beat your previous scores.
Then there is a little logic game they included in the package called Swap the Blue and Red Pieces. It is a bit like that puzzle at Cracker Barrel when you jump your pieces around, thinking of the best strategy to eliminate all the pegs except you don’t eliminate any pegs, just jump them around to try and solve the puzzle.
The kids liked playing the games, which was good logic and math practice so I don’t mind them playing the games. They get to play the games once they complete a math lesson.
Overall, I think the CTCMath program has some GREAT features and is a good fit for some students. My older daughter does not do great within online programs but she likes the games. My son did surprising well with the program and I think I would like to see if that continues to be a good fit for him.
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