Who was it that recommended Dreambox here recently? This is your fault. I signed Hanni up for a free trial, and now I can't get her off of it.

I have to admit I'm enthusiastic too, for different reasons. It forces her to focus and follow the rules, if she wants to keep playing. You can't have a power battle with Dreambox the way you can with Mom. And BAM, she has suddenly gotten concepts that I've been trying on and off to explain to her for months, except that she'd rather grab the manipulatives out of Mom's hand and make up her own rules.

I knew she was capable of getting this stuff, I knew it, but I wasn't willing to turn into gonzo hot-housing Mom. Well, Dreambox has accomplished in three hours on a Saturday afternoon what I could not.

Tomorrow should be . . . interesting.

What kind of app is it? I searched "dreambox" on my iPad and all I could see was a TV remote app. (What am I missing?)

http://www.dreambox.com

It's a math teaching site. Lots of fun.

Dreambox fans here, we were some of the original users. The reports to parents and statistics are a plus.

I think that might have been me sorry?! It is so addictive! DS has played for about 25 hrs since 2/21. I really see him grasping some of the "strategies" that his school wants, a bit of the "deeper" they keep talking about.

Hanni appears to be DS5's age so I let you know that if she starts to hit 3rd grade material the learning environment will change from the primary, Adventure Stories, to an older one. There is no way to do the higher material on the fun, age appropriate, environment. I did call and ask. DS doesn't really seem to mind though.

I've also noticed that they seem to call themselves a curriculum but there are huge gaps in some of the things that they cover. There is nothing about shapes, dimensions, telling time, money, etc., at least that I've seen so far. At the rate he's going I guess I'll know for sure soon enough.

I'm glad to hear that Hanni is enjoying it!

We have really enjoyed dream box, too.

Anyone signed up through the homeschool buyers co-op know if you can purchase again through them and continue with the same student ID etc?

DD had to slog through some stuff to get to where it's fun again. We use it for enrichment and exploring math, not a whole curriculum. I always picture kids in a classroom having turns but DD definitely got a LOT out of it when she got into it. She would burn out and not save her work--having to build on the abacus perfectly even not messing up clicks! anyway still value it.

After zooming through half the Kinder stuff, Hanni hit a wall. She's getting implied subtraction problems: Basically A + ___ = B. It seems like a weird huge leap to throw at her. I could explain a strategy, but as I've noted before, she won't listen. Isn't that supposed to Dreambox's job? And it's not giving her any other types of games.

So now she's hugely frustrated and just wants to play the fruit-catching game in the arcade. Sigh. Maybe what I've really created is a video-game addict.

Does anyone know what Dreambox will do if I tell Hanni to guess her way through? Will it figure out that she can't do it, and dial back the difficulty? (This is a regular game, not a pre-test game.)

Yes, it should dial back the difficulty in that case. What you don't want to do is let her quit out of the game and try something else because she can't get through it. My DD did that for a while and she basically got "locked," with nothing but half-finished games that were "too hard." We ended up taking a long break from Dreambox at that point and coming back later.

Rather than teach her a strategy, can you reframe the problem for her? Explain that the computer has a secret number, but is giving her a clue: A plus the secret number equals B. Can she find out what the computer's secret number is? Put like that DS was doing this kind of thing ridiculously young - may be just his weirdness, but I suspect it's actually that it's not hard if you look at it that way!

No no, she totally gets what the structure of the problem is, and she can do it for very small numbers. What she can't do is implement an algorithm that will get her the answer -- for example, count up from 3 to 9, while ticking off on her fingers and then see how many fingers she used; or count down from 9 by exactly 3.

How interesting... Maybe there actually is something hard about algebra, then! This was a learning process that was completely invisible in DS; he could just do it, so I hypothesised that people only ever had trouble because someone put them off. Ah well!

I think it's related to her imbalance between verbal/conceptual intelligence vs. visuo-spatial skills. She struggles to do even a 6 or 9 piece puzzle, she's stuck on the cusp of reading because she doesn't recognize words she's sounded out many times or moments ago, and she hates number lines. I think she just doesn't have any way to visualize finding the distance between 3 and 9.

I used to think that DD4 had major visual-spacial deficits. She has never done a jigsaw puzzle to my knowledge. She also had a very quirky way she went about learning to read. But, she does seem to have a facility for numbers--nothing crazy but it is very innate, so who knows. My point is, I would not jump to any conclusions just yet. Your DD might soon take off in this area.

I think your DD is young, and if she needs help visualizing then that is the place to start. I think you know you are not doing her any favors by letting her get frustrated with math that is too hard for her. I would even take a step back if she was having to use her fingers, etc.

I have never seen dream box. I am not sure what level this type of question is supposed to be. But, to me, It is not about being able to count fingers or count down mentally. It is about recognizing number bonds--that 3,6,9 have multiple relationships. I think it is about solidifying what the student should have learned previously. This foundation is most important. These addition and subtraction facts should become so concrete or have been so innate from the beginning that these types of questions are easy.

How would she do orally? My DD has never seen a written math problem like that, but when I asked her "what plus three equals nine," she knew it almost immediately.

When I asked her a harder one, she did not. So, I think it goes to show it just takes practice and/or development.

Can you find a program that is more visual? Or knock her back where she can "see" the problem? Otherwise, I really recommend cuisenaire rods. I don't even try to teach with them other than having given them the names--just letting DD play with them has helped her tremendously I think. For me, math at this age is about developing number sense.

Ellemenope
I was thinking the same thing - cuisenaire rods, blocks, something to help visualize. My DS 7 went through weird cognitive jumps in math where the theory didn't match the facts, and then he would leap in facts which makes him more into the theory. But he definitely needed an assist from fingers or a number line where you can make the jumps with your finger.

DeHe

Having her guess her way through worked like a charm, other stuff has opened up that is more appropriate for her level. (For those who don't know Dreambox, it's full of virtual "manipulatives.")

Now she wants to spend ALL HER TIME on Dreambox again. I'm usually a low-screen-time parent, but I think I'm just going to let her go bananas on this for a while.

Bwa-hahaha!

"We have found that most students will play DreamBox two to four times a week, for sessions of 15 to 30 minutes each."

Just found that on the Dreambox website.

Yes, I totally agree about the virtual manipulatives. It is a hit with my dd5 too.