Can someone give me a brief rundown on some of the popular online math sites.

So far we have done very little organized "academic" stuff at home. DD6 started 1st grade today and I am starting to feel like it may be time to introduce her to some more challenging things. I am guessing school will not be doing this although it is too soon to know anything yet.

DD has always been more into reading and imaginative play and not math. We did stumble across IXL a year ago and she loved it for a short time. She would randomly pick a topic between K and 4th grade though usually 1st or 2nd and if needed I would explain it and then she did it. At first she requested it frequently but if we were busy and didn't do it for a couple weeks then she would forget about it and stopped asking and I never felt like pushing her.

I have been seeing people mention Aleks and EGPY and dreambox and khan academy as well as some books that sound interesting (life of fred, zaccharo, beastmaster). I would guess that with very little effort she could be up to the 3rd grade level quickly although if gave her an assessment tomorrow, I think she has a smattering of skills from 1-3 grade at least. I also think she would be less likely to do any kind of worksheet or book learning but something online might be fun enough to catch her interest again.

Any suggestions on a place to start?

Although you can do a smattering of stuff, if there is stuff she doesn't know you will have to do that grade. That is what happened when DD started CTY and did her assessment. She knew most of the grade 2 material, she was starting grade 1 but there was a section she had never seen before. Not that she couldn't do it when explained, but it had to be explained, so she had to start at grade 2.

I believe you can do a free trial of Dreambox. DS6 has enjoyed it (though he was sad when he "graduated" from the early math, which has cute stories, to the next level up). He is currently doing what they call 4th grade math and is a bit stymied because their presentation of decimals is hard to follow. But worth a try.

He also really likes the Beast Academy books, too.

we did this exact thing as summer as prep for homeschooling! DD5 is quite mathy, but we'd never done anything at home outside of whatever comes up in conversation, so while i randomly know she can add fractions in her head... i figured we'd hit some gaps. i set her at Grade 1 in the DreamBox parent dashboard and she went hell for leather until her perfectionism kicked in somewhere in the middle of Grade 3 with some time and money stuff she'd just never seen.

it was SO useful. and aside from All The Fun Math, DD is keen on the rewards, too - there are fun little games the "work" part unlocks for you, but you have to spend your earned tokens to play them, so they're not unlimited. she also really likes having the ability to pause the lessons - because like she says, "online stuff that won't wait two seconds while i pet the cat drives me completely bananas."

all in all, she's having a great time, and i'll certainly keep it for her beyond the six months we signed up for... ha - if there's anything left of it by then, i guess!

Doubtfulguest which app is this?

ha, whoops! apparently i edited that out - it's DreamBox! thanks, MumOfThree!

I should setup a Youtube channel for DS to review math apps and sites. I'm going to estimate the amount he's tried to be approaching a couple of hundred. I'll poke around to see which ones made it to shortcuts and which apps haven't been deleted yet.

ZS - i would watch that channel...

Many of the online learning sites you mention have course demos or free trials. Look at those and the comments about them here in the forums here to help you decide what might work best for your DD.

Art of Problem Solving's Beast Academy doesn't begin until grade 3 and only runs through level 4A so far, and they are book program, but your DD may be more open to books by the time she reaches that level.

You might combine an online learning system with some books and other enrichment activities. I put together a Math Enrichment Family Resource Book for my daughter's school (grades 5 and 6). You can download it as a pdf for free here:

https://sites.google.com/site/polan...o-math-enrichment-family-resource-book-1

Many of materials cover early grade levels as well, and a gifted child can quickly reach the point of handling upper elementary-level materials.

You'll find tons of other enrichment resources in the forums here as well.

Good Luck!

I like Time for Learning for my 1st grader ds6. He likes it ok, but thinks its slow and get aggravated by that. You can pick the "grade". (Last year, I picked second and then you can use grades 1-3.)

My ds liked Dreambox much better, and thus if given the choice picked Dreambox every time.

I bought a Life of Fred book. He likes it ok.

Depends on what your dc likes.

We started doing EPGY a couple of weeks ago and it is working out great so far! I know some people say it is dull and boring but DS5 did Kumon for 2 years so this is a party for him....:-)

I LOVE the fact that they keep moving on once he masters an area. Repetition has never been good for him and is what frustrated him the most with Kumon. They also jump around a lot which keeps it interesting. DS actually asks to do it and has spent at least 35 minutes everyday for 2 weeks working on it.

Awesome help and will keep checking for new recs. I saw alot of people mentioning their child doing EGPY but it seemed expensive and I wasn't seeing posts really describing it. I think Dreambox might be the way to go at least for a trial but will look at all the things mentioned. I am a little concerned that the school might actually do some assessment (likely wishful thinking that even informal assessment would be done) of her math and then she will be stuck doing 1st grade math all year because she misses a couple things when I know she could blast through a couple years worth if encouraged. At home we always figured that if she was happy playing dressup and drawing then why try to give her math to do when she is already ahead. In kindergarten they never seemed to do much "learning" anyway. Maybe they did a poll on what ice cream flavor they liked and made a graph and that sort of thing but they weren't worksheet heavy. I am assuming 1st grade will move to more structured learning and she will be bored silly. Thus I figure it is time to actually show her things she can learn... crazy concept.

Wow, what a resource. Its going to take me a while to check out all these sites. Thanks!

I'm working on this year's edition of the resource book now. I hope to have it available online by the end of September. I'll let you know when it's available.

EPGY has an Open Enrollment program which is considerably less expensive than the traditional program. The tuition is $135 for ten months or $95 for five months with an initial registration fee of $25 dollars. If you renew before the end of the enrollment period, you don't have to pay the $25 fee again. I run an Open Enrollment group if you can't find one in your area and opt to go that route. Keep in mind though that the open enrollment version doesn't include instructional support, that will fall on you, and you don't receive a transcript.

You'll find mixed reviews of EPGY because it works great for some kids and not for others. You'll see the same for all the good online learning programs. You may find you have to try a few different options until you find what works best for your DD. Checking out what others have said in various threads here should help you narrow the field.

I'm new here, so I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for - but my son loves www.ixl.com - it's math curriculum sectioned by either grade or skill - it does cost money but its only $75 a year I believe, and that's not too bad. The site goes from PreK to 8th grade, plus geometry and algebra, and the nice thing (for us anyway, and I'm assuming other gifted kids might be the same) is that you can bounce around to whatever skills/grade you feel like (we hover around 3rd grade, with a few dips into 2nd and random jumps into 4th-6th...it depends on the particular skill and my son's interest at the moment - It's good not to be pigeon-holed into a particular grade). They email weekly reports on progress and there are little "rewards" for completing particular skills, or working for an hour or whatever else (its just a big chart with stars that you can uncover to find fun little pictures...not much of a reward really, but my son gets excited about seeing a 'penguin' or a 'shoe' or whatever else is under the star - then again, he's 3 so I don't know how a first grader would like that part, lol.) either way, we have really found ixl super helpful, so I thought I would pass the info along

Here's a chart the Davidson people made up that might be helpful:

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10642.aspx

We've been doing EPGY; DD started with I think the 6th grade math, which she did pretty quickly, but really slowed down with algebra. She was working her way through algebra this past year but still isn't finished--she wants to learn math (in theory) and picks things up quickly but then is resistant to actually sitting down and doing the work. I got her an AoPS book (Intro to Counting and Probability) to work on independently in school this year and she told me she was really excited because she had started it and "they found a way to make counting interesting to me--impressive, huh?" The AoPS stuff seems to emphasize understanding in a different way and their site says it was designed by people who were good at math as kids and would have liked to have books like this. So I'm hoping DD will be more enthused about it, but we just started. I have to say EPGY seemed a little dry but I am not mathy myself and don't know how you could really make algebra fun; it seems almost like math facts to me. Maybe we'll have to look at the AoPS algebra book and see if it can do better. Somebody posted here on another thread that even if you've seen a subject, the AoPS treatment may still be useful and interesting, so I am optimistic.

Anyway, good luck!

Thanks everyone for all the advice. I know our needs will change as she gets older. We started with a 2 week trial of Dreambox which has been perfect so far. The first time she tried it she wasn't so sure. The second time she liked it ok. A week went by before she used it again since she didnt request it and I wasn't around much to suggest it. The third time she was completely hooked and moving fast into obsession. I could hardly pull her away from it. It starts you back half a grade to be sure you don't have gaps so not sure if that is why she wasn't sure at first or if was just getting the hang of the mouse and games etc. In the next 5 days she flew through 95% of first grade and started on 2nd. It has been really fun to see her enjoy this actually since I never thought of her as that interested in math. To be fair, she never plays video games normally so perhaps that was some of the appeal as it is more like a game than a math program. I am worried though about comments that it changes after the early grades (not sure when) and no longer has the adventure park and fun missions and prizes etc. She will be crushed then.

I can see her moving up quickly for a while in the levels and then I am sure she will slow down. I alternate between enjoying her delight in learning something and my apprehension about what we will do later as she moves quickly ahead. I'm trying not to stress. I agree with other posts that have mentioned making sure of full mastery and speed/ease of basic math facts and I know some extra time can be spent there and on problem solving.

It will switch to the new environment when she finishes the 3rd grade curriculum (or starts hitting some 4th grade units, not quite sure).

The units themselves will still be presented in a similar format, but the story threads in the adventure park go away and you switch to a simpler lesson picker -- a bunch of lessons you are working on will show up, with names (open number line, fractions...), and you pick from that, and you get checkmarks when they are completed. Every once in a while you unlock a movie with some upper elementary humor that is actually a mini-lesson -- I really liked the one that compared algorithms for doing additions, trying to show different techniques work best with different numbers.

The little game park goes away, and there is a space where you can unlock less obviously mathy games. I found that part pretty meh.

DS7 was very happy when he switched to the new environment last year toward the end of 1st grade, but he had been watching his brother play for a while and is very competitive, so part of the attraction was feeling grown up.

We have been using Dreambox for a few years, starting before the new environment. With my eldest we did hit a point in the 2nd or 3rd grade curriculum when we had to stop/slow down for a while and drill on math facts, because all the mental math units were becoming very frustrating without automaticity.

For fluency (addition/subtraction, multiplication and division facts), my kids love Big Brainz. They have a free version and deluxe version (deluxe version only for mult. and division). It is like a real video game where they run through a dungeon, ruins, volcano, etc. beating monsters by typing in the correct answers on time. My 6 year old, who had no interest whatsoever in flashcards, asks to play the game a few times a week and he has almost mastered division. He has been playing for a few months so it's not like he was into it for a couple days and then lost interest. My 7 year old daughter likes it as well, but isn't quite as into it.

Does anyone know of any specifically fact/fluency based programs which are not BigBrainz? We managed to force our eldest through Timez Attack in grade 4, and it was of great benefit to her, but it was also extremely hard going for a child with 2E issues. My second child clearly needs help with basic arithmetic fluency, but also has ADHD and often hasn't even a) noticed the question is there to be read and b) read it before TimezAttack has moved on, forget answering and then hunting the keyboard for the correct number keys...

Short, quick reviews are better than long practice sessions. That's a Fact is simple and quick. You can turn the timer off too.

http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/thats_a_fact/english_K_3.html

Thanks!

You can also try Xtra Math.com for fluency--it's only a few minutes per day, but it actually has a shoter time limit than Big Brainz (I think with Xtra Math they have to type in the answer within 3 seconds--not sure if a parent can change the settings). The one thing I don't like about other fluency programs like Xtra Math as opposed to Big Brainz, is that they teach addition and subtraction separately, so then when a kid masters addition, they have a really hard time switching the sign in their head. With Big Brainz they teach addition/subtraction as number partners which fits perfectly with the curriculum they do in school. So 2+1=3, 3-1=2, 3-2=1, etc.

My DD has pretty severe ADHD (DS might as well, actually)and these fluency programs are frustrating for her if she's not properly medicated. Doesn't matter which program it is--if it's timed, she has problems. Not sure what the answer is. She has to do a fluency program at school, too. She didn't seem to be making much progress there so I decided to intervene at home over the summer. Teacher last year said she was almost always the last kid in the class to get written math work done, and now it is much better, so I think it worked.

There is no point even sitting her at the computer without her medication, but even on it BigBrainz (which we otherwise love, for similar reasons to you) is just too fast. To be honest I am not sure even I could pass the final retention for multiplication. I never tried on my own without distractions, I've only tried typing my DDs verbal answers and we never got through it, which was a pretty bitter end for her, getting through all levels but never "finishing" the game. Clearly we are not fast people. Possibly my only problem is not being that proficient at the number keypad. But I tend to get stressed by the time pressure as well (I think possibly I should just turn the terrible sound effects and stressy music off), which is ironic because I have never been stressed by tests or exams, nor generally had trouble completing them in time (usually quite the contrary).

I've heard that complaint by others about Big Brainz. Too many distracting graphics or whatever. But the time limit actually seems pretty long compared to other programs I've seen. I think it just depends on the kid. DS likes the music as loud as possible (he's probably sensory-seeking), and gets a huge kick out of just screwing around--throwing his lizard-alien runt into lava pits, off cliffs, etc., making him run around like an unruly toddler with ADHD, etc. If he gets answers wrong, it doesn't bother him. I find him by himself laughing hysterically at the game and the fact that he's getting beaten by a spiked club. DD, on the other hand, can get upset or frustrated depending on her mood. I wish I could find a good fluency program for her that she actually wants to do everyday. She made it all the way through multiplication, including the post test which she did fine on, then a week later she had forgotten 1/3 of the facts. Or at least couldn't recall them within the time limit. Maybe it's just too much to ask of a kid with processing speed/focus issues.

Blackcat - my elder DD really did learn the multiplication facts completely and thoroughly with bigbrainz. She became the best in her class at competitive games with multiplication and she has retained that knowledge for a couple of years now. But she never ever managed to complete the final retention and she would end up a screaming teary mess. She doesn't find the graphics distracting at all (none of my kids do). But the noises are extremely stress/doom inducing, for me anyway... She'd end up too busy feeling panicky to actually respond fast enough.