Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources enrichment & homeschooling resources for preK/K

Just wondering what's your recommendation? DS4.5 loves to be on the computer (but not too much ... he for now decides his own time and it's been about 1hr a day on my old laptop.) We have Starfall, which isn't his thing. I got it mainly for the reading section for DS3. Then we have ABCMouse and he plays with this one pretty much daily (likes the rewards section, which keeps him motivated to play) but I feel that he's been outgrowing this one. Just recently I got a good deal through Groupon for 3 months of PBSPlay and he likes it but isn't too hooked on it. If it didn't have Bob the Builder section, I don't think he'd be using it at all.

He'll be either in public K in the Fall or home schooled so that and the fact he needs daily enrichment now, I am looking at Dreambox (thanks to some helpful suggestions here!) and / or KidzClix? He's a mathy kid so Dreambox makes sense. Is anyone using KidzClix? I've never heard of it until I came across it yesterday. Anyone has it? good? bad? ... any other suggestions that wouldn't be too pricey?

Mk13, I recently signed up for ixl math at ixl.com. DD3.5 loves to do the kindergarten math on it. They go up to 8th grade and you are not restricted to one grade level.

thanks for the tip! that looks great too!

DS5 (will be K age in the fall) is doing some afterschooling with me at his request. We are mixing it up, but I have some Singapore books (he is doing 1B) Spectrum Reading grade 1, Mailbox Math grade 1 (this isn't great, actually), and some Kumon books. He also likes kids' Sudoku and various "puzzle" and maze books. He likes to play with DD's old Flashmaster. I haven't been having him use the computer much. I also think I will probaby do some Handwriting without Tears this summer. We also play a ton of games. ThinkFun makes a vast variety of solo logic games--DS likes Rush Hour right now.

Is this like Starfall where you can do some stuff for free?

There was a trial for free and the monthly subscription is $9.95 so not too expensive.

some of the stuff is free but we got an annual membership last Fall for about $35 or something like that.

Can anyone compare ixl and Dreambox for me? Any reason why one would be better than the other?

Don't know anything about dream box. But ixl is more of math practice than math lessons. It assumes that the child is already familiar with the concepts that are being tested. I like it because dd3.5 seems to understand numbers pretty well but I had no way to tell how much she knew. Ixl confirmed to me that dd does know how numbers work. Fwiw, ixl aligns with the common core curriculum and the site tells you what requirements under your state standard are included in the practice sections. I hope this helps.

Dreambox also doesn't do much explicit instruction, at least at the early grad levels, but it seems to be based around trying to get kids to develop their "number sense." It seems to be solidly research-based and well designed (from a cognitive point of view).

They are very different stylistically. Dreambox is a whole video-game-like environment, where you go to different locations, work your way through little stories by completing math "games," earn tokens, go spend your tokens at the carnival on just-for-fun games, etc.

From the little I've seen, ixl is much more low-key and straightforward. I'm considering it as a supplement for Dreambox because Hanni gets overly wound up by Dreambox, and too focused on the rewards.

I'm liking both programs as supplements to what Hanni is getting in school (which I've been delighted to discover is an excellent research-based curriculum, Math Expressions by the Children's Math Worlds Research Project).