We know kids love smart phones, ipads, and like. I hear that two year-olds can navigate better than their parents sometimes. While we still believe in limited technology time, here are some learning apps for little ones that will make the time spent on the devices a little more worthwhile.
TheRockfather.com collected some great things from PBS Kids HERE including:
Super Why ABC Adventures: Alphabet app for iPhone/iPod touch, your child can do just that while playing a comprehensive collection of five interactive literacy games that help build strategies and skills to master the alphabet! With each game hosted by a different Super Reader, your child will be introduced to uppercase and lowercase letters and their names, the order of the alphabet, common letter sounds and writing letters in fun and exciting ways!
Also make classic children’s books such as Arthur’s Teacher Trouble come alive with Wanderful’s Story Books App HERE. Each book is bought separately, and there are several to choose from. They also have a free sampler to try it out. Search Wanderful Storybooks on the App Store.
I used to LOVE the Reading Rainbow TV show as a kid and now LaVar Burton has a RR App to keep today’s kids loving books as well. Click HERE to learn more.
Technapex has collected other great apps HERE which includes:
Math Ninja: While there are many math apps available for kids, Math Ninja has been one of the most consistently popular. Users play as a ninja who has to face off against the evil Tomato San and his army of robots, with levels solved through various math problems from mental arithmetic to selecting the correct prime number. This app includes simple comprehension exercises. The app doesn’t require a significant amount of mathematical knowledge, but is a useful way of reinforcing the basics.
Let us know how you like these or recommend your favorites!
In THIS article on edweek.org, author Sarah Sparks discusses the findings of a new study, Why Mental Arithmetic Counts, done on 10th grade students and how they solve simple math problems. The students’ brains were scanned while performing single-digit arithmetic problems such as 8 + 4.
They compared which portion of the brain was activated with their PSAT scores. Students who had high activity in the section of the brain associated with memory of math facts during the activity also scored better on the PSAT than those students who had high activity in the area which is associated with processing number quantities. Conclusion:
The findings suggested that high-achieving students knew these answers by rote memory, while lower-performing students were still mentally calculating even low-level problems.
Both groups solved the problems equally quickly, but Ansari noted that the difference in how students process the problems could add time and effort as students attempt more and more complex equations.
“Perhaps the building of those networks early in development go on to facilitate high-level learning, which in turn allows you to free up working memory. It speaks to this raging debate in math education on procedural versus concept learning,” Ansari said.
We have seen this play out all the time when a student hits fractions, pre-algebra, or Algebra I. If you are still counting up in your head for 8 + 5 or 6 x 7, how can you quickly solve something like 6(3x – 7) + 5x = 50? And if you can’t do that quickly, how can you do 15 of these on test in a timely manner? Not memorizing math facts can quickly lead to a snowball effect where each higher level of math is more difficult, tedious, and burdensome than before. That’s why at Gideon we insist on memorization of math facts as shown though time and accuracy before moving into harder concepts whether the student is in 1st grade or 7th grade. Memorize the easy stuff so you can concentrate later on learning new concepts. It makes that all the difference!
In this article from TIME, the author discusses that while higher IQ can give an initial boost, hard work and effort are what is needed to succeed in math especially in middle and high school.
We see this often at Gideon. Children who initially struggled through memorizing addition facts but are steadfast in their practice and attendance will overcome and start to do very well later. Their attitudes generally remain positive as they know they are capable of mastering new (and sometimes difficult) concepts even if it requires repeating it five (or more) times. This experience builds them up for the next thing to overcome and can sustain them through the difficult part of doing many corrections. As everyone knows, a positive attitude can go a LONG way with learning! We remind the students of what they have mastered so far through their hard work and that this new item will be no different. We have long maintained that math is just like so many things in life (sports, piano, public speaking) in that you need to practice in order to do well.
You don’t have to be born with math skills; solving problems is a matter of studying and motivation.
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That may not seem like such a surprise, but it’s become easy to say ‘I just can’t do math.’ While some element of math achievement may be linked to natural inborn intelligence, when it comes to developing skills during high school, motivation and math study habits are much more important than IQ, according to a new study.
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To their surprise, the researchers found that IQ does not predict new learning — in other words, intelligence as measured by the IQ test does not indicate how likely students are to pick up new concepts or accumulate new skills. While children with higher IQs did have higher test scores from the beginning of the study, how much new material the kids learned over the years was not related to how smart they were, at least not once demographic factors were taken into account.
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So the children who improved in math over the years were disproportionately those who said they “agreed” or “strongly agreed” with statements such as, “When doing math, the harder I try, the better I perform,” or “I invest a lot of effort in math, because I am interested in the subject”– even if they had not started out as high-achieving students. In contrast, kids who said they were motivated purely by the desire to get good grades saw no greater improvement over the average. As for study strategies, those who said they tried to forge connections between mathematical ideas typically improved faster than kids who employed more cursory rote-learning techniques.
A really cool website, Globalreportcard.org, has compiled a massive amount of data to compare ANY school district in America against the state, nation, and even international students.
While we hear about how our national education is failing our students, maybe it’s not your district! It’s a great way to compare districts when moving.
Go HERE to check out how your local district ranks!
Here are screenshots of the site using Coppell ISD in TX (near DFW).
