By Tech Powered Dad | July 9, 2012
Click here to try K5Learning.com for free.
The last couple of weeks, I’ve been looking at k5learning.com, a site designed to help elementary school children learn arithmetic facts. There is a lot to like with the site. It’s affordable, offers great features to help parents track learning, has fun games integrated, is professionally produced, and is available in both English and Spanish, one of the few sites in this genre that is bilingual.
The focus of K5 Learning is on arithmetic facts. With the first login, a child’s age, grade level, and pretest information is used to compute where they are at mathematically. Arithmetic facts are introduced gradually over time and the child has the opportunity to practice them. Each lesson focuses in mainly on a couple of new facts (e.g. a small child might focus mainly on 1+1 and 1+2). Most of the lesson is spent giving the answers to arithmetic problems, much like flash card practice. After a lesson is completed, the child has the opportunity to spend 5 minutes in the “arcade,” where there are math games and the ability to customize his or her avatar. When it is time for another lesson, K5 Learning will suggest which lesson should be completed next, but the child does have the opportunity to select for themselves. If the child is doing very well, K5 Learning may even suggest skipping a few lessons.
I must say, it is the arcade where I really felt K5 Learning shines. The games are Number Splash (a water ballon game), Math-jong (math Mahjong), Learning Links (a miniature golf game), and Shutterbug (finding the differences in pictures). The games are simple to play but engaging. Each of the games cleverly incorporates more math practice into the game play. For example, in Number Splash, the water balloon must be thrown at the answer to a question that appears on the screen, but kids must choose the right answer to throw at from many that appear on the screen.
If there was one criticism I have of K5 Learning, it was the desire to have more time in the arcade. It felt like I had to work through a lot of problems in the lesson to earn a relatively short time in the arcade, and I think the arcade also does a great job encouraging more math fact practice in and of itself.
Parents will also love the fact that they can see how their child is doing. As a child progresses through lessons, pretests, and post-tests, the results of that practice are tracked. Parents have the ability to see which problems their children are doing well on, and which ones they need more practice with. This makes it easy to see if there might be some problems where you need to step in and talk with your child about what the confusion is on those arithmetic problems.
I should add that k5learning.com also has reading and spelling features for kids. I gave them a quick look, and they seemed solid, but of course I’m a math guy, so take that for what it’s worth.
Bottom Line K5Learning.com Review
Currently priced at $25 a month or $199 for the year, k5learning.com offers a lot of value for elementary kids working towards learning their arithmetic facts. If you have a home schooler, have a child that’s struggling to keep up in class, or if you have an early elementary child you’re trying to challenge, you should give this site a try. They even offer a free trial, so you have nothing to lose.
Click here to try K5Learning.com for free.