3P Learning - Mathletics - Review

This summer, we got to try a math program from 3P Learning, called Mathletics.



This program is meant to be used as a supplement to whatever existing math program you are using.  You can use it for any of your students ages K-12.

It is an on-line computer based program that needs.....

• Windows XP SP3 (or higher)*, Mac OS X 10.6 (or higher)
• 1GB of RAM minimum (for best experience we recommend 2GB or higher of RAM)
• Supported web browsers – Internet Explorer 8 or higher, Mozilla Firefox 12 or higher, Safari 5 or higher, Google Chrome.
• Minimum usable screen resolution of 1024 x 768 or higher
• Adobe Flash Player 11.6 or higher
• Pop-ups enabled
• JavaScript enabled
• MP3s enabled

The program uses 7 ways to help your students:

- Engage
- Target
- Diagnose
- Assess
- Report
- Fluency
- Mobile

All of those make sense to you?

The only 2 that I didn't "get" when I first looked at the list were "Fluency" and "Mobile"....so, just in case your brain works like mine, let me touch on what those words mean in Mathletics.

Fluency is similar to what it is when you learn a foreign language.....being able to speak or write another language easily.  Mathletics wants you to be fluent in math and be able to "express" themselves in math (and even gives you the ability to "race" with people all over the world.....regardless of what their spoken language is.....get it?

Now, the word, "Mobile".  I will go out on a limb and guess that lots and lots of you saw that word and knew what it meant.  I would also guess that you guys have fancy smart phones and other technology, don't you?  I don't....so I wasn't sure....exactly....what it meant.  In this case, it means that you can take everything from your program, including homework and all account settings with you.....on your mobile device.  

So, how did we use it?

Well, we got have a year long subscription for 2 students.  I signed A-man (Grade 4) and S-girl up (Grade 2) with the hopes of getting the math side of their brains fired up before our first day of school this year.

Here is a little diagram of what the program can offer.

In case you can't see it, here are some of the highlights.

Your kids were create their own personal avatar, then they earn points that they can used for awards.

Here is how the awards work.....

You can see on the right side the different areas to pick from when you are working on your math.

• Live Mathletics –  Students can compete with others from all over the world
• Activities – This is the main area, where you complete lessons to earn your gold bars
• Problem Solving – Games that students unlock as they earn their gold bars
• Concept Search – An “encyclopedia” of math terms with video explanations
• Rainforest Maths – A free play area full of different math activities (this area was a little frustrating because you didn't earn points and you never knew when you were "done"....the questions just went on and on.  In the main Activities section you always know where you are, i.e., Question 1 of 10)
• Times Tables Toons – Music videos to help students learn multiplication facts

By doing well in the activities, you can unlock games...in the Problem Solving area.

I had access to an instant printable workbooks as part of my subscription too.

You can't really tell from that graphic, but there are lots and lots of workbooks to choose from.


Some of the helpful aspects of Mathletics from a homeschooling perspective:

• A personal mastery dial that tracks daily progress
• Access to livel math challenges with students from all over the world
• Intelligent adaptiveness (questions get harder the more answers you get correct)
• Immediate feedback to answers
• Ability to work at your own pace
• Rewards and certificates, including the opportunity to appear on the American Hall of Fame
• Access at anytime, as long as you have internet
• Weekly reports on each student sent to the parents e-mail address

Mathletics is designed to be used in a consistent manner throughout the year,  specifically, they recommend working in 20 minute sessions, three times a week.

Sounds doable, doesn't it?!?

Here is where I have to admit to you that we had mixed results with Mathletics.

It was partly the fault of our schedules/lives.

We had Vacation Bible School and took an almost 2 week long road trip to visit friends and family up north.....lots of time there wasn't easy internet access (Hard to believe, but those places do still exist!)

The key word to us was that we weren't consistent when using Mathletics.  They would do it a day or two, and then not go back on until I got the weekly e-mail that told me how much (or little) they had been on Mathletics.  Or, in their defense, we would just plain not be home and they didn't go on.

This turned into one of those things that sounded great to me, the mom, but to the kids, it just wasn't something they looked forward to doing.    They thought it was hard.  They didn't think it made math fun.  (Although, really, the only real life human being that I know that actually thinks math is fun is...Rainman.  )

I sat down and tried some of A-man's stuff...and I have to agree it was sort of hard.  One of the issues was math terminology.  We haven't really been focusing on this in our schooling....we have just been focusing on the math.  They do have a Concept Search section where he could have looked stuff up....but he didn't.  So, him deciding if something as a commutative property of multiplication or an associative property of multiplication ended up being a guessing game.

Part of the problem may be that it is Common Core based and we don't "do" Common Core around here.  I am also not sure that the work was actually too hard for him, more than just him trying to rush through and check this off his list.  But if it actually was,  I could change the course level he is working on up to 6 times in a year.  I think, if I would have sat next to him and slowed him down to understand some of the concepts and terminology better, he would have done fine.  It would be helpful if there was a placement test so you knew where the best place to plug your student is when you start before they get frustrated because you guessed wrong at their level.

I am not going to give up though, because I think the idea of this program is great.  So, I will tweak the program a bit more as we move forward and see what happens.  I like the idea of repetition so things become second nature.  I like the idea of them "racing" with kids from all over the world with math.  Nerdy of me, but true.

So, while this wasn't an ideal supplement for us, this summer, I am going to write it into our weekly lesson plans, 3 times a week, just like they recommend and see if I get a different result!






You can try the site out for free, or go ahead and get a subscription for $59/student for a full 12 months.

Take a look at see what the other Mathletes thought about 3P Learning and Mathletics.

Analytical Grammar - Review

I have to admit that when we got the chance to review something from Analytical Grammar....even I wasn't super excited.  I know that seems sort of mean....but, it is true.  It is summer.  Ugggg.  Grammar?  (You should probably take my homeschool membership card away right now!)



Happily, the product we got to review was actually the book called The Eternal Argument.  That doesn't sound nearly as bad in the summer time, does it?

I will admit right up front the only reason I was interested in taking a look at this book was that a friend of mine read it (outloud) with her kids and they loved it.

This book is recommended for 8th grade and up......but, unfortunately, my big kids weren't interested in doing this during the summer months. Those bums!  So, I was left on my own to read it.  And, as I read, I kept wishing that I had someone....anyone.....to discuss it with....because there was moment after moment of "I have never thought of that like this before...."

So, my recommendation matches the authors......read this aloud with someone.....even if you have to force your kids into it!  And, honestly, once you get them reading it, they won't complain anymore.




The basic premise of this book is that there has been a neverending argument (Eternal Argument) about who should really be in charge, throughout Western literature and culture.  Is it man?  Is it God?  Is there even a God to be in charge?  You know, deep questions like that between Humanism - Man is perfectible, or Theism - Man is flawed.

This book is weird.

Weird, but interesting.

Weird and definitely a bit hard to describe. (Here is a little more information about the book, that explains it better than me.)

Weird, but definitely good.

I am definitely glad I read it.

The author, R. Robin Finley, goes through the chapters walking you through why we should read all of those "classic" books that people talk about, through what the fight has been about, into what the "Western" literature/culture really is and then moves into what the sides have been showing from the Middle Ages to Renaissance, Neo-classical, Romanticism, Realism, to the newest guys on the block, Naturalists and Modernists.

Have I lost you yet?

I told you it was weird.

Weird, but worth it.

I felt like this book was a mini master class in western literature.

She talked about books like Lord of the Flies, Catcher in the Rye, 1984, the importance of the King James Version of the Bible, and Greek Mythology.

Her feeling is that the western literature literary platform has 3 pillars and pictures it like a 3 legged stool. The legs are:  Greek and Roman Mythology; King James Version of the Bible, and Aurthurian Legend.....and the top of the stool is all of western literature.

Make sense?

To use a tried and true phrase.....you really just have to read the book.

She walks you through the reasons why the books are important....hopefully you have read them, because there are spoilers in order to make her points.  I have read most of them....the ones I haven't, she made me want to read.  Books like Animal Farm, Atlas Shrugged, and Brave New World.

I liked the author.  I liked her description of herself from her teaching days as a "benevolent dictator"....because that is what I consider myself as well.  I am in charge, but if you behave how you are supposed to, I am really nice....and fun!

I am just going to give you a few examples of things I found especially interesting and made me really think.

In Chapter 6, What is the Western Literature "Platform"?, she talks about the King James Version of the Bible being woven into our cultural DNA.  Being part of things like Good Samaritan laws, or talk about "the powers that be", "signs of the times" or "the blind leading the blind", and last, but not least, the phrase, "eat, drink, and be merry."  All of those are phrases and concepts found in the Bible....specifically, the King James Version of the Bible.

See?

It is woven into our culture DNA....whether we realize it or not.  Whether you think you are a Bible believer, or not.

The author has a list of Bible passages that she recommends be memorized by the time kids are in high school.  Things like the 23rd Psalm, the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Lord's Prayer.....because they will have meaning and purpose outside of life as a Christian.

I am happy to say that my kids are doing pretty good with her recommendations, but we do have a few to add into our list....and we usually don't read the King James Version.

I really enjoyed Chapter 7, Should We Quarantine Our Kids?,  This chapter talks about quarantining our children from literature that doesn't line up with our own personal worldview.  She says that we, instead, should inoculate our children by exposing them to books that come from a different viewpoint while they are under your roof and you can talk about the issues.

This issue is something that the homeschoolers are often accused of...sheltering our kids from the real world.  I like to think I am sheltering enough to keep them safe and giving them room to develop into the fantastic people that they should be, but showing them/exposing them to enough real world stuff that they don't go out into the world wildly naive.

I do let them read controversial books.  We do read a lot of the classic books mentioned in this book as part of our studies.  But, I have had them all read a book called This Present Darkness, by Frank Peretti first. We talk about it and then I set them loose with books with the parameters set that I don't want purely evil books in the house.

The best thing is that I often will read the books along with the kids so we can discuss them together.

What the book The Eternal Argument has done for me is give me a total whole other side of every book I read.  So, there will be lots of other deeper, hidden meanings to all the book we read.

At my recent family reunion, somehow we got to talking about the movie, The Wizard of Oz.  One of my nephews had just learned that there was a whole series of books surrounding the movie.  Another nephew said that he had read that the books were written as a slam on politics at the time and that characters all represented things.  For example, the scarecrow was the brainless poor man, the tin man was the heartless big business, etc.

Again, just a deeper look into the story that we all know.

That is what The Eternal Argument is about too.....a deeper look into the classic books most of us have read.  A way to give us the much bigger picture going on in the world for years and years.

Towards the end of the book, in Chapter 13, Stuff You Need To Know To Teach This Stuff, she goes into more detail about how to teach this stuff.  I was glad to see that it was okay, especially for younger kids, to just read.  You don't have to dig into deeper meanings all the time.

It is okay to just love a book and create a movie in your head.  But, when you do want to dig deeper and teach and discuss some of these things, she breaks it down into classroom teaching and homeschool teaching.

Chapter 14, Now Let's Apply All This to Books We've Discussed. is one that she suggests not reading with your children.  She talks about a step by step process for doing the literary analysis.  She also goes through the 18 books that she featured in the book and gives more details and digs deeper into them.

The last part of the book I will touch on is Chapter 15, Because It Is All About Me.....What Do I Think? This was really interesting because throughout the book the author has tried to be balanced....to show both sides of the coin...or argument.  This is the chapter where you find out what she actually thinks....and why.  I liked and agreed with her opinions on a conservative Christian attending a secular college and how they will be able to survive in the class.  Again, you will have to read the book to see what we both think.  

You can get your own copy of this weird, but sort of wonderful book, The Eternal Argument for $24.95.


See what other TOS Reviewers thought of all the other Analytical Grammar products.

Flourish - Review

I kind of like it when I get a book to review that is just for me.


I got that this time with a book from Apologia Educational Ministries called Flourish - Balance for Homeschool Moms.



What is this book about?

From the back cover:

Exhausted?  Overloaded?  Teetering on the brink of burnout?  Flourish includes customizable planning forms, step-by-step exercises, and special chapters for single moms and families who have a home business.  Find peace in the space between the ideal and reality so that you and your family can enjoy the homeschooling journey!

Want to know, up front, one of the nice things were about the book?

The author, Mary Jo Tate, is not the stereotypical perfect homeschool mom, with the perfect children, who all play violin and speak Latin.  Nor, is she the stereotypical homeschool mom with the perfect loving, supportive husband, who has a great job.  In fact, she is a single mom (her husband actually left her), who works from home.

I know.  Shocking and wonderful, at the same time.  She is able to give real world examples of stuff that has worked or not worked.....based on reality.....not a perfect, dream world.



I am not really exhausted or burned out.....in general.....but, I definitely have moments of despair, so finding balance or ideas on how to get things done more smoothly sounded good to me.

I found, to my delight, that I was already doing some of the things the author recommended in the book.

For the most part, I do feel like I am a pretty balanced person.

I try not to be too busy.

I try not to have the kids be too busy.

I try not to put too many challenges or obstacles in our way.

I try not to clean my house too much (hahahaha)....or have unrealistic expectations for what a house with 8 people in will look like.

So, even though I am doing a pretty good job at keeping things in balance, I got a lot of good ideas from this book. (I even think some of you who don't homeschool could pick up a few pointers on how to have a more balanced life!)

I especially liked that it was written to give ideas to stay at home, homeschooling moms that have home based businesses.  That is me.

Who knew that I was a valid demographic?  Not me!

I even feel like the author could have just put together a book of the inspirational quotes and I would have been happy. I kept having little...."Oooh, that was a good one!" moments.

The quotes were great all on their own, but when added into her real life lessons and ideas, they were spectacular!

Like this one from Dr. Richard Swenson, that said, "Interruptions coming to us by way of technology require our permission----we own the technology; it does not own us."  Or, how about one of my favorites from Eileen Roth, "Organized people don't trust their memory ---they trust their lists."  Hahahahaha.....that is so me.  I love my lists.

So, I thought I would just go through a few of my highlights, or "aha" sections from the book.  Maybe you will have a few of your own.  Just so you know, it was hard for me to narrow this down to just  a few highlights.  Take a look at my notes and how many exclamation points and page references I used!

In Chapter 4, Where Did My Time Go?,  Mary Jo talks about all kinds of tips to managing your time better, but I really liked the part where she talked about being paralyzed and overwhelmed by your list of things to do.....which in my case, many times means I don't do anything at all.  Instead of that approach when you are feeling overwhelmed, she says to be a good steward of your time and do what you can, in the situation you are in, with the time that you have.  That is all.  Simple, yet profound.

For me, that simple statement meant, when the living room is trashed, at least pick up the pillows and blankets that are on the floor.  That is okay.  That is enough, right now.

In Chapter 5, What Do I Do Next?,  she talks about goals and "go fors".  Goals, she says, are promises that you make to yourself, and "go fors" are things you would like to accomplish that you know are going to be a stretch.

In this same chapter, Mary Jo introduced me to something that I had never heard of before.

 A Stop Doing List.

Ever heard of it?   It just sort of states that obvious that, you really cannot do everything....so you will have to stop doing some things.  Or, in her words, "Whenever you choose to do one thing, you are choosing not to do everything else.  Edit your life to make space for what's really important."

I am not sure I have explained this clearly here....but it was really an eye opening point for me to think about things in a different way.  Just being given permission to write down things that I need to stop doing instead of just continuing to add things to my" to do" list, or my" must fit it in" list.....was very freeing.

In this same chapter (apparently I really liked Chapter 5!) she has a section where she talks about having dreams for yourself....big dreams.  I am pretty sure that this is something a lot of us moms, especially us older moms....have given up on.....or have just jumped on board with our children's dreams.  I haven't jumped on board my children's dreams.....but I had, until recently, given up on any personal dreams for myself.

She really inspired me with her example of Jan Karon (author of the Mitford series).  Jan Karon left her steady, stable, lucrative career, and at age 50, starting writing.  No, she wasn't successful right away....it took awhile for her to write At Home In Mitford.  But, people, she started writing at age 50!  This especially spoke to me because of what I wrote in Thick Skin and my desire to write.

Here is another in a long list of great quotes from the book.  This one is from Jan Karon, "If God has given you a dream, you'd better get cracking because He wants you to use it."  I do have a dream....and I believe it is from God.....so I am cracking, baby!

I will give you just one more of my personal highlights from the book.

This one is from Chapter 9, Oxygen Marks and Monkey Bread Days.  (Don't you love the title?)  This chapter opened with a bang for me with.....yes....you guessed it....a quote..... from Charles Spurgeon:

"Rest time is not waste time.  It is economy to gather fresh strength.....It is wisdom to take occasional furlough.  In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less."

Aiiiiyiiiiyiiii!  (pretty sure that is not how you actually spell that....but hopefully, my emotion has still managed to come through......)

Rest time is NOT waste time.

Thank you, Charles Spurgeon!

I know we have all heard the phrase, "Nap when the baby naps."  But, somehow when that baby isn't a baby anymore, it isn't socially acceptable to need, or admit to needing, a little rest or nap......unless you are really old.

This chapter goes on to talk about the whole spiel on airplanes where you must secure your own oxygen mask before helping others.  (That whole speech became so much more powerful/scary the first time I traveled with my babies....how about you?!?!)

"Monkey Bread Days" are those where everyone wants a little piece of you.  I refer to those days as when I am getting beaten to death by ping pong balls.  I will officially coin the phrase "Ping Pong Days"....where everyone is just hitting you with little questions all day long and you can hardly come up for breath without someone needing something from you....it feels like you are being pulverized with ping pong balls.

This whole chapter hones in on taking the steps necessary to take care of yourself, so you have energy and something left to give to others.  A good message for all of us.....but, especially moms.

I was inspired by lots and lots of ideas from this book, and I took comfort from other things.  Like the part in Chapter 10, Training Your Children, where she talks about teaching independence.  This is one area where I think Rainman and I are doing a good job with our kids.  They are able to do lots of things around the house from cooking to cleaning.  S-girl is always surprised when she hears about a kid who is older than her who doesn't know how to fold laundry or cook, because she does both of those things and has for quite awhile!

Even if you don't completely, 100% fit the special demographic like I do (.....flips her hair over her shoulder.....), this book is a great read for keeping things aligned and balanced in your life......and it is an awesome quote book too!  

Oh, and there are also customizable planning forms to help you with the organization piece, that are available if you purchase the book.

You can get a copy of the book for $15.00

Find out what other TOS reviewers thought of Apologia's Flourish - Balance for Homeschool Moms.