Do you ever wonder if your child is at the appropriate level in math? Are they learning and understanding what you or their teacher has been teaching? If you have these questions, then A+ Interactive Math’s Placement Test With Lesson Plans may be for you. Don’t forget to have a look at the 2 freebies and the giveaway later in this post.
As an ecclectic homeschool family, we don’t follow a set curriculum in any subject, and our children do lots of learning in real life situations. Our children learn at their own pace, but of course we’re curious if they are “at their grade level” and if there are things that we’re not covering at home.
When we were asked if we’d like to try out this brand new program, I thought it would be interesting to see what the results were. This is a sponsored post, however all opinions are my own.
The set-up is straightforward, and if you want to take advantage of the current sale price, you can purchase it now and “activate” it at a time that is good for you. The pricing for the first student is $29.99 (regular price $39.99) and each additional student is $10.00. Each student will have their own log in name and password so you don’t have to worry about the scores being mixed up.
Tristan did the Adaptive Placement Tests, which are a series of 10 tests of about 10 questions each. He did them over the course of about 3 or 4 days. Tristan did become frustrated because he didn’t know some things, so I let him take his time on these tests.
The things Tristan didn’t know were things that we hadn’t done much with, or even at all. A couple of the things I’d forgotten about since my days in school, and some things weren’t applicable to us here in the UK (such as American coins).
This is a screen-shot of Tristan’s levels about 10 days ago.
As you can see, his scores were well below what we would have expected. It was a bit of a blow to me as well. Have I not been teaching as well as I should be? I tried to keep in mind that every child learns at their own pace, and because we aren’t teaching from a textbook, what Tristan’s been learning has differed. There are also different goals for each country and even regions within a country. But it did give some food for thought and there’s always more to learn.
So Tristan and I picked ourselves up and embraced what he did know and then began to focus on what he needed more practice with. That is where this program comes in. Now that we had identified the areas that Tristan needed to learn and practice, he began using the lesson plans provided, based on his placement scores.
They’re all broken down into small areas of learning by topic. Each area includes a short video explaining the concept, and then Tristan worked his way through the interactive quiz at the end. If he needed more help, he could watch the video again. He could also go back and see the results of the questions and get an explanation of the answer if needed.
If he was confident in what he’d just learned then he could switch over and complete a worksheet to further reinforce his new skills. If more worksheets are needed, you simply have the program generate a new one.
When Tristan had worked his way through all of the videos and worksheets in a topic area and when he was confident, then he can re-take the placement test for that area. Tristan has been using his individualized lesson plan for just two weeks, and as you can see, his scores in measurements and geometry have drastically improved from being in the red to passing the goal. And his addition skills have also increased. He’ll work on his fractions next.
While everything you need is included, we also did some hands-on practice in geometry by using tin cans and boxes as real-life examples. And we did get out the pencil and paper for addition and measurement. It’s good to be able to understand how what you’re learning ‘on the screen’ is applicable to ‘real life’.
Tristan has been diligent in working his way through the elements, and he does suggest that it would be better if the videos were ‘full screen’ so that he can see them more clearly and not be distracted.
I like what I’ve seen so far, and I would recommend this program, especially if you live in the USA. If you’re overseas like we are, then it becomes more difficult. We can skip over the money, but a lot of the measurement questions are dependent on being familiar with both the metric and imperial systems. The videos do explain the differences, but if you’re not used to seeing them everyday it isn’t so easy. Even I had trouble on a question that asked what type of clothing you would wear at 20F.
A+ Interactive Math has been offering math curriculum for over 5 years, and this is their newest program. They are based in the States, so these are fair questions for children there to know. Perhaps in the future it might be possible to have an ‘international’ choice as well.
If you’d like to see more about how this program works, here’s a quick video for you:
A+ Interactive Math has great customer service! I had to email them when we had trouble one afternoon. They replied back with an explanation of what might be going on. And as it turned out, they were right on the money and our problems were resolved.
If you’d like to know more or would like to follow A+ Interactive Math, you can connect with them through their website, Facebook, Twitter.
Freebies for you!
As a bonus for our readers, A+Interactive Math is offering the following TWO FREEBIES!
1-Month Family Math Package Online – Comprehensive math program with access to ALL grade levels (K1-Algebra 1). Option for 1-10 Students. A+ Family Packages are the most flexible, comprehensive program on the market – allowing you to change grade levels as needed. This is excellent for those needing to review previous grade levels or move ahead. A+ Interactive Math online is accessible from anywhere with high speed internet access. A+ Math Teaches, Grades, Measures, Reviews and Tracks automatically.
Download FREE “Time” Software ($21.95) Value – Use Coupon Code: Time4Aplus. This Time Teaching Software (valued at $21.95) introduces your students to Time. It teaches them about days, weeks, months and year, seconds, minutes and hours, telling time using analog and digital clocks, duration of time, converting units of time, and about finding and adding elapsed time.
