Wednesday, March 18, 2015

GPA LEARN - Review

Math and Miss K do not go together. It is the cause of me pulling out my hair or banging the table or some days just laughing so I don't cry. Basically, math is a challenge. I have tried various programs. I am not giving up. I continue to look and see what might help her learn math. So when I was given the opportunity to review GPA LEARN's math program, GPALOVEMATH I jumped at the opportunity knowing that Miss K loves working on the computer and thought that maybe math on the computer would be something that would help her learn math.


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GPALOVEMATH is a web-based math program. It can be used on PC, Mac, and tablets. We used it on the Mac.  It is for grades K-5. Each grade has an animated character that serves as the "Learning Coaches." There are over 150 lessons and more than 10,000 problems -- that should keep Miss K busy for a long time.

Miss K is working on Grade 1 math. When you login, the first thing you see is the Dashboard, which gives you a summary.


Here Miss K has completed 15 lessons and attempted 52 lessons. Each time a lesson is begun but not completed it is considered an attempted lesson. Based on the results from the quiz the student gets a Rockstar, Excellent or Nice Job.


The section, Learn, gives the lessons. The lessons are in three areas: Operations and Algebraic Thinking, Number and Operations in Base 10, and Measurement and Data and Geometry. The lessons are locked until certain lessons are completed so that concepts are learned in proper order. In order to unlock a lesson you need more than 6 correct.  Each lesson has three sections an instruction section, practice, and then a quiz. Each level has a character. We were in Grade 1 with Pi, the penguin. His accent took a bit to get used to though I don't think it distracted Miss K.

I set up Miss K's account and for the most part let her work on this as her math time.  I am normally in the room while she is working so that I can watch what she is learning and then work to review and reinforce the learning.


Miss K is able to do things on the computer. She is able to read the lessons and if she can't it is easy to just click on the words and the character will read the words for you.

I love getting progress emails. Even though I am there and watching for the most part it is nice to have the report that gives me what lesson she was working on as well as if she completed the lesson or needs some more help. I am also able as the parent to go through the lesson without it recording it as her attempt at the lesson. There are rewards that you can set so that when the child has completed so many lessons or earned so many points they get a reward.

The lessons took about 30 minutes to complete. I noticed as she had done this for a few weeks that sometimes it was just a bit long for Miss K to sit and do math. I was unable to find a way to bookmark where we were in the lesson. So if we stopped the lesson and began again it began from the beginning and would count as another attempt.

Working with a special needs child I did find that I needed to know what she was learning so that I could review again and look for ways to reinforce what she is learning. She needs the learning from different approaches. There were times that problem was shortest to longest and then it was longest to shortest. While I understand that is to help in thinking skills, it does make it more challenging for the special needs learner.

Overall Miss K liked it. She looks forward to doing math. I will say that this was a help and something that we will continue to use as part of our math learning. As we walked home today, she was looking at all the house numbers and we were counting by 2's. Numbers are beginning to make sense.

GPA LEARN offers an entire year math curriculum including grades K to 5 for $129 per year per child with the promo code GPAINTRO15. This is regularly $149. It is also available for $12.99 per month per child.

GPA Learn Review


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Beth
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