Manga High

This year for Lent, Boykin wanted to give up maths. He soon changed his mind when I told him he wouldn't be able to play any games that involved dice, cards, scoring or shapes - including Minecraft ;) He very quickly decided he didn't really want to give up maths after all, instead he said he would just give up his maths book and do other maths instead. Consequently, he's worked his way through The I Hate Mathematics! Book and has done dailly sessions on Manga High.

It's a free maths site full of online games and, what's more, it's free :)

On the home page, it asks for the name of the school, but don't let that put you off. I just typed in Home Educator and pressed Register. Once in the registration page, there is a dropdown menu for 'Position at school' and they actually give two options for parents: 'Parent' and 'Parent - homeschooler'.  It's so nice to know that Home Educators are being acknowledged :)

At the bottom of the form is another dropdown menu for curriculum. There are lots of different international ones to choose from including the Cambridge and Edexcel IGCSE curricula and their own, Manga High Universal. You can change the curriculum at a later date in the School Profile to be found in the Admin dropdown menu on the teachers page. I then used the quickstart log in opton and just deleted 27 of my 'class'. That's it. You're ready to go. You can assign specific activities to your children individually, read lesson plans and see all the available games. You will receive an email with your 'class's' signing in details and the 'school' URL that they sign in from.

Once they are signed in, they are then given some challenges to complete (based on their year of birth which is requested when they sign in for the first time) or they can choose from a number of animated online games to play. Boykin's current favourite is Tangled Web. He has learnt a lot of geometry through playing this game (and I've had a great refresher too). All the necessary maths rules are available by clicking on the ? at the bottom left of the game. However, the game builds up knowledge in small steps and much to my son's delight saves his score and levels till next time he wants to play.

If your children like learning through online games, this really is a very useful site. I highly recommend it and even after Easter, when we will return to MEP, Manga High will stay part of our morning's maths routine.