Dollars, Cents and Telling Time (A Schoolhouse Crew Review)

I've mentioned a few times before, my kids are not the biggest fans of math. Things have started to get much better now that we've found a curriculum that seems to be a much better fit for us but there are still things that I feel they either need help with or need to get caught up with.  This is why when I was given the opportunity to review the new Math Mini-Courses offered by A+ Interactive Math, I was pretty excited.

Mini Courses are great ways in which to work on a particular area that your children need extra help with without having to buy an entire curriculum.  A+ Interactive Math was extremely generous and allowed us to review not just one but two of their courses. We opted to try to Money and the Time courses because both were areas that Ashleigh really needed some extra help with, however, there is a huge selection of 20 different classes we could have selected from.

Currently available for Mini-Courses are:

• Counting and Identifying Numbers (1st-3rd) - 15 lessons
• Place Value and Number Combinations (1st-3rd) - 15 lessons
• Naming, Comparing and Arranging Numbers (1st-3rd) - 17 lessons
• Early Elementary Fractions (1st-3rd) - 10 lessons
• Early Elementary Addition (1st-3rd) - 17 lessons
• Early Elementary Subtraction (1st-3rd) - 15 lessons
• Elementary & Middle School Multiplication (2nd-6th) - 13 lessons
• Elementary & Middle School Division (2nd-6th) - 15 lessons
• Tables, Charts and Graphs (1st-6th) - 17 lessons
• Elementary Geometry (1st-4th) - 19 lessons
• Elementary Algebra (1st-4th) - 27 lessons
• Advanced Geometry (4th-7th) - 35 lessons
• Advanced Fractions (4th-8th) - 26 lessons
• Decimal Numbers (3rd-7th) - 20 lessons
• Percentages (5th-8th) - 13 lessons
• Time (1st-4th) - 20 lessons
• Money (1st-5th) - 18 lessons
• Number Types and Conversions (3rd-6th) - 35 lessons
• Ratio, Proportions, Probability & Statistics (3rd-6th) - 14 lessons
• Measurements and Conversions (2nd-6th) - 23 lessons

After having previous experience using the A+ Interactive Math format, we were quickly able to navigate through the menu and get started.  Since Garrett does really well with math and numbers but Ashleigh seems to struggle a bit more, I decided to allow Ashleigh to work on both classes.  (Although part of me was almost tempted to allow my 16 year old Public School Junior to take the time class, as reading an analog clock is not something she was taught).   I typically get her to do two to three lessons a week, switching back and forth between the two classes.

The first thing we noticed was that it's hard to just pick up and return to where you left off because it doesn't seem to keep track. Instead, you have to actually go in and complete the lesson once you finish it.  Many times we would forget to do this step and upon returning would be completely lost as to where we were in the lessons.  This also makes it near impossible to allow Ash to do the classes independently as she couldn't ever figure out how to clear out the completed classes.

One we do figure out where to pick up, the lessons are great.  The audio and visual lessons are clear and easy to understand and do a great job of explaining each concept. After each lesson, students are able to complete an interactive quiz that contains 7-15 questions (depending on the topic) to see how well they understand what they have just learned.   Also include is a digital worksheet generator where students can answer even more questions for even more practice if necessary.  Through the parents portal, parents are able to see their child's progress as well as how they have performed on the interactive quizzes and worksheet practices.  A PDF version of the lesson is also available to print out as a study sheet for offline use.

The Money Mini-Course was a lot more in depth then I was expecting.  Starting with counting coins and moving on to dollars, the course starts off much as I would have expected.  However, through the course of 18 lessons, it gets into more complex lessons such as calculating salaries, commissions and interest rates.  This will probably be slightly more than what Ashleigh will need to know for 2nd grade, however, as this course is for grades 1st thru 5th and is appropriate for 5th graders.

The Time Mini-Course follows the same format as the Money course but covers topics concerning time.  There are 20 different lessons for the Time course, starting with the very basic concepts of Days, Weeks, Months and Years, the seasons, and then covering reading time on a clock. Higher concepts such as adding elapsed time units are also included.  This course is designed for grades 1st-4th but very little of it seems to be too advanced for Ashleigh, so I found it to be an overall great course for her and she is learning much from it.


Most classes are designed to be completed in 2-3 months, however, we have gone through it at a much slower pace.  We like the idea that we have access to the mini-courses for a full year because this means we can watch the lesson multiple times so that I know that Ash is getting a solid understanding of what she is learning (this is especially true with the money course as we have not covered skip counting 25 yet and so she is struggling with counting multiple quarters at this point).


Priced at $9.99 to $19.99, I believe these courses are priced nicely, especially in comparison to purchasing a full math curriculum and I hope to see more courses added in the future.

Learn more about A+ Interactive Math by visiting them on the following social media sites:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/APlusTutorSoft

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/aplustutorsoft

Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/aplustutorsoft/

Members of the Review Crew were given the opportunity to try all 20 Mini-Courses available from A+ Interactive Math.  Click the banner below to read what others thought of the courses they reviewed. 

A+ Interactive Math (A Schoolhouse Crew Review)

My homeschooling family has really struggled in the math department in finding a curriculum that works for everyone.. Garrett enjoys math but he doesn’t enjoy textbooks and being lectured to. Ashleigh hates math in any shape or form. This is a genetic thing as I disliked math when I was in school and had to repeat Algebra 1 my 10th grade year and now my oldest daughter is at risk of failing Algebra for the second time in public school. To say we are not a mathematics inclined family would be putting it mildly.  We’ve tried a few different curriculum and while each have their advantages, none have been the right fit for my family.  When I was given the opportunity to try the Family Math Package from  A+ Interactive Math, I knew it was something I desperately wanted to try. Maybe I would get lucky and find a curriculum that would be a better fit with my children than other curriculum we had tried.


Family Math Package is an interactive year-long multi-sensory program that addresses several learning methods (visual, auditory, and textual) for Grades 1 thru 6th, Pre-Algebra, and Algebra 1.  Each course level includes step by step video instruction, lesson plans, and both online and printable worksheets, exams and reference sheets for each lesson.   Lessons are browser based and ran smoothly on both Chrome and Firefox browers (I did not try it on Internet Explorer).  I was not able to run it on my Kindle Fire but A+ Tutorsoft does not claim to support this platform.


For the purpose of this review, we used the First Grade Online Homeschool  Edition.  Thinking I would just jump in to where we were currently at with another curriculum we are using, I quickly realized that A+ actually goes much more in depth than the other curriculum we were using.   We decided instead to start from the very beginning with Lesson 1.1.   The First grade level consists of 14 chapters for concepts such as counting numbers, number sense, addition, subtraction, money, measurements, fractions and Algebra. Each of these chapters are then broken further down into individual lessons covered within these broader chapters. A complete list of what is covered in the first grade level can be found on the website.

 Just with the first chapter, I learned exactly how many holes were in what my kids had learned from the previous math lessons.

The other thing I noticed was that both Ashleigh and Garrett seem to really enjoy this math curriculum. Yes, Ashleigh still baulks every time math is mentioned but once she gets started, she’s all smiles. It’s like the concept of doing the math upsets her but once doing it, she seems to forget she’s actually doing math. Several times she has told me “This math is easy” even though, in my opinion, the math concepts being presented are much more complex then what we have done before.  Garrett asks me almost daily if we can skip English and instead do Math.    (As an added point here, I loaded up one of the lessons on a Saturday night to take a screenshot and as soon as they hear the voice form the lesson, both kids came running expecting to do a lesson.. What parent can say that about math?)

They both enjoy the interactive quizzes after each lesson, especially the questions that have the frog  (which they enjoy the croaking sound so much they have resorted to making their own croaking sounds every time they answer a question correctly).

 
They also do not mind doing the daily worksheets that go along with the lesson. At the beginning of the week I print out all the worksheets for what we will cover.  Stapled together, these sheets equal anywhere from 15 to 30 pages, with each day being 2-6 pages depending on the lesson.  Usually, my kids throw a hissy fit having to do 1 page worth of math. We have managed to do these pages daily with very little complaining.   The worksheets make for a great gauge in making sure the kids picked up what the lesson was about and for me to explain those points that they do miss before we get to the tests at the end of the chapter.  I found the printables to be a very valuable part of this curriculum.

My honestly overall opinion? I think we found our math curriculum.  A+ Interactive Math was kinda enough to provide us with their curriculum for a set period of time but my husband and I have already sat down and discussed the fact that we will be continuing with this curriculum with our own money after that trial expires and will probably continue to pay for the yearly membership each year.

Want to find out if A+ Interactive Math is for you? They offer a 1 Month Free Trial of any Grade Level that might be of interest to you. They also have a free Math Placement Test to help identify any learning gaps in your child's mathematics education. . They do not ask for a credit card number so this is a great way to try it before you buy it without worrying about having to cancel in time if you find it isn't the right fit for your family.

A+ Interactive Math will be starting a 2-week 40% to 50% off sale on their “Family Math Packages” and “Adaptive Placement Testing w/ Lessons” program  starting on Monday May 4th and running until May 18th. This is a great opportunity to get either of these wonderful programs at a highly discounted rate.

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