As a member of the Homeschool Review Crew, I had the opportunity to review the Math Analogies Beginning computer program from The Critical Thinking Co. I was excited about this program because although we have a strong base of skills that H (our four year old) is learning, I was unsure that our teaching included enough problem solving skill practice. Math Analogies Beginning does a great job of teaching those problem solving skills!
When I first downloaded Math Analogies Beginning and H started going through the program, she had a great time. She really enjoyed working with Mommy and going through each analogy.
The analogies started out simple. They are set up in the traditional way with the dots showing the “is to” and “as” words.
In the beginning, I read a lot of the analogies to H just to get her in the groove of doing them. For the example above, I would have read, “Yellow circle is to yellow circle with smiley face as green rectangle is to ____________.” She picked up on this really quickly, but me doing them with her helped her remember to look at all aspects (color, attributes, shape, etc.).
After the first couple sessions, I was able to let her do them all on her own. When she needed help, she’d call me and I would help her. There were a few reading analogies she needed help with because she’s not reading yet. As the analogies became more complex, they started incorporating other areas of math. For example, in this picture, the analogy is one a child will understand only if they’re reading time on a clock. H is not, so I just walked her through it. It was a nice little introduction to telling time.
I really appreciated the way Math Analogies Beginning from Critical Learning Co. has helped H become more of a critical thinker. It has definitely caused her to think in different ways about the problems and to give her answers thought before just picking the first thing that looks like it might be right.
The one thing I didn’t like about the program is that you can only have one user at a time. H was doing great and I wanted to give M a shot, but you can’t create a new user without deleting all the progress of the first user.
Math Analogies Beginning is a Windows software download (although there is an option for iPad download and also a workbook). There is no subscription, so once you download the software, it’s yours. There is, however, a limit to the number of computers you can download to.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Critical Learning Co., you can visit them on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest.
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