Mathletics is an online service that some schools subscribe to that let students log in and compete in math quizzes against the clock or against other students from around the worl. It costs about 90 dollars AUD for a home account which is what our son has and I believe about 30 dollars AUD for a school based account. I would love to see "Physletics" and "Chemletics" as well but having maths and english is a great start. (Spellodrome is their spelling product).

Anyway, back to the blog - They launched a blog on March 30 at http://blog.mathletics.com/ which might be worh looking at if you are considering this program.

Kids can lose a little interest in this and when I saw Joe's points falling, I wondered why... As we sat today on my day off - he doing mathletics (with a little club penguin thrown in for a rest) and me grappling with new features of Camtasia 7, I noticed his questions on mathletics were too easy. Joe also told me this so I logged onto the parent's area and upped his year level to 4 (he is in grade 3) and found out that with a one year subscription you can adjust levels 6 times in a year. That is more than enough to find the right level.

Even nicer was that he ran up to me (I had moved back to my office) and told me that he had learnt two new words (acute and obtuse for angles). Like most people, Joe likes doing things if they are adding value or are fun. Learning is fun if you are learning - repeating the same old questions that you have nailed 17 times already is not learning - but on the other hand if you are trying to stave of Alzheimer's - it is a different question...

So it is was fun when he started, then it became a little boring and now we have upped the ante and it is fun again...

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