MeganW Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 I was thinking about taking a break in the summer, but having the kids do some work to keep from forgetting everything. A friend was looking into MobyMax, which is billed as a software program that finds missing skills and focuses on them. It covers things like math facts, math, grammar, vocab, etc. Has anyone tried this? Reviews? Alternatives? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeganW Posted May 3, 2014 Author Share Posted May 3, 2014 If nothing else, doing the assessment was worthwhile! I have one kiddo who REALLY struggles with math, and the assessment showed exactly what piece she was missing, and it really made me feel better about a lot of other math areas. Guess what's on my lesson plan next week! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aconnolley Posted May 5, 2014 Share Posted May 5, 2014 My 3rd and 5th grade dds tried the free trial and found it to be helpful. It isn't animated like T4Learning, but it is a lot cheaper. You really can get most of the functionality with the free version. And if you do the free trial, your kids start with the placement test. It then assigns them the topics they had a hard time with on the test. Definitely worth trying, in my opinion. My dd will use it this fall as a supplement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MistyMountain Posted May 5, 2014 Share Posted May 5, 2014 Thanks for posting this. I looked it up and even the free version actually looks cool. I did the math assessment so far and I am surprised by the results. My 2 older kids did better than I expected. I like how it finds areas they missed targets and targets those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeganW Posted May 8, 2014 Author Share Posted May 8, 2014 We are one week in & I thought I'd update in case anyone else is looking at it. We are only using the math portions (Math, Fact Master, and Number Sense). The kids enjoy doing it, and so it hasn't been pulling teeth to get it done each day. It is fully independent. The reporting is very helpful - one day I had one kid who spent 26 minutes on 5 problems, and got all 5 wrong, and it gave her a 0% score for "focus", and so it was easy to talk to her about it. She was shocked that I knew she had been goofing off. This is a kid for whom that is a constant issue, so I won't blame the program. She has done well since then, though - I think b/c she knows the program will tell me if she doesn't. :) The two things I don't like are the default amount of time on the fact master (too long), and the default % needed to consider a section mastered (too low), but those were easily changed. I wouldn't use it as a sole curriculum just because I think math needs to be truly taught by a teacher at this age, but if you aren't of that philosophical bent you might think differently. As a math supplement, I'm pretty pleased! I haven't even looked at the other sections yet, so I can't comment on vocab, reading, test prep, etc. One other thing - my kids do this on Kindles via an app. We have FreeTime on there, and MobyMax does use app time, so we had to increase the amount of allowed app time per day. Also, they do have to be connected to the internet/wireless for the program to work. Anyone else got reviews / comments? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MistyMountain Posted May 14, 2014 Share Posted May 14, 2014 It is okay but it does no teaching so I have no idea how they would go up grade levels without teaching the material. It has my ds doing double digit subtraction and he just isn't ready to do that with no instruction yet and no manipulatives. He mostly gets what adding tens means but it isn't something that has been really covered yet so he can't just go on there and do those problems. The math fact practice is cool and I like the vocabulary thing they do. It is a decent way to see what they still need to learn and for getting in extra practice after you go and teach those things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
llindseymomoffour Posted May 14, 2014 Share Posted May 14, 2014 We have been using MobyMax since January to get the kids caught up. They do enjoy it and I like that they are being able to fill in the blanks. The biggest downside is it isn't very instructional. My 7 year old has been able to advance in many skills. We approach new concepts where she tries to figure it out first and then if she doesn't understand I will explain how to do it and then she proceeds. She has her multiplication tables about memorized, thanks to Fact Master. I make the kids do each subject 30 min. each, every day. I would recommend this program to anyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Um_2_4 Posted May 14, 2014 Share Posted May 14, 2014 So it is more practice and drill than instruction? How did you all sign up? As homeschoolers or teachers? I can't really see any difference in the features or is there?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeganW Posted May 24, 2014 Author Share Posted May 24, 2014 So it is more practice and drill than instruction? How did you all sign up? As homeschoolers or teachers? I can't really see any difference in the features or is there?? I sign in as a "school administrator", so I must have signed up as a school? Our fact fluency has definitely come a long way with this. It focuses hard on the ones that repeatedly miss, instead of hitting all of them over and over like I was doing. The one thing I don't like is that we constantly have problems with Number Sense. For two of my kids, they can't see the bottom row of numbers on their Kindles. The MM people have tried to help - they say we are zoomed in too far, but none of us can get it to zoom out more. If it was just me, I would call it operator-error, but my husband is reasonably tech-saavy and he can't get it to work either. Of course it is the two kids who could really benefit from Number Sense that we can't get it going. The program feels "public-schooly". I love it for a well-rounded, fill-in curriculum that gives me a break, and I feel like it really is focusing on some skills that I wasn't necessarily hitting. I wouldn't want it to be our sole stuff year-round, though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeganW Posted May 24, 2014 Author Share Posted May 24, 2014 So it is more practice and drill than instruction? How did you all sign up? As homeschoolers or teachers? I can't really see any difference in the features or is there?? Sorry - I rechecked - we are signed up as homeschoolers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happycc Posted August 15, 2015 Share Posted August 15, 2015 I am looking into this an test prep option instead of Waggle and Study Island. Study Island was terribly beyond boring and Waggle my kids say was wierd and hard to figure out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demoman Posted January 27, 2017 Share Posted January 27, 2017 (edited) test Edited January 31, 2017 by demoman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess4879 Posted January 27, 2017 Share Posted January 27, 2017 We tried it out and I am really not impressed. My older two were doing fact fluency as review, so I didn't think much when it said they had all the facts mastered...but then I put my youngest on it and I know he struggles with fast recall for his facts...they have him at 49% fluent on addition, which he isn't. What they list as "mastery" is flawed. All of my kids really dislike the robot voice, so we've had to turn the sound off. I also found multiple questions that were wrong. One was in regards to shapes. They gave a rectangle and only two multiple choice answers of square or circle, if I remember correctly. I can't think of the others off the top of my head. I am glad we didn't pay for a subscription. I was seriously disappointed in it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demoman Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 (edited) test again. tried to delete my post but no option to do so. admin, feel free to remove this post. Edited January 31, 2017 by demoman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawthorne44 Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 We are one week in & I thought I'd update in case anyone else is looking at it. We are only using the math portions (Math, Fact Master, and Number Sense). The kids enjoy doing it, and so it hasn't been pulling teeth to get it done each day. It is fully independent. The reporting is very helpful - one day I had one kid who spent 26 minutes on 5 problems, and got all 5 wrong, and it gave her a 0% score for "focus", and so it was easy to talk to her about it. She was shocked that I knew she had been goofing off. This is a kid for whom that is a constant issue, so I won't blame the program. She has done well since then, though - I think b/c she knows the program will tell me if she doesn't. :) The two things I don't like are the default amount of time on the fact master (too long), and the default % needed to consider a section mastered (too low), but those were easily changed. I wouldn't use it as a sole curriculum just because I think math needs to be truly taught by a teacher at this age, but if you aren't of that philosophical bent you might think differently. As a math supplement, I'm pretty pleased! I haven't even looked at the other sections yet, so I can't comment on vocab, reading, test prep, etc. One other thing - my kids do this on Kindles via an app. We have FreeTime on there, and MobyMax does use app time, so we had to increase the amount of allowed app time per day. Also, they do have to be connected to the internet/wireless for the program to work. Anyone else got reviews / comments? One idea is to setup a second account for each child. Then add the apps there that you don't think should be included in against the app time. Then make that account have no time restrictions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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