iLearn Technology

What it is: Hooray!! It is World Math Day time!   This year World Math Day will be held on March 3, 2010.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with World Math Day, it is a day when students from around the world compete in an online environment in live games of mental arithmetic.  Each game lasts for 60 seconds and students can play as many as 500 games, earning points for every correct answer.  The students who answer the most questions show up in the Hall of Fame. This is an absolutely free event to take part in.  Students can train for World Math Day every day leading up to March 3rd by participating in arithmetic competition. For those of you home school readers, World Math Day is also open and free to you!  The competition is designed for students 5-18 years old.  This year has a little bit of a new format (the change is fantastic!) with multi-levels for all groups.  Teachers, parents and media are also invited to participate for the first time.  Last year 2 million students from 204 countries participated and correctly answered more than 4 million questions!!

How to integrate World Math Day into the classroom: World Math Day is a fun competition to involve your students in.  It helps build mental arithmetic and numeracy.  Students from around the world compete in this competition to find out which country has the top mathematicians.   Students have a great time working to get their country to the top (nothing like a little National pride!).  My students beg to be involved in World Math Day each year.  We spend extra time in the computer lab and on classroom computers preparing for the day.  Students answer mental math questions appropriate to their age level. This is a phenomenal way to get some fact practice in!

We make a big deal out of World Math Day and let students have an extended math period to compete on March 3rd.  You could use World Math Day as a Math Olympics for your class and have and opening and closing ceremony for your class, school, or representing your country.

Tie World Math Day into your social studies curriculum.  As students compete against other students from around the world, the other student is represented by a flag.  My students are always very curious to learn more about the other countries and cultures represented. It would also be fun to start a map in Google Earth where you put place markers on the countries that students have competed with.

The platform is open, register your students and start training today!

Tips: If you would like to find out more about past World Math Day competitions check out my posts 2009 here and 2008 here.  There are rumors of a World Math Day iPod App coming soon, check back with the official site for more information.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using World Math Day in your classroom.

What it is: Math Mania Back to School Challenge is a FREE 48 hour math competition hosted by Voyager.  Voyager also holds the World Math Day competition each year, Math Mania is a similar competition. Students compete against other students in real time using the Vmath Live math program.  This challenge is limited to 2nd through 8th grade students in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas who are registered by September 14th.  Other Math Mania challenges will follow (different dates depending on US state) so if your school isn’t in a state listed above, check out the Math Mania website to find out when your challenge will take place.  Although the official competition is September 15-16, students can begin practicing on VmathLive as soon as they are registered.  Prizes include student and school trophies and plaques, on-site pizza parties, visits from Vbot, and a champion hall banner awarded to the top overall performing school.  Awards will be given to the top 10 students overall, the top 5 classes,  and the top 3 schools.

How to integrate Math Mania Back to School Challenge into the classroom: You have never seen students so excited to practice math facts!   Students face off with other students from around the world practicing their math facts.  The live competition with students from around the world is highly motivating and has students asking “can I play this at home?”  When have you ever had students ask to practice their math facts?!  Reserve a computer lab for September 15th and 16th so that your students can take part in the competition.  In the mean time, students can be practicing for the competition by playing on VmathLive in a computer lab setting or as a center activity on classroom computers.

Tips: If your state is not listed above, be sure to visit the VmathLive site to find out when your Math Mania challenge will be held.  Print out the fliers from the VmathLive and post around your school to raise interest and excitement about the competition.

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Math Mania Back to School Challenge  in your classroom.

What it is:   TutPup is an outstanding, free math and spelling practice website.  At TutPup students can compete in fun, educational games against kids from all over the world live.  The site reminds me a lot of the World Math Day competition.  Students are matched up with other students from around the world where they play fact games and compete in real time to see who best knows their stuff.  I love that TutPup is available to students all year long (unlike the World Math Day site), it doesn’t collect personal information about students, and there are several games to choose from each with multiple levels.  TutPup helps students build math skills in the areas of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, algebra, and a mixture of those skills.  TutPup also helps students build spelling skills with a spelling game, students listen to a word and have to spell it before their opponent.  The site is highly motivating, takes into account different learning levels, and builds a variety of skills.

How to integrate TutPup into the classroom: My students absolutely love this website.  Any time they can take part in a little friendly competition they are ready to compete.  The great thing about TutPup is that it can be differentiated for your different levels of learners.  Each student can play games at their own ability level.  This keeps the lower math students engaged and feeling successful and the higher level students challenged enough to hold their interest.  These types of sites have my students asking, “can I play this game at home too?”   When have you ever had a student ask if they could practice math or spelling facts at home?!  They truly love the competition of this site and get the added benefit of increasing their math fact recall skills.  Use TutPup as a math center in the classroom where students can practice math facts, or a practice center in the literacy block for additional spelling practice.  This is also a fun whole class activity with an interactive whiteboard or projector, students can call out the answers to the questions as a class for the teacher to enter.  You won’t have to assign this site for homework, students will ask to play from home.  Tell parents about this site as an alternative to flash card math fact practice.  

Tips:  TutPup offers teacher accounts and student accounts for free.  However, right now their are no available login ID’s.  I contacted TutPup about this dilemma and they are working on a solution.  In the mean time, students can access all the games as a guest player.  I’ll update this post when TutPup has solved the registration issues. 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using TutPup in your classroom.

What it is:  World Math Day is March 4, 2009!  If you participated in World Math Day last year with the World Math Day website, you know how motivating and fun it was.  If not, this is your year to join in the fun!  Students play against other students in countries around the world in real time mental arithmetic games.  Each game lasts for 60 seconds.  Students can play as many games as they want to.  When you sign up your class, you will choose the level of difficulty based on age and ability.   World Math Day is best for students who are 5 to 18 years old (k-12!).   There are even prizes awarded including student prizes, and school prizes for highest achievers.  Registration for World Math Day is open (and free), your students can start practicing right now!

How to integrate World Math Day into the classroom:  World Math Day was one of the highlights of math class last year.  The students who participated had a great time competing against other students from around the world.  I have never seen students so excited to practice math facts and many asked, “can we do this at home too?”  How often do you get students asking for more math practice at home?!  Get your students excited about competing on March 4 and start practicing now.  If you have one or two computers in the classroom you can set up a training center.  Reserve a computer lab during math class to practice as a class.  You can also split your class into teams of 3 to complete the 60 second games using a projector or interactive whiteboard.  You will not believe how motivating this site is for students!

Tips:  This is an amazing development, World Math Day 2009 is available on the iPhone and iPod Touch!!!  Woot, woot! Students can join in the fun of the practice period and work on their skills against other students before the big day. 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using World Math Day in your classroom.