Prodigy: Virtual world of math
What it is: Prodigy is a fantastic way to differentiate math in your classroom. Prodigy is a game-like fantasy world where students engage in math along their adventures. Prodigy is a virtual world where students can play together with classmates. In the virtual world, students are wizards who learn magic and spells to defeat over 100 monsters. To learn a new spell or add powers (or adopt pets), students must complete different math challenges. As students play the game, they will learn over 300 math skills in 1st-8th grade. Prodigy is adaptive, so it constantly adjusts to challenge them and keep them learning at their own pace. Gaps are automatically identified and the math challenges scaffold accordingly. As a teacher, you can get real-time feedback on the skills students have been working on and identify challenges at a glance.
How to integrate Prodigy into your classroom: Prodigy is aligned to the Common Core Math standards and has over 300 math skills for students to master. It moves beyond simple number sense and also covers geometry, spatial sense, probability, and other crucial skills. Because Prodigy is aligned to the Common Core, it is easy to navigate. The teacher dashboard is really intuitive, you can get in and have your class signed up and ready to roll in no time! From the teacher dashboard, you can use the assessment feature to diagnose where students are, and align math content to what you are teaching in class. In a 1:1 classroom setting, where each child has their own device, using Prodigy in your math class is a no brainer. Kids will love it! If you don’t have the luxury of a 1:1 environment, but you do have classroom computers, your kids can still benefit from Prodigy. Use Prodigy as a math center and in the course of a week, make sure that all of your students have the opportunity to filter through to practice the skills they have learned that week.
My guess is, if your students are like ours, that just being exposed to Prodigy in class will have your kids asking, “can we play this at home?” Umm, yes! I love when they get so into learning that they want to carry on all on their own. This is one of those games that they will want to come back to voluntarily!
Tips: Prodigy is completely free for you to use as an educator with your students. All of the educational skills and teacher features are completely free with no time limits that some sites have. The only thing that Prodigy charges for are kids’ game features where families can purchase special wands, hats, robes, etc.
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