A+ Interactive Math

Once my children hit upper elementary and middle school years, I prefer to have them do their math lessons either via a DVD or online course as I want to make sure they are learning all the concepts correctly. We recently had the chance to review the Family Math Package from A+ Interactive Math.

The Family Math Package (FMP) offers courses from grades 1-6th plus pre-Algebra and Algebra 1. They realize the importance of incorporating multisensory into learning and thus their lessons include, 3 senses of learning through audio, visual and text. Their comprehensive courses offer a variety of ways to learn. The full online courses offer fully graded worksheets, colorful and animated videos that are simple and easy to understand. Not only do they offer online resources, but they also offer the ability to print off a lesson plan and even additional worksheets and exams. If you don't want to print off worksheets, you can do them online as well as the exams online. It's a wonderful mix of online and printable resources!

For this review, we had 2 children doing Algebra 1, 1 child doing pre-algebra and 1 child doing grade 6. For the purpose of this review, I'm keeping to the younger grades as they were making changes to Algebra 1. Once I logged in, it was easy to set up my childrens accounts and assign them a level. If for some reason a level was too hard or too easy, it was simple for me to go in and adjust the level on the parental controls. I love that they each had their own account as it kept track of their progress and grades individually.

When the student first logs in, there are 3 places to make note of:

• The Menu Bar
• Table of Contents
• Contents Window where lessons are displayed

The menu bar is listed across the top of the page and includes things likes the lesson plan, printable worksheets and admin panel.

The table of contents is on the left hand side and is grouped together by topic. By clicking on the plus sign, it opens up further lessons. You start by clicking the top lesson and working your way through them all. Some topics have just a few lessons while others have more. How many lessons your student works through each day is determined by you. If it's a concept your child knows well, they will work faster through it. If it's something they need more time with, they can simply take their time. Even printing out added worksheets to further help learn the concept.

The 3rd part of this curriculum is the main window where the lesson is displayed. The student will be listening to the lesson while the screen shows the lessons in vivid color. They can even stop, pause or rewind the lesson if they want to review a topic. The videos are short, between 2-6 minutes in length we noticed. Once the lesson is done, they click on the button for the Interactive Q & A where they put into practice what they just learned.

I pretty much gave my children free reign to use this program. Some days they worked through several lessons because they felt they understood what was being taught (or already knew it). Other days they only completed one lesson or even reviewed it if it was a new concept. My older ones felt this program helped fill in the gaps in areas they needed help with. Sometimes we printed the worksheets for added practice but again, I let that up to them if they felt they needed it.(again, this program was SO easy to use, hence me giving them full control). If I was using this for a full time math curriculum outside of a review (which you certainly can do and my children plan to do this going forward as they really loved it), I would've printed out the lesson plan schedule that is included as I love curriculum's that provide that! If you aren't a fan of online lessons, there is the ability to print out the ebook form and do the lessons offline.

I appreciated the fact that this curriculum does instant online grading as well as provides me with a progress report showing their strengths and weaknesses. My children's favorite part was the fact that the videos showed step by step solutions on how to solve problems. There was no "guessing" involved.

If you are wondering if this is a fit for your family, check out the many free resources A+ Interactive Math provides:
-Free placement test
-Free family math package
-Free software download
-Free single grade level
-Free ebook

Sounds like a fit for your family? Click the photo below to check it out as they are currently running a 2 week special of 40-50% off their family math packages as well as the other product some of the crew reviewed, adaptive placement test and individualized lesson plans to help fill in gaps.

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