Our son has been having a blast practicing and reviewing his math skills using Matific Galaxy—an online math resource for grades K-6. He has been working his way through unlocking ten different planets in the Matific Galaxy. This allows him to practice a number of different math skills through a variety of games.
For each level, our son needed to complete online math games in order to collect all the pixels necessary to unlock characters. Once the characters were unlocked, our son was able to dress the characters using the different outfits he won as prizes as he continued working through the different math games.
What is Matific Galaxy?
Matific Galaxy is available for both the desktop and as an app for electronics such as tablets and phones with hundreds of fun math games. There are over 1,500 activities available across grades K-6. You can even try out Matific Galaxy before you purchase to see if it is the right fit for your homeschooling family.
In general, Matific Galaxy can be used almost entirely independently by your child. Our son was able to navigate most of the learning games without help from me. There were only a few activities which he had to ask me about and a few games where he needed assistance multiple times (example: Lucky Stars and Draw A Line). There are also audio and written instructions to help your child work through the planets, activities, and information by themselves. So, when our son let his sister take a turn, she could figure out the instructions even though she is not able to read everything yet.
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| I quite liked helping our son play this game. It is a lot fun to figure out which cards to use to collect the stars. |
What Topics Has Our Son Been Practicing?
The first grade topics practiced and reviewed include 60 different skills:
- Dusty: counting, addition
- Kai: geometry
- Jung Jung: counting
- Blaze: counting, addition, basic fractions, subtraction
- Rocky: counting, addition, numbers measurements
- Icy: addition, counting, data analysis
- Sweetie: measurements, counting, subtraction, patterns, numbers, addition, basic fractions
- Nickel: addition, problem solving, measurements, counting, subtraction
- Sir Goldy: numbers, subtraction, addition, mixed operation, geometry
- Queen D: addition, numbers, geometry
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| The motivational messages are fantastic! |
What Did Our Son Think?
Since first playing, our 6-year-old son asks almost everyday if he will have a chance to play on Matific Galaxy. In addition to working on my laptop, I also let him play via the app on my phone. He will happily sit solving math problems and practicing his addition and subtraction.
"Turn Screen Time Into Learning Time"
Our son had so much fun the first day after we set up the accounts, he played for quite a long while. And when we downloaded the app to my phone, he was ecstatic!
One of his favorite learning games was with the first planet—Dusty: Get the Picture. He needs to correctly assign the bows, necklaces, and glasses to characters in a line by following ordinal directions. When everyone is wearing the correct article, a photo is taken of the Class of 2019.
Another favorite was Robot Lift-Off, where students need to add the number of robots (there are two different kinds). When the amounts are chosen correctly, the robots go onto the space ship and take off. Before this, they do a little dance, which our son likes seeing.
When our son completes all the first grade activities, he will receive a certificate. He is motivated by the prizes and achievements, so this is a perfect online learning opportunity for him.
My Thoughts
I love that our son can work at his own pace. He can repeat games multiple times as he works on mastering skills and returns to play things again for more practice. The background music is also nice. So, if I am working at the table with his sister on something else while he is completing his math assignment, his playing the game is not distracting.
Another great aspect of Matific Galaxy is the Parent Zone. When I look at the Parent Zone, I can quickly see where our son's strongest subjects are and what areas he needs more practice in (geometry). I can also easily send him one of three motivational messages (which he enjoys).
Summary reports are available to be emailed to you once a week (or not at all, if you choose) or you can view them through the Parent Zone. I can view data based upon all-time, 3 months, one month, two weeks, or just the last week. The results are also displayed by topic with our son's score and the Matific average score.
And, finally, results are broken down by assignment. So, I can see how our son did on Dusty's planet, Kai's planet, or Jung Jung Planet's. After viewing these scores, I was able to ask him to focus on certain planets and games to practice certain skills as recommended.
The last thing in the summary report is the All-time Achievements which shows how many trophies our son has achieved during this time working with Matific Galaxy. I really like how easy it is to understand everything in the Parent Zone.
The only detraction I can find is that the progress from the desktop does not seem to transfer to the phone (they are not synchronized across different platforms). So, while our son is happy to repeat the same steps on the phone or tablet app as he had upon the desktop, I think maybe other children would be annoyed with having to repeat things.
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| Even though our son has everything unlocked on the desktop, they are still locked on the app. |
We will continue to use the one-year subscription we received to review from Matific Galaxy through the rest of the year. Our son really enjoys it and I see it as a fun break to review and even introduce new math skills.
Do You Want to Learn More about Matific Galaxy?
If you wish to read more about the other levels—since our son worked with just the first grade level—be sure to read the other reviews!
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