Matific - grades K-9

A great maths app to reinforce concepts and practice math drills

If you’re the type of person who feels dread at the sight of a worksheet, Matific may be for you(r kid). We started using Matific at someone else’s suggestion, and I’m passing that recommendation now on to you. Matific is a highly engaging, adaptive, and comprehensive program that does a decent job of reinforcing kids’ understanding of standard math curricula. If you would otherwise be using workbooks, you should absolutely try this instead. If your kid goes to school and you want to supplement their learning, this would be a great option. We’ve been using this typically as a preferable way to practice “drills”, and as a supplement for more conceptually interesting programs like Beast Academy.¹

The creators strike a good balance of respectfully engaging kids without overloading their senses. The aesthetic is playful and relatable, and I love that you can turn the sound off without compromising the experience. The format is a game-style adventure, where you create a character and follow along an adventure path. Kids get more control than is often provided: they can choose to move back and forward along the path and repeat activities as often as desired, or enter the “training zone” where they can choose specific topics to work on. Activities are often real-world type scenarios with intuitive interactions, and tend to have multiple solutions, which I believe encourages confidence, some playfulness, and curiosity. It is gamified education, but I think it’s the thoughtful activities - more than features such as point scoring - that make it so fun.

Topics include all the standard stuff: adding and subtraction, multiplication, fractions, geometry, shapes, time, navigation, mass and volume, probability, statistics, algebra, etc. We’re not up to later years yet, so this review focuses on earlier grades. Here are some examples:

1. Why use a worksheet to practice addition and subtraction when you can ask a kid to instead construct some plumbing to connect length 77 to length 92 using only pipes of length 3, 45, 33, 48, or 30?

Example from Matific

2. Practice regrouping with addition and subtraction by declaring currency at the airport (similar activities involve making change etc)

   

   

   

   

   

   Use the machine to convert smaller coins into larger ones

   

   See: way more fun than a worksheet

3. Weights

   

   Various activities where you’re presented with weights and objects of different sizes and need to figure out how to balance scales, bridges etc, with increasing levels of complexity

4. Learn how to translate words to numerals so you can fly a spaceship.

There’s a fun little story around this, but this is the crux of the exercise

3. Learn how to add large numbers using skip counting by packing a truck with heavy boxes.

Example from Matific

4. Some fun logic games, e.g.

   

   Example from Matific

It’s priced at $79USD/year and you can try it for yourself, and/or sign up for a free trial here.

Also, words from my middle child. Typing has been a nice way to learn to read.

mum

nut

i love baby brother

1. A Beast Academy review is in the works