Lure of the Labyrinth

A friend of mine sent me a link to Lure of the Labyrinth for my son. He loved the game Timez Attack and has been pestering me to buy the upgrade. Well, I really wasn't ready to drop $40 on an upgrade when he knows his times tables well. We checked Lure of the Labyrinth out last night and he's been playing it all morning. He loves it.

Lure of the Labyrinth is a free, online immersive game that takes place in an underground, monster-inhabited world. Students disguise themselves as a monster and then maneuver through various math missions to save their beloved pet who has gone missing. These math missions entail middle school level pre-algebra skills such as proportions, fractions, ratios, variables, equations, and numbers and operations. The math portions are cleverly done and thus doesn't feel like a "math game" that happens to be online but more like an online game that "happens" to have math. Trust me, this is important with a child who can smell anything that has a hint of schooling in it.

Fun with Angles

We just wrapped up Singapore 4A and have spent last week learning about angles, perpendicular lines, etc. Yesterday, I really felt that my son needed some fun and some practice with angles. He is a typical boy and loves to shoot nerf guns. I told him that in battles, your fellow fighters will often yell out things like "watch out at 2 O'clock" and how that doesn't mean the enemy will be here at 2 PM. I set up targets at different angles and let him practice shooting at each "time". We discussed that if you are facing noon then 3 and 9 o'clock are right angles and I had him figure out that each hour is 30 degrees. Then we took turns being blindfolded and trying to shoot as the other person callled out locations.

He had such a blast doing this and wants to do this afternoon for free time!