You Oughta Know About Matific

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Today I am linking up with Buzzing with Mrs. McClain for the You Oughta Know blog hop.  I am so excited to share this treasure of a math site with you today.  This is going to be one you don't want to miss!  

In the last few  years, my school has shifted from having overhead projectors to having digital projectors and/or smart boards in every room.  This new technology has been amazing and I am always on the look at for more ways to use this technology with students.  This past summer, I discovered Matific, a website designed to help teachers of K-6 math.  The site is free to use (you do have to sign up for a free account to access it all).

The website (there is also an app) consists of mini interactive games designed to teach a specific math concept in a fun and engaging way.  The mini games, called episodes are organized by grade and Common Core strand.  There are also "worksheets" which are easy for kids to fill out on the computer and click submit to see if their answers are correct.  If you teach K-6 math, this is a website that you are definitely going to want to check out!


Here is a tiny sampling of some of the things Matific has to offer.

This is bees and flowers from the Kindergarten menu.  It is a fun way for young children to learn about more and less.  You can pick the bees up and match them to the flowers in this episode,  

This is Out on the Tiles from the second grade section.  You pick up and drag squares to cover the rectangle and find the area.  The idea of area is pretty new to second graders and this is a fun way to work on tiling to fill in the rectangle.  It is very interesting to watch kids who have done this episode a few times find ways to be more efficient and to figure out the area without tiling the entire shape.  This leads to kids constructing their own knowledge about area and designing their own shortcuts.  

This is What's Your Angle I from the fourth grade section.  This is a great introduction to using protractors to measure.  There is also a what is your angle II that steps up the difficulty.  You will find on Matific that there is often a series of episodes that get progressively more challenging around a particular topic.  I really like this because I can have some students working on level 1 while others work on level 2 or 3 as they are ready.  

This one is Volume Fraction from the sixth grade section.  I love doing these episodes with upper elementary students because they often feel like they are to mature for other hands on manipulatives.  Matific lets them have hands on experience in a fun and engaging way.  The hands on practice is such an important part of conceptual understanding.  

Head over to matific.com for more great games that will help your students build conceptual understanding of important math topics! 

Grab yourself a big cup of coffee or a nice cup of tea, and check out what these other great blogs are saying in the You Oughta Know blog hop.