DreamBox Learning®» Parenting

Confessions of a DreamBox Parent

Blue — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:00:14 +0000

My son will be 6 in October, and my daughter is 3 ½. I don’t think it will come as a shocker when I admit that I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants at this parenting thing. Sure, I’ve gotten better over the years. I’ve read the books and magazines, talked with friends and family about their experiences. But overall, I’m just hanging on, hoping that I don’t mess the kid up for life. That’s why the decision to expose our children to the DreamBox online math program is so satisfying. I know for certain that I’m doing the right thing. Without a doubt, DreamBox is a great teaching tool for kids. My wife and I deliberate over which school to send our kids to. Are they too young to start playing soccer? When should we expose them to a musical instrument? With each decision comes fear of the unknown. We wonder how our children will react to certain environments. We contemplate costs such as drive time and money. We try to balance fun with learning, being a kid with growing up strong. DreamBox seems to have overcome a lot of those concerns for us. At its core, DreamBox teaches math curriculum based on national and state standards. I know this because of the dashboard that is available to me which highlights different skills that have been mastered. DreamBox adapts to my child’s learning style and speed, constantly making adjustments to deliver a customized learning program. Regardless of how fast or slow my child is learning, DreamBox is rewarding him along the way. Part of my goal as a parent is to develop a confident person, one who is able to handle all that life will throw at him. So along with learning math, my son is gaining much needed confidence. He is rewarded by fun, talking characters. He is rewarded with certificates, and tokens, and new friends that he wins as he completes lessons. It doesn’t matter how advanced or remedial the lessons are, he is becoming more self-assured. DreamBox doesn’t forget the importance of being a kid either. This program is set up like a game, with different storylines using fairies (they call them pixies), dinosaurs, pirates, or pets. There is a carnival arcade where my son can go to play games, which, by the way, are just more math problems. Kinda like hiding peas in their macaroni-and-cheese. There are hundreds of lessons and, so I read, millions of storylines that can be exposed on the fly as my son completes different tasks in different ways. I’ve watched my son use DreamBox, and it occurs to me that he is not only learning math, he’s learning problem solving. That issue we have in our country about not having enough engineers and scientists? Well, that’s not only because we aren’t teaching kids facts properly. Engineers must think independently, approach puzzles from different perspectives. Scientists must forge new methods of researching problems. DreamBox forces my son to actually think, as well as memorize. I know that computers can’t replace personalized instruction. I also know that my child needs time to play with 3 dimensional objects and real, live kids. Exercise and sports are invaluable to developing a well rounded, healthy child. But for 30 or 60 minutes a day, a few times a week, I know that DreamBox is delivering so much of what my child needs growing into a boy and man, and what I need growing as a parent.

Parent's Math Anxiety: Apples and Oranges

Byron — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:12:13 +0000

No parent likes to see their child struggle – whether it be in the math class room, or with fitting in on the playground. As parents, we all get anxious when our child hits a speed bump. And when we get anxious, we forget one of the most basic rules of parenting that we all know: every child is different. My son struggled mightily to memorize the basic single digit addition facts and later the multiplication table. And yet, now as a 10th grader he has no problem with Algebra II. I still am not sure he ever really memorized the multiplication table, but instead it seems he quickly recalculates each time. When he was younger, I wish I would have had more faith that there were many, many different paths to success, and that he would find his.

Identifying a Child’s Path to Math Success

One of the things that attracted me to DreamBox and got me involved, was DreamBox’s core belief in the idea that every child is different, and every child will find a different path to success.For more on this, look at Why is DreamBox better? Also, in the FAQ there are a couple useful questions and answers about what to do when your child hits a speed bump with DreamBox. See: Should I help my child with a problem? And apples and oranges? I wish I could give credit to where I read this, but it is an image that has stuck with me since before I became a parent: Being a parent is like being a gardener. You are given a seed and not told what type of seed it is – maybe it is an apple seed, maybe an orange seed, maybe something else. You have no control over what it is. Your only job is to make sure it grows up healthy, happy, and strong.

Pushing Kids From an Early Age?

Valentin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:32:43 +0000

A few days ago I read an article about gifted kids and the meaning of the word these days. I’m not a parent, but I can understand why many parents want to believe their children are exceptional. However, I think some are trying to convince themselves of that by pushing their kids in various activities from a very early age. I can share my experience with this. I am the second of two children in my family, and my mother is definitely one those parents who try to make their kids geniuses when they're young. As a second child I was lucky, because most of this parental ambition was poured over my brother; by contrast, I was not reading large books or doing well in math before first grade. I really did have a lot more freedom than my brother to choose what I was interested in. At first, my parents thought that I was going to be good at literature, because I had the ability to talk for hours if there was someone around unlucky enough to listen. Growing up in Bulgaria math is stressed in school, and from the beginning we had many math problems to solve every day. As time went on, I started to like math and many of my friends also liked it. I attended extra math and informatics programs in the Math High School in my city. I found math to be fun on my own, without being pushed so hard like my brother was.

Encouraging Kids Through Fun Learning Games and Imagination

Now, I am a silver medalist from the International Olympiad in Informatics, a Computer Science graduate, and a software developer for an online children's education start-up. I have been seriously studying math for around 10 years, and I really enjoy it! In spite of the fact that I haven't been solving linear equations since the age of 5 . The bottom line that I want to emphasize is: let's keep learning fun for younger kids. Childhood should be a time of exploration and discovery. And what could be better than to combine fun with serious learning? This is what we’re doing here at DreamBox, and every time I see a child enjoy our product, I am happy for at least two reasons: this child is having fun and he/she is also learning something useful. I wish my mother had this product when I was a child...

Fun Math Game