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Play sample lessons
Play sample DreamBox Learning K-2 Math lessons and games
DreamBox Learning K-2 Math has over 350 lessons and puzzles, and well over a million possible paths through the curriculum, to provide the most effective, individualized learning experience for each student.
The DreamBox curriculum aligns with the NCTM Focal Points that focus on Number and Operations, and Algebra. Our virtual manipulatives are designed to support students as they solve problems multiple ways. As a student moves through a series of lessons, the program adapts to offer learning opportunities that are appropriate for each learner.
DreamBox has a variety of lesson types
- Adventure Park lessons are the majority of our lessons. Some of these teach new concepts while others encourage math fluency.
- Placement lessons quickly determine whether or not a student already knows a particular concept. Therefore, they do not teach or adapt in the same ways as Adventure Park lessons.
- Tutorial lessons teach students how to use a virtual manipulative and do not focus on teaching any new math concepts.
- The Carnival has puzzles and an Arcade. Puzzles provide even more math in a strongly themed story context. The Arcade provides opportunity for students to take a break from the Adventure Park and use earned tokens just for fun!
Many of the sample lessons are part of a series of similar lessons. Each sample lesson is accompanied by a description of the series’ progression.
Click on the links below to play sample lessons and puzzles that cover a variety of math topics and use a number of our virtual manipulatives. As you play, we encourage you to answer both correctly and incorrectly so you can see the many ways lessons dynamically adapt to provide hints and support learning. If you aren’t sure what to do, click the HELP button, which is available in each of the DreamBox lessons!
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Kindergarten Adventure Park lessons
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Counting 6 — 10. This lesson is one in a
long series that provides opportunities for students to develop strategies for building and
counting numbers from 1 to 100. The virtual manipulatives used in these lessons (tenframes,
mathracks, and Numbergrams™) are designed to push students beyond counting by ones to using
groups of 2, 3, 5 and 10. This pushes kids to use more sophisticated and efficient strategies
while also developing a strong sense of number. After successfully playing an initial
“building” lesson, students are given additional building lessons with more
“restrictions.” For example, one set of lessons requires building numbers starting
from a number other than 0 (i.e., build 16 starting from 10). This series finishes with
“quick image” lessons. An image is shown just long enough for one to identify the
amount, but not long enough for one to count each object individually. As you play this
lesson, be sure to answer incorrectly. You’ll see how the virtual manipulative has
features that support learning in ways that physical manipulatives do not.
Play this lesson.
(You can also view the Tenframe tutorial.)
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Building a Decade of a Hundreds Chart. Students
have many misconceptions about the hundreds chart. Early learners often struggle to
“wrap” or move to the next row, and the distance between numbers can be
misleading. For example, the number 30 is one space away from 40 on a hundreds chart but 30 is
actually 10 less than 40. The number 31 is much farther away from 30 on a hundreds chart, but
the value is much closer than 40. As a result, many students think that 30 and 40 are closer
in value than 30 and 31 based on the visual representation of the hundreds chart. Knowing that
this is challenging for many students; DreamBox includes a series of lessons where students
build a hundreds chart, one decade at a time. After each decade is complete, it is placed in a
cumulative hundreds chart. Students love this series and often want to play it over and over!
Play this lesson.
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Doubles and Near Doubles.
Many students automatize “doubles” quickly (such as 6 + 6 = 12). By exploring
relationships between doubles and “near doubles” (such as 6+7), students begin
to automatize basic facts that otherwise seem challenging. This relationship is made
explicit through the use of virtual manipulatives as well as strings of related problems.
The lesson featured here is in the middle of the series. Prior to it, students
“build” doubles and near doubles on the mathrack. After this lesson, students
will move to lessons that use “symbolic” display (such as “Double 4”)
instead of a mathrack display.
Play this lesson.
(You can also view the mathrack tutorial.)
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1st Grade Adventure Park lessons
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Building Numbers in Different Ways (11-20).
Using our mathrack virtual manipulative, students learn that you can build the same number
in several different ways, e.g. 10+3 = 7+6. Students can use a variety of strategies to
solve these problems, including the commutative property (10+4 = 4+10), doubles or near
doubles (10+4 = 7+7), and more.
Play this lesson.
(You can also view the mathrack tutorial.)
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Comparisons with More and Less Symbols. Using the
hungry alligator metaphor and starting with smaller numbers (1-10), students focus on
using the symbols correctly. In 1st grade students focus on comparing numbers up to
100, but as they advance they can compare higher numbers. Then students are challenged
to understand the values of numerals based on their place in the number. (For example,
587 and 578) Eventually the alligator is removed and only the symbols remain. Other
DreamBox lessons let students build their own comparisons using both virtual
manipulatives and numerals.
Play this lesson.
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Number Strings. A “string” is a set
of related problems used to highlight the relationships between problems. This particular
strings lesson uses “10s facts” (such as 10 + 4) to solve “9s facts”
and “11s facts” (such as 9 + 4 or 11+ 4). Other lessons focus on doubles, near
doubles, “8s facts,” and (12s facts).
Play this lesson.
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2nd Grade Adventure Park lessons
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Building Equal Expressions with Snap Blocks™. Snap
Blocks™ lessons provide opportunities for students to build and evaluate expressions with
multiple addends, e.g. 3+4+6 = 1+6+6. The tool and associated lessons were written to combat
the misconceptions associated with the equal sign (e.g. “the number after the equal sign
is the answer”). Building the expressions so that interim values are equal introduces
students to the concept that pieces on both sides of the equation can be “canceled”.
We use the metaphor of “golden paths” to reinforce this. We increase the
difficulty of the lessons by increasing the number of addends on each side of the equation,
using larger addends, increasing the number of “golden paths,” and more. Finally,
this series ends with quick true/false, equal/not equal, and less than/equal to/more than
lessons, which build fluency and efficiency in evaluating equations.
Play this lesson.
(You can also view the Snap Blocks™ tutorial.)
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Addition using “Compensation Buckets™”.
One of the most efficient mental math strategies is to turn hard problems into
“friendlier” problems by making one of the addends a multiple of 10. For example,
turn 23+38 into 21+40 by removing 2 from 23 and adding it to the 38. This series starts with
lessons that use smaller 2-digit addends and increases in difficulty to use 3-digit addends.
Check out how we made this fun by using a bucket metaphor!
Play this lesson.
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Adding and Subtracting using the Function Machine and
T-charts. Our mad-scientist function machine and t-chart create a fun setting for a
series of lessons that get progressively more challenging. Students complete either the
machine’s output or the rule. Problem types vary from +/- 10, +/- values of 1-9, and more.
Play this lesson.
(You can also view the Function Machine tutorial.)
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Addition Using the Open Number Line. The open
number line is a powerful representation. It helps students visualize making jumps forward
and backward on a number line and allows students to use a variety of strategies for both
addition and subtraction. These strategies include “Making Jumps of 10” (e.g.
79+33 = 79+10+10+10+3) and “Using Landmark Numbers” (e.g. 79+33 = 79+1+20+10+2).
These strategies lead to flexible thinking which supports efficient and accurate problem
solving.
Play this lesson.
(You can also view the open number line tutorial.)
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Puzzles in the Carnival
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Maze. Students learn early “programming”
skills as they choose a sequence of “directions” and “distances”
to successfully navigate through the maze. There are 9 increasingly challenging levels.
By the end, students “program” 3 steps at a time, collect mushrooms, avoid
trolls, and reach the end of the maze before their turns run out!
Play this lesson.
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Petting Zoo. This game was carefully designed to
build spatial reasoning. Although the mouse requirements can be difficult for new computer
users, research indicates that requiring the student to carefully place the animals in the
pen, as opposed to letting technology “lock them into place”, has a greater impact
on one’s ability to understand space.
Play this lesson.
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Frog Race. Initially, students build the race
course by placing flags at every tenth interval. Then, students’ frogs race against the
competition. The student must choose the starting point closest to the presented number (the
fly finish line), and tell his or her frog the correct distance to hop in order to win! In
earlier levels, the starting points are always on a multiple of ten and on the positive side
of the number line. Later levels include negative numbers.
Play this lesson.
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Dunk Tank. Students manipulate the mathrack and
develop strategies in this modern version of the classic 4-in-a-Row game. There are 9
different levels, varying the use of even and odd numbers and the number of buttons available
to manipulate the mathrack. These variations challenge students to modify their strategies
based on the existing constraints.
Play this lesson.
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Placement Lessons
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Placement lessons are designed to rapidly determine if a student knows a particular concept or not. These lessons are not meant to teach or adapt. When students successfully complete a placement lesson, they skip over the lessons associated with that concept. When students need to learn or practice the concepts more, they are given the relevant lessons next in their sequence. Students are not aware that they are playing a placement lesson as they look like any other lesson! |
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Make 100 Placement Lesson. In this placement lesson,
students identify pairs of numbers that add up to 100. If students do not successfully
complete this placement lesson, they will be given lessons like “Make 15”,
“Make 20”, “Make 50”, and easier versions of “Make 100”
before moving on in the curriculum.
Play this lesson.
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Tutorials
DreamBox tutorials are very different from the Adventure Park lessons and Carnival Puzzles. Many of the virtual manipulatives are introduced with a tutorial to teach students how to use it.
