Recently I was asked to review an online educational game from the makers of Jumpstart, called Math Blaster. I was incredibly excited to offer my children this opportunity to learn while playing a game on our computer. My kids are the ideal ages since they are eight and eleven while the site is listed for children ages six through twelve. Basically, it is a great way to teach addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to grades Kindergarten…. and up
The three of us had a “blast” while designing our characters. We were able to choose all the features for our character from a wide variety of hair colors, eye colors, to skin colors,…. even as wild as pink! The character could be tall and skinny, or teeny tiny. Having this freedom made it so much more personal to enter the game and play as a character you have uniquely created.
The graphics just blew me away. It kind of reminded me of a children’s version of SIM. You even have a room you can design and decorate as you earn credits. Everything is set as if you were on some space station far out in the milky way. Playing the math games offered was exciting, and intense as well.
One game we really liked in particular, had us soaring through a space tunnel, shooting at the bad guys and dodging road blocks then suddenly, you’d come upon an alien type math creature, and you had to solve math problems to defeat him. It really kept you on your toes and even better then that, it kept my kids completely interested!We enjoyed every aspect of this… From the graphics and space setting… To the attention grabbing math games.
Sadly though, I was very concerned about the space station atmosphere being set in a virtual chat room. Being a conservative mom, I wasn’t ready to allow my child that experience. But to my delight, I have been shown that by simply visiting the parent controls, and going under the manage kids tab you can completely turn off this feature. This was such a huge relief since this is really an amazing game that adds learning your basic math skills in a fun educating way!
So, if you’re looking for an out of this world math game, literally set in the space theme, then this is definitely a game for you and your kids! But if the chat room thing scares you like it did me… do not fear, because the designers of this game thought of everything, and you can in fact turn this feature off!
Have fun soaring beyond the stars, while learning those multiplication tables at the same time… Visit MathBlaster
Disclosure: I was provided with a membership good for MathBlaster and Knowledge Adventure at no cost by Knowledge Adventure in order to test the products’ abilities and give my own personal opinions on it. The opinions I have given are mine and may differ from others but were not influenced by the company or the free product provided.
This sounds like an amazing math game. My brother who is autistic loves these types of games! We have found that they are easier to teach him with as well because they are more like play and stimulate a different part of his brain than just a pencil and paper, or even some of the flash card, board game type learning tools we have. I love your blog for keeping me updated on some of the new things coming out. Thank you for all your hard work!
I never have considered letting my brother chat online before. It may be a new way for him to interact with others..(light bulb going off in my head) It may even help some with his autism. I love blogging, it keeps me on my toes!
Probably off because he is special needs and he will have a hard time with reading the chats if he gets any.