It’s Monday, April 27, 2015, and time for Math at ClickSchooling!
Recommended Website:
Age Range: 10-15 (Grades 6-10, with parental supervision)
This website offers a free series of 4 interactive, pre-algebra level problem-solving games that will test your student’s math skills in a fun and challenging way.
As the player, you proceed on missions in a strange world, finding clues that are hidden on the pages along the way. You use the information you find to calculate answers in order to proceed to the next level. Handy, printable clue sheets are provided along with an interactive calculator. Here is a little advice to help you navigate the games:
Each page looks impossible until you discover enough clues. For example, in the first game called “Nomean City” you’ll notice that on the first page you need an “authorization code”. If you look closely at everything on the page, you will see a note that says “authorization code is area times level” and then farther up on the page you see “Area 46” and “Level -3”; so you just multiply the two numbers and enter the answer where indicated.
Then, you get to the next page. Same degree of challenge again: looks impossible, and then suddenly it’s easy. Often you have to move the mouse all around the page, and even scroll down, while looking for the cursor to turn into a “hand” shape, indicating something you can click on for more clues. Sometimes you have to backtrack to other areas. Click on everything and read everything closely. Every page looks like a dead end, but the only actual dead end is the final page from which you print out your hard-earned certificate of completion.
FYI: The games start with a fake message that says “Intruder Alert!” We clicked around and realized that it is actually just the first page of the game.
The games include:
- Nomean City – A powerful being has been captured by a cult of pollution makers and you must help save this creature and the mathematical knowledge it holds.
- Dr. Plenobious – Dr. Plenobius is an evil scientist. Print out his entrance exam to the Airtight College. Identify flesh-eating bacteria and try to save one of his lab rabbits.
- The 7th Floor – The Hotel Unknown’s 7th floor holds both mystery and danger. Find out who lives on the floor, and deal with the house detective.
- Airtight College – Your quest is to save the alien creature, as you search the offices of the Department of Diabolics.
By the way, if you need help, you can email the website’s staff for assistance. They try to respond within two days. Teachers and parents may email to request the answer keys.
Again, these games are free. They are used as an enticement to subscribe to the Middleschool Mathematics program offered for a fee at the site but no purchase is necessary to play the games.
