Hi guys, 

Ethan showed this game to Charlotte the other day and I thought I would share it with all of you too. I have copied the blog post below that I posted on my Math Blog. Check it out...very fun!

Prodigy www.prodigygame.com is a totally free, super engaging web based math game. The kids create their own wizards who must complete challenges and earn rewards all while practicing math that is aligned with the Ontario Curriculum.

Here is what the founder of Prodigy had to say...

When my co-founder and I started Prodigy, our goal was to get students as excited about learning math as I was about playing Pokemon as a child.  As teachers, you’ve likely seen this excitement in your own classrooms, but one overriding question keeps coming up – does all of this excitement lead to quantifiable improvements on standardized test scores?

To figure this out, we dug deep into data from one of our first districts, Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB in Ontario, Canada.  The data shows that highly active schools on Prodigy had 11.6% more students meeting standards on EQAO testing (Ontario’s standardized test) compared to the previous year.  This represents an 11.5% difference over inactive schools, which only saw a 0.1% improvement.

Here is what my 9 year old had to say after playing for just a few days. "My friend showed me Prodigy the other day and i've been playing it ever since (when I'm allowed). I love it! I battle monsters while I earn rewards and level up. I choose the grade level and the questions are challenging but fun."

My 6 year old says "Good. you get to name your own guy and you get to have battles. Some of the questions were hard but i figured them out."

As a teacher I can set my whole class up and monitor their progress. The game promises to differentiate based on the child's progress.

I like that within the question screens kids have access to manipulatives (counters, ten frames, etc.), a chance to figure the question out by hand, lessons if they don't know how to do it and the chance to have the question read to them. Sometimes if the students get a question wrong it will give them a hint and/or another chance.