Story Cubes and Math Dice

For Christmas, The Red Ranger, received two presents that we had placed on our Amazon Wish List with the intent of using them for lessons. Oddly enough, since opening them yesterday for our homeschool, he has continued to play with them - last night and into today, one of our days off.

I consider this a BONUS! 

Many times I use or re-purpose games for use in our homeschool, make stuff up as we go and every now and then I find perfect games to fit in with what we are doing.

The first gift were Rory's Story Cubes from GameWright.
There are 9 six-sided cubes each with a different picture on each side. There are several ways to play but basically the idea is throw "X" number of cubes and use those images as a story starter. Great for creative writing, oral storytime, party games.

We had a ton of fun playing with these and they will work great for The Red Ranger's writing.
They say ages 8+ but I don't see why younger children couldn't use 1-3 or 4 dice to tell stories. Since there are several ways to play with them all ages should benefit from them.
There is also a set of Action/Verb - Story Cubes....which just so happens to be next on our list of purchases when my Amazon Gift Cards start piling up again from my SwagBucks!
They do have a website, although ours were purchased through Amazon, in fact we haven't even checked out the website...we are simply having too much fun playing with them.
The Website is: www.storycubes.com

The other gift was Math Dice from Thinkfun.

You roll the two 12-sided dice first add or multiply the numbers and that becomes your "target number", then roll the three blue 6-sided dice - combine those numbers and see whose roll comes closet to the "target number".
They can be used for addition/subtraction/multiplication/division/powers/roots and more.
Ages 8-Adult (again I'm sure they can be used for younger children), all ages and math levels and multiple players.
We haven't checked out their website either but here's the web address for it - www.thinkfun.com/mathdice

We are loving both of these and can't wait to get the other Verb Story Cubes, I've also added them to the new Amazon Store here on the blog, I've added a tab for the Store at the top of the blog. Its one way of showing you the items we use in our homeschool and in general in one spot in case you are interested in getting them for yourself. Sometimes the things we use are out of print or discontinued, in fact quite a few were purchased through Amazon Associates and through Ebay used.
So far through Amazon Associates I've made a whopping .71 cents in a year and a half...good thing I'm not doing this for money...LOL!
I remember starting out homeschooling and being completely lost, we were accidental homeschoolers, I hadn't planned on it at all. Finding the tools, curriculum, everything was very hard and from time to time I found blogs and other homeschoolers that had paved the way for me - it didn't mean that what worked in their homeschools or homes would work for us but a lot of times it did and I was always very grateful - still am.......so if I can add things from time to time to help out - I will....



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MathBlaster Review and Giveaway!!

Its September and I have a few giveaways lined up this month while doing some reviews!
Feel free to spread the word about any or all of them as they come along!
First up has been a long time coming.....life kept getting in the way of doing this review but here it finally is:

MathBlaster, from the makers of JumpStart!!

MathBlaster launched this past winter 2011 and we have been enjoying it since spring.
Basically, your child/children become cadets in a space station training, rescuing and saving little critters and the station itself. All while reinforcing their math skills in fast-paced games that require fast answers in order to achieve scores and win races.
Here are some of The Red Rangers favorites - in order:
1) Monster Morph Lab - Excellent for measuring and completing tasks with checklist. Reinforces memory skills. Once you collect the ingredients around the station you make a morph which you then use on your fellow cadets while running around the station, basically "tag, your it" but you don't actually have to chase after them. The Red Ranger just loves changing, sorry morphing, the other players!

The music even reminds me of "Munsters" tv show......lol.

2) Galaxy Grand Prix - A race course where you play, build and run races against fellow cadets.
He loves it because its so fast....mom can barely move on the track without crashing into a wall!

3) Zapper Turret Training - Finally...Math Problems!
The training pod will remind you of Millennium Falcon. You or your child chooses adding/subtraction/combo of +/-, multiplication, division, or a combo of both. Then you choose easy/medium/hard and there are five choices for sums. The math problem is displayed and your student must shoot the correct answer. What's great about it, as with several of the other games, is that it tests your child quickly in the facts in order to progress through the game.

4) B-Force Blaster - Target Practice for points. The Red Ranger loves it because it gives high scores.

He also loves the "Red Alert" siren that goes off where cadets race to one of the turrets to save the station from enemy spacecraft.

There are three other areas that we use for our math studies.
* Hyperblast Training - Cadets race through space tunnels in a vehicle shooting for points, then at certain intervals (I believe there are three creatures) they come upon a many tentacled creature with math problems, you have to solve the problems in order to proceed speeding through the space tube tunnels. This game has the same math choices as the above mentioned Zapper Turret Training.

* Alien Wrangler - Is an Alien Bronco. Your cadet must rapidly answer math problems to stay on the creatures back. It offers the same math choices as Zapper Turret Training and Hyperblast Training.

* The Job Board - Is in the first area cadets enter. It offers many choices in math such as place value, money, fractions and geometric shapes on a conveyor belt, an ooze pit with platforms, rollerball alley and other tasks all while solving the math problems.

There are training areas and they even have to capture little critters (they truly remind me of Tribbles from Star Trek!) that are around the station and place them back into their container.
There's also parental controls for talking with other players with pre-determined phrases.

We have discovered its nice option to our math studies.
We orginally started with the free version after reading about and seeing commercials for the product. Then we were contacted by MathBlaster to do a review of the membership level. Membership not only gives you access to all the cool features above but also gives you secondary membership to the JumpStart Website. You also can have up to 6 children in your home under the one membership, which is a huge plus and each child gets to create their own avatar. The age level is 6-12 years of age.

Now, here's the membership info:
For up to 6 children its either $7.99 monthly, $74.99 Annually or for Lifetime membership $149.99.

However, MathBlaster has given me the chance to giveaway to one of my readers a FREE 3 month full membership!
Here's how you can enter: (For each one please come back and comment so that you can be credited)
1) 1 entry by following my blog.
2) 1 entry by reposting or Tweeting this post.
3) 1 entry per friend if they "follow" me, be sure they mention your name!

Entries close on Saturday, September 17, 2011 and a winner will be chosen by Random.org on Sunday, September 18, 2011.
(Please note that the ending date for this giveaway has been extended 9/17/2011)

Meanwhile you can try the FREE version here: MathBlaster.com 

**DISCLAIMER** ~ I was provided with a membership good for Math Blaster 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.


We've linked up with other Hip Homeschool Moms, they too are hosting give-aways.
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Vocabulary/Spelling City...

One of my favorite sites asked for reviewers of their premium membership for my honest review of their site. Hopefully, I won't be too biased about it, you see we've used the free membership for about two years now when it was just Spelling City...I still have a hard time calling it Vocabulary/Spelling City!! In fact this is the same company that sent me 5 vendor hall passes for the ISTE this past July in Philadelphia and I was quite happy to forward two of those passes onto a fellow homeschooler.

So, yes......I (we) love Spelling City but I.....errrrrr....my son, yeah my son....hasn't had the chance yet to use the vocabulary part of the site. I'm.....ahhhhhh.....HE's quite anxious to try it out since playing a bit with it at the ISTE convention.
We, yes we, can't wait to try everything out now. My disclosure is below and this review will be coming up in three weeks.
Meanwhile, you can try the Spelling City functions for free to see if you might be interested in winning a Premium Membership later.
Oh....and its not just for homeschoolers by the way. There are a lot of school spelling lists and you can easily add your child's spelling list from your homeschool or public school to give the kids a different and fun way of learning and testing themselves. The link for their site is below the disclosure information.

Disclosure:

I've been given a premium membership to VocabularySpellingCity.com for  a candid, personal, online review.

VocabularySpellingCity.com helps students study word lists using 25  different learning activities such as MatchIt Sentences, HangMouse,  and Word-O-Rama.  Parents can create their own spelling lists, find published lists already available on the  site, or use any of dozens of  free  teaching resources on topics such as analogies and compound words.  Be sure to come back in three weeks to  read about my experience.
There might be more  free memberships available for bloggers.  If you're interested, find out  how you can review  VocabularySpellingCity.com.

http://www.spellingcity.com/