When my kids were younger, we played math games and did lots of math activities. I taught them to count, and to add, and to multiply … and we did it with basic steps and some online review.

Then we hit Algebra

Then my kids hit fractions and decimals and pre-algebra. And we started to stumble.

Suddenly games and activities weren’t enough. My kids needed something more structured and more defined.

We lurched from one curriculum to another -- each would work for awhile (or not). But in the end, something always didn’t work.

 * It was too dry and boring.

 * It was too repetitive OR it wasn’t repetitive enough.

 * It required too much hands-on time from me.

 * It was all online and sooooo hard and tedious to listen to, we all wanted to poke our eyes out.

 * It moved too fast OR it moved too slowly.

So I kept searching.

Homeschool Math

And then I had the chance to take a look at a new homeschool math curriculum. And it is changing everything about math in our home!

Suddenly I’m feeling excited about math again because this curriculum checks ALL the boxes:

 * It walks my kids step-by-step through what they need to know at a pace that actually works for them.

 * It’s taught by a real human (not a “robot” human voice) and is actually easy to listen to.

 * It does ALL the teaching.

 * It provides tons of accountability because my kids correct their own work AND I can see how they are doing and determine if I need to step in to keep things moving along.

 * It provides extra help if the kids get stuck (which is really important now that my kids are past what I easily can help with).

 * It has both a self-paced version AND a live class version -- both of which have different benefits depending on what my kids need.

 * It’s easy to contact someone if we have any kind of question -- and we always get a quick and “real” response.

So what is this amazing math curriculum called? 

Mr. D Math -- and oh, how I am in love! (Seriously - you have to check it out!)

I feel like my search has finally come to an end. What a sweet feeling that is!

My son is currently taking the Algebra II course. And I’ll be signing up both him and my teenage daughter next year.

Check out my full video review for my complete thoughts on all of the benefits and features.

In my review, I’ve also done a complete walk through of the backend of the program, so you can see how it works and why I think it’s set up to support both the mom and the kids be successful from the very beginning.

(Is your kid a little young for pre-algebra and you’re still in the “play math games” phase? Then be sure to check out my favorite math games that we discovered over the years!)

(Okay … middle school age can be tricky with everything … but that’s a conversation for a different time!)

A good middle school writing curriculum needs to cover basics like constructing a paragraph and then teach how to write an essay, as well as other non-fiction styles.

Hopefully it will push a student to expand their vocabulary, vary their sentence structure, and learn to express their own thoughts.

And of course, you still want your kid to work on punctuation, grammar and other writing mechanics.

Finally, a writing curriculum will also push them creatively and help them LOVE writing.

So where do you find something that does all of this??

Writing Curriculum

I’ve been looking at writing curriculum since my 4 kids were little. And since 2013, I’ve taught writing and English at our local co-op to the kids who are 12 to 17. So I’ve seen and used A LOT of different curriculum -- some okay and some great. 

Today, I’m going to compare two curriculums that I find very compelling -- WriteShop I & II and IEW’s new Structure and Style (available May 2020).

NOTE: Be sure to check out my video where I give you a detailed look into the student and teacher manuals for WriteShop and Structure and Style.

*****Also I need to state the following:*******

1. I received the product for free.
2. I was compensated for my time.
3. All opinions are honest, and I was not required to post a positive review.

Both curriculum are designed for middle-school/early high school (grades 6 through 9). And they both assume that your child knows how to construct a basic sentence (start with a capital letter, end with a period, have a subject and verb, etc.)

Both curriculum require that you have a decent level of writing, although you DO NOT need to be an expert with either. (Both provide teacher support -- but in very different ways.)

Each has a video teaching element that you can use if you don’t want to do the teaching yourself. WriteShop’s is like watching a moving slideshow with narration (the voice is easy to listen to). Structure and Style has filmed Andrew Padua teaching a full class of middle-school students.

And both are fairly mom “intensive” -- which is to be expected of a writing curriculum. (Writing is subjective so there’s no easy way to just send your kids off to do it on their own. Someone must review and respond to the writing for your kids to improve.)

WriteShop I & II

WriteShop focuses on teaching your kid how to write by starting with brainstorming and then gently leading them through all the stages of writing -- rough draft (they call it “sloppy copy”) through a final composition.

Each lesson follows the same basic structure:

• Pre-writing activity (often something hands on - like handling and talking about objects)
• Practice writing activity
• Brainstorming
• “Sloppy Copy” (rough draft)
• Revision 1 (student led with checklist)
• Revision 2 (after you make comments
• Final Copy

Each lesson is designed to take two weeks -- with additional writing skill activities and narration/dictation skills built in as well.

I love that WriteShop I starts with just constructing paragraphs, and let’s the student work on their writing one paragraph at a time until they feel confident. Only then in WriteShop II, do they move on to longer non-fiction compositions -- like essays.

My experience teaching many kids is that once they’ve mastered good paragraph structure, it’s much easier for them to apply that knowledge when they start writing essays.

I also love the quantity and quality of writing skill practice that WriteShop I & II includes. There are three included in each lesson, and each builds on the last. These are a FABULOUS way for kids to practice skills that they can use over and over in their writing.

The brainstorming element of each lesson is also well done. Instead of just saying “brainstorm … here are a few ideas,” there is a detailed brainstorming outline that walks the kid through all the different ways to approach the topic. (These are AMAZING and I’ll be folding them into my co-op classes starting next week.)

The downside of this approach could be that it leaves your kid on their own to know how to write a good paragraph, but WriteShop compensates for this by providing TONS of examples of well-written student paragraphs. 

This is great for both the student to see examples AND as a mom (so you know what level of writing is appropriate to expect at this age).

Additionally, the resources in the appendix of the WriteShop appendix blew me away -- TONS of additional writing topics and creative writing ideas. This alone is a fantastic writing resource, and helps provide additional ideas for creative writing beyond the non-fiction writing that is the focus of WriteShop.

There are a few things I don’t love about the curriculum.

The formatting of the pages could be difficult to read -- especially for kids who have dyslexia or other reading issues. I think this is an excellent curriculum to consider for kids who struggle with organizing their ideas, so this is unfortunate. (Be sure to see my video if you want to see the pages for yourself.)

Also, while the amount of help provided to the teacher/mom is extensive, the tone is insistent that you not skip anything and follow the instructions very carefully. While I can see why there are some moms who probably would appreciate that level of hand-holding, I found the way it was written felt restrictive. (I’m a big fan of modifying based on what’s happening in your home and with your kids!) 

Structure and Style (Institute for Excellence in Writing)

Structure and Style focuses on teaching how to write by giving the student well-written paragraphs, teaching them to deconstruct the paragraph (using keywords), and then asking them to rewrite the paragraph in their own words using only the keyword outline.

(Note: Structure and Style is the newly revised version of Teaching Writing: Structure and Style, that has been the flagship curriculum for the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) since the 1990s. The bulk of my experience has been with their previous version, so some of this review is based on sample pages. The new version will be available May 2020.)

I like this because your kid sees great writing from the very beginning. However, this format of writing can get tedious at times and doesn’t encourage a student to write from their own ideas. 

Each lesson is structured as follows:

• Pre-writing activity (some lessons)
• Read a paragraph (or several paragraphs in later lessons)
• Create a keyword outline
• Retell (speak) the keyword outline in your own words
• Rewrite the paragraph (or combine paragraphs) using the keyword outline
• Review and revise (using provided checklist)

Of course, the parent is involved in reviewing and revising, but it isn’t scripted in the teacher edition. 

(IEW has a completely separate program teaching parents how to teach their programs that they consistently reference if you want more help reviewing your child’s work.)

Each lesson is designed to take a week. Additional “fix-it” (for grammar and mechanics practice) and literature activities can be included to flesh out the program, but must be purchased separately. There are some writing skill activities included in each lesson, but not as many or as thorough as in WriteShop.

I love that Structure and Style also starts by having students work with paragraphs and then slowly graduates them to writing essays and other non-fiction. And I’m impressed by the variety of topics that they encourage students to write about. 

I also love that there are several creative writing assignments -- and lessons on story structure -- sprinkled throughout the curriculum. These are more open-ended and really let the student flex a different kind of writing muscle. My students and kids enjoy these breaks from the “harder” writing assignments.

I’m a big fan of how Structure and Style does their writing checklists that the student uses in each lesson. They understand that a checklist can feel overwhelming, so they only include a few things at the beginning. The checklist grows as the new concepts are introduced. In essence, the student “grows” with the checklist.

While IEW’s Fix-its are not included in the basic Structure and Style curriculum, they are available and can be aligned with the lesson plans. I LOVE this style of learning grammar and writing mechanics, and I have incorporated these into every class I teach.

Finally, I HAVE to talk about the format of the teacher edition. IEW is slowly reformatting all their curriculum to match more traditional publishers, where the teacher edition is “wrapped around” the student edition. (Be sure to watch my video to see what this looks like.) I’m so excited that Structure and Style will now have this format!

This makes it sooooo easy to see how the teacher edition and student edition relate. No more flipping back and forth, trying to reference between the two. This is HUGE deal for me, and if it’s close between two curriculums, this will often tip the scales for me.

Unfortunately, the student edition formatting isn’t much friendlier than WriteShop’s. And the font they’ve chosen to use is particularly difficult for dyslexics to read.

At first, I figured it was just a matter of working on memorization. But that didn’t work. They would just forget.

Then I thought if we just played lots of spelling games that would help. And spelling games DID make spelling more fun -- but it didn’t necessarily make them better spellers.

Because it turns out that three of my four kids have dyslexia -- some more than others -- which meant that they were naturally going to be poor spellers. It’s just the way their brains are wired.

Fortunately, over the years we’ve done several things to help them … and they are getting better at spelling!

(If you think YOUR child might have dyslexia or really struggles with spelling, I highly recommend you check out this book about dyslexia. It’s the first book I recommend to anyone!)

Recently, I was contacted by a mom who has created a great way to help visual spellers and others struggling with spelling. She offered to let me see what she had created, and of course I was intrigued!

I love what she’s put together -- so I want to share it with you.

These See-to-Spell cards focus on teaching spelling for visual learners and story-based learners, both of which I have found to be VERY effective with my kids.

(Sadly, my kids are all a little old to use these cards now, but I would have LOVED to have them when they were younger!)

CLICK HERE to check it out for your homeschool.

Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video.

If you want to check out awesome homeschool resources for other subjects, check out my review page for games and books and toys for every homeschool subject.

Hello.

My name's ToriAnn Perkey and from my homeschool to your homeschool. Today I want to talk about how you can help your struggling speller and specifically I have a really amazing resource that I want to share with you that I think could make the difference if you have a kid who's struggling to spell. Now, first of all, there are lots of reasons why kids might struggle to spell. But one is a big one, is that your kid may have some form of dyslexia. Now, there's nothing wrong with that.

Dyslexia

There are so many successful dyslexics and dyslexia tends to run really strongly in the homeschool community because often the public school system is not designed to cater to dyslexic kids. And so there's a reason you probably brought your kid home and this might be one of the reasons for that reason. I'm going to say that dyslexia shows up in lots of different ways and you might have seen it and maybe even if your kid doesn't show all of these symptoms, it may still be a reason why they're struggling.

So you may have noticed that your kid has trouble reading or that they're flipping letters. You may have troubled that they may not have any trouble reading, but you may see that they are struggling to spell. And you may see that they are even, that your kid might be able to tell you ideas but has a really hard time putting them down on paper either because they struggle spelling or they just struggle capturing their ideas and putting them into words. So all of these things can show up in spelling is a big one. Spelling can keep kids from reading, it can keep kids from writing and it certainly can keep kids from spelling. So let's talk a little bit about how to help that.

Favorite Book

Before I do though just want you to know I have a favorite resource that goes along with dyslexia. It's one of the very first things I recommend if you are definitely thinking your kid might be dyslexic. So I'll put a link down below this video if you want to go check that out. And last week I did talk about if your kid is struggling reading, particularly if they're older, and I'll also put a link down to that video down below, but today I want to talk about a resource that was shared with me that can help your child with spelling.

See to Spell Cards

It's called See to Spell cards and they look like this. They're kind of fun because what is going on here is these cards are designed specifically for kids who are having trouble learning spelling either phonetically, you know where you teach the rules or if you just learn by seeing the word over and over and over again and practicing it, which are two very traditional ways of teaching spelling.

These cards are a different alternative way for kids who think just a little bit differently. Now spelling is hard for dyslexics because their brain is wired differently or any kid who has trouble with spelling the traditional way. It's because the brain doesn't think of words the way a brain that learns spelling in a traditional way does and that brain often is significantly more visual and more story oriented. It just has to do with how all the neurons are connected. And so this particular resource that I am sharing today is really amazing because it leverages the story-based and the visual spaced learning that often these non-traditional learners do.

So let me tell you how this works. So the cards, you get 43 cards in each set. The card on one side has the word, these are sight words. And these are often the hardest to learn how to spell. And on the front is both the word and then a picture that's drawn into the word. And then on the back, which is the side that the parent is probably going to look at, there is a story that goes along with the words. So what you're going to do is you're going to work with your kids. And you're going to say, okay, here's the word "some". And you're going to talk about how you have a guy with a sombrero, you're gonna make a big deal about how he has maracas. It's really good to use some energy and some visuals there. And then you'll notice over here there is a taco. And the story that goes along with this particular card is he wants to have some tacos and you're going to stress that word. Some tacos, you're gonna make a big deal about how this word is like this.

Here's another one "his" his snake likes to eat ice cream. We have the snake, we have the ice cream, we have the like to eat it. And here is a third example. "Done", done is a hard word to learn how to spell. The mouse is happy, the pie is done. And so we have the mouse, we have the pie and how the mouse is eating the pie. So that all goes together. So you've got the visual cue, you've got the story, and you're going to work with your kid, looking at these.

Wish I’d found this sooner

Now by the time I found this resource, my kids were old enough that it no longer, I didn't need this particular resource to help them to spell. But the reason I'm so excited about this is this is a very similar resource to how I taught my daughter, who is dyslexic, to learn her multiplication tables. Another really hard memory skill for kids. And I'm going to leave a link to that. It was story-based, it was visual based, and it radically shifted her ability to learn those multiplication tables. And she still uses that information today, which is why I feel confident that this could be a deal changer for someone who's trying to also teach their kids how to spell. 

So I really wish I'd had this with her, and I'm really excited to share it with you today. So if you have a kid who's struggling to spell, I strongly recommend you check this out. I'm going to leave a link down below or up above, or where it is, wherever it is that you're seeing this video. I'm ToriAnn Perkey and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.

My daughters were both over eight before they could read. And my youngest son was ELEVEN before he started reading independently.

And during those years, I spent a lot of time figuring out how to help a child with reading difficulties. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything … and that I was doing everything that I could.

Turns out there are several things you can do to help a struggling reader … and there’s also a part that requires you to just “wait and see.”

Finding the balance between the two of those can be tricky. So today I’m sharing five tips I recommend if your child can’t read or you’re trying to teach reading to a struggling reader.

And in this video, I share some of my favorite resources that I found along the way.

Check out this post to learn more about what I recommend for dyslexia.

Check out this review of my FAVORITE chapter book series for teaching kids to read.

Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video.

Hello, my name is ToriAnn Perky and from my homeschool to your homeschool today I want to talk about what should you do if your 11 year old is still not reading. And actually the content we're going to talk about today applies to your kid no matter what age they are. If you think they should be reading and they're not. Now this as a homeschooler can be a really kind of scary topic.

You get all excited, you're teaching your kid to read and you're not making progress and then you're looking all around and everyone around you, their kids are learning to read and suddenly they're reading these big books and suddenly they're, they're reading, you know, full length novels and series and your kid is still stuck on sounding out cat. You're thinking, what am I doing wrong? What is this? What's wrong with my kid?

You know, what do you do? Well, let me just give you a little bit of background on why I feel like I have a lot to offer here. And then we'll talk about exactly what it is that I recommend. So first of all, what you need to know is that three of my four kids, I've been homeschooling for over 15 years. I have four kids. Three of my four kids were really late readers. And by really late readers, I mean that I had one that learned to read fluently on her own at eight another was eight and a half and my youngest son was over 11. Eleven!

I can't even begin to tell you how scary that can be. I thought, what is wrong with this kid? But fortunately he was my last kid. And so by then I had some experience and I put in place the things that I'm going to talk about today and it helped a ton.

Now one of the things to keep in mind about reading is that it's a really interesting expectation that we all have in our culture. Not only should kids be able to read, but that they should be able to read well. And as a homeschooler you may actually feel really good about delaying teaching to read, which is totally fine. So a lot of homeschoolers and a lot of philosophy out there that actually shows that kids benefit from waiting until they're a little bit older to read unless they're asking for it. And that is absolutely an acceptable way to look at that.

But even someone who had kind of bought into that, and that was, that was where I was coming from. When my kids would start to get to eight, I would start to get nervous. And certainly with my son, by the time he was nine and 10 I was feeling that nerves. And the reason is that our culture expects that kids will be able to read at a certain time. And even though my kids don't go to public school, he was going to church classes where he was being asked to read. He was going to family functions where the fact that he couldn't read started to come up. And even though I would explain that we were working with him and that he was figuring it out and we were doing different things, it was really hard for him because as he was asked to read, he'd be embarrassed and he would have to figure out ways to hide the fact that he couldn't read or he'd have to admit that he couldn't read. And so socially it started to become a problem and it was hard for him and therefore it was hard for me and I was trying to help him through all of this.

So no matter where your kid is and how old they are, I want to acknowledge that if your kid is significantly older and still struggling with reading, this is not easy. And because they start to feel bad about themselves, potentially it starts to affect how they feel and see themselves as a scholar, as a reader, as someone who can do well in school and well with academic subjects. This is a really important thing to address. So let's go through this. I actually have five different things that I recommend you do. If you have a late reader, someone who isn't reading yet, and I found that we actually did all of these things with more than one of my children.

Get Eyes Checked

So if your child is significantly older and we're saying eight, nine, 10, and they're still really struggling with reading, the first thing I recommend is go get their eyes checked. It turns out that there are often vision issues related to reading that have nothing to do with being able to see far, you know, the blurry idea of "I can't see without my glasses." There's a lot of vision issues that can affect reading.

And with my son, it turned out that was one of the issues. He had trouble focusing with his eyes. The muscles were weak and because the muscles were weak, when he looked at the page, it was blurry. So we got his eyes tested. We went to a specific doctor that had a more specific training on how to help with this kind of a reading issue. And I know where they are in my area, but depending on where you are living, I recommend you ask in your homeschool community, maybe online about specific eye doctors that might be able to help with vision issues that relate to reading and it made a big difference. We got him some glasses, he did some exercises and that definitely accelerated his ability to learn. I saw a huge improvement.

Dyslexia

The second thing I recommend is definitely look into dyslexia. Dyslexia may actually have been one of the first things you start to think about when it comes to your kid not being able to read. And it turns out that three of my four kids, all of the children that had a hard time learning how to read turns out that dyslexia was part of the picture. Doesn't mean they can't learn how to read, but it does mean that you're going to need to approach it in a different way. You're going to need to be more patient and you may need to take advantage of other resources that are specifically geared towards learning how to read.

Now I actually have one of my favorite, favorite, favorite books and a bunch of other resources all related to dyslexia. I made another video about this. I'm going to put the link down below so you can check that out if you are interested in learning more about dyslexia resources that can help with your homeschool. So that's the second thing I recommend is definitely learn some more about that and how you can potentially incorporate that into your homeschool.

Don’t Stress

The third thing that I recommend is continue to work together but don't stress about it. So by continuing to work together, what I mean is you're going to be sitting and you're going to teach your kid to read. You're going to be going slowly and you're going to approach it differently. For us. What I found worked is that we would sit one on one, we would read together, we would go and that was part of our special time together and it meant that we delayed some of the other academic things that I might've had him do in order to focus more on reading and that was true for all my kids, but particularly my child who was 11 before he really learned how to read.

One of the things I really, really like to do is start them into chapter books. I have a specific chapter book series that I love. I will also leave a link down to my review of that series. But what we would do is I would start with, I would read a paragraph and he would read a paragraph and then it got to the point where when I would read a page and he would read a page because the reading was so taxing on his mind and his eyes that we needed to slow down the pace that he was required to put effort into the reading, but speed up the pace at which he was getting the story.

Because there comes a point where the child no longer wants to read those really, really early readers. So we would start to read the harder books, but we would do it in a way that still allowed him to be supported as he was learning how to read himself. So check out that link. I have a specific series, a chapter series book that I love, love, love. If you are just at that beginning stage and it works particularly well with older kids because it's funny and even adults enjoy it, but it still is at a reading level that works for these early kids.

Trust the Process

The fourth thing I recommend if you are trying to help an older kid learn how to read is be patient and trust that they are going to figure it out. There are so many elements to reading that require brain development, that require patience, they've required dedication, and depending on what's going on with your kid, it may be a really slow long process. So you want to be consistent, but you want to keep your personal mindset in a place where you're going to feel hopeful, where you're going to believe that it can happen because it will happen.

I believe that if you put all the right pieces in place, every child, just about every, child can learn to read and if your child is one who isn't going to learn to read, you're already aware of that because there are such severe other special needs that you're dealing with and so trust the process. Trust that if you're getting the right things in place, it's going to work out.

Check your Expectations

The last thing I want to recommend, and this is an interesting one, is that you may have to adjust your expectations. You may actually have to step back and embrace the idea that your kid may never be a lover of reading. And the reason I put this here is because I love to read. I actually learned how to read when I was really, really little, like age three, and I read constantly as a kid in elementary school and then into junior high, high school.

And now as an adult I read all the time the idea that I could have a kid who doesn't want to read or one doesn't want to read a lot. Part of, a little part of me kind of dies inside because it's such a huge part of who I am. But the truth is that I have unique kids with unique gifts and unique skills and unique challenges. And some of my kids love to read and some love to do other things and that doesn't make them any worse. And it certainly doesn't mean that they can't get a good education, that they aren't going to be successful adults and they can't be happy and fulfilled and well educated. It simply means that the route they're going to take to get there is going to be different. So I've had to adjust how we talk about learning in our home.

I've had to adjust the resources that I put in front of my children and provide for them. I've had to adjust my expectations of how they're going to acquire knowledge. And as I've done that, I've been able to calm down. They're able to still move forward and our entire homeschool experience has been magnified and de-stressed because I've adjusted my expectations. So that's my fifth recommendation is you may have to change how you see learning in your home.

If you have a kid who really struggles to read, doesn't mean they can't learn to read, but they never, they may never be a, you know, just a vacuum cleaner when it comes to reading. So that is my recommendation. That is what I recommend those steps. If you have a kid who is struggling with reading, definitely take advantage of all those different ideas and I know that you're going to figure out the best avenue to help your child accomplish this really important and basic skill when it comes to your homeschool. My name is ToriAnn Perkey and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.

We have used A LOT of games in our homeschool over the years, and storytelling games are some of my favorite!

I’ve shared in the past how we use storytelling in our homeschool to help with creative writing and also for kids who are struggling with writing.

But we’ve also just played storytelling games because they are so much fun. They bring out the creative side in my kids -- which helps them with creative writing and problem-solving.

These kinds of games also help me get to know my kids better. Family storytelling games get us talking and laughing and sharing. I love hearing my kids thoughts -- I learn so much about them that they might not tell me otherwise!

I also use these games in the homeschool co-op writing classes I teach, because storytelling games in the classroom also work really well. They are great creative writing games that help them get started with stories that I ask them to write.

So today I’m putting together a list of my favorite storytelling games for kids all in one place. 

(And don’t forget to check out my review page for games and books we love in every homeschool subject.

I also did a review of my Favorite Math Games for Homeschool you can check out if you want games for math!)

​

​Storymatic

Rory's Story Cubes

Dixit

Tell Tale

Tall Tales

Danger: The Game

Story Slam

What's Your Story: 60 Seconds

The Memory Palace

The coolest part of playing a math game -- as opposed to doing math worksheets or even reviewing online -- is that your kid is engaging more parts of their brain when they play.

And today I want to introduce you to another math game that I find different from all the others AND it definitely will work your mental math muscles.

It’s called Numbers League -- a card game with superheroes, villains, and lots and lots of elementary and pre-algebra math review.

When you combine mental math AND a great game, what’s not to love?

(BTW: They also have an app to play the game as well. You can check out the app here.)

Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video.

NOTE: I was compensated to write this review, but my opinion is completely my own and I only recommend things that I absolutely love!

CLICK HERE to check it out for your homeschool.

Hello ToriAnn Perkey here and from my homeschool to your homeschool today, I want to talk about a really fun game that helps your kids learn, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction with superheroes. So with the Avengers movies and all the other superhero movies that are coming out these days, superheroes are a big deal. And the idea that you can have a math game that practices all of these basic skills while playing the superheroes is just super fun. I get so, so, so excited.

Okay, so the game is called Numbers L​​eague and it has got a lot of fun pieces. So the basic premise is that you build superheroes to capture the villains and your superheroes can have additional help in this in different tools that they get that make it easier to accomplish the task. Which is to capture the villains as the basic premise of the game.

But if it were just that, maybe it would be just so so, but the way this game is put together is so much fun. It is a card game. And let me show you the different pieces. First of all, let’s talk about the villains. The villains come in three pieces. They come in heads like this. And I am going to just tell you right now, I love the graphics. So here is a head. You need to know that all of the graphics are amazing. And then there are bodies and then there are legs. And so as you are getting your different cards in your hand, you are getting various bodies, various heads and various legs. And I do not know if you have ever had one of those games when you were a kid where you could flip the, uh, the different parts of the book and create different characters. Well, it is that kind of concept.

So your first goal is to create a superhero and all the graphics lineup together. So you get this superhero character that looks like this. We can build them any way you want. So you might end up with a superhero that looks like this, or he might have, you know, different heads, different body. And you'll notice on these cards there is a number. See there is a two, there is a one, there is a three. And the numbers vary depending on the card. It is not like all the heads are twos or anything like that. And based on how the numbers line up on the superhero after you have built it, is the numbers that you have to work with. And you can add the numbers together. You can multiply the numbers, you can add two numbers and then multiply them with the third number. There are all kinds of ways to do that.

So you are creating numbers, a full number based on the superhero. So in this case it would be two plus one plus three. So that would be six, right? So this is a number six. Now to capture a bad guy, you have the bad guys are already set out and you have two kinds of bad guys. You have the blue bad guys and the green bad guys. The green bad guys, the pictures the same, but you'll notice that the number is different. And that is because the green side, they are easier to play with. And the blue side, they are harder to play with. And here we have a green side. It is a 15 and it goes all the way into the negatives with this game is the negative four and so we take the superhero which has now been built and we have a six and we can do different things with that six I am not going to go into all the rules, but I will link in with the video to places where you can learn how to play.

But based on different combinations of that six you then capture this 15 card or you capture this 38 card. The one extra card that shows up in this game that I love are these booster cards and they are the superheroes extras. So you have here, you have a ray gun. I think that is, I do not know what that is. And it is a times three who you have boots, it's a plus 10 and these can be added to the superhero. So instead of a six you might have a six times three is 18 or you might have a six plus 10 is 16 so you're constantly doing all this mental math while you play. And I have to be honest, I was playing with my son and my brain was doing this as it was trying to figure out how to make different combinations with my superheroes to be able to capture the villains.

Now let me just tell you a couple of reasons why I really, really liked this game. And again, I didn't go into all the rules and you can check out the link below to check out the links for the rules. But first of all, I love the fact that it really pushes the mental math in a fun, different kind of way and the graphics are so much fun. I love that your brain and their brain is going to have to work really, really hard. It's great for upper elementary and even middle school where they're still learning how to do that. I love that.

There are lots of ways to play with the cards so you can play the basic game, but how do you receive this game? Initially when my kids were much younger, we probably would have started by just building superheroes and building superheroes and we would have practiced just adding the numbers together and seeing what happens when we put different superheroes together.

That alone would have been so much fun. I know that some of my kids would have sought out the cards that match to create the superhero with all the same character traits. You know what I mean? So I love the fact that I can do that. You can play a timed version of the game. You can play an untimed version of the game. You could play where you are just playing collaboratively and you are trying to capture and you are all on the same side. Or you can play the competitive way, which is the way the game is originally set out.

I also really love that the game feels really high quality. This is not, I mean this is built by a family who does not put out a lot of games and so it is not like they have a ton of resources behind them, but they have put a lot of time and effort into this game. And it comes across in the quality of the cards, the quality of the artwork across the board. I love this. I love the effort that they've put into this game .

And I will tell you there are a couple things about the game that as I was playing I thought, mm. There are a couple of things that I just struggled with just a little bit and they are not deal-breakers. I just wanted to let you know. The first one is I do think it is a little complicated to learn the instructions that they sent. We really had to kind of wrestle a little bit with the instructions. Although I will say we did not go watch a YouTube video that just talked us through how to play. I think if we had done that, it actually would have been a lot easier, but we were trying to read the printed instructions and it just took a little bit of time to figure it out.

Once we figured it out, super easy to play and I could sit down and play it again right away. But it did take a little bit of time to figure out. The instructions I was sent, that came with the game I got, were a little tricky to read. Just, because of the way they were formatted, but it could be that they have upgraded it since then based on when you're watching this video. So I'm just going to put that in there as a caveat.

I did find that as you are playing, the more superheroes you build, it gets a little challenging to keep track of all the different numbers. And maybe if you are really good at math, that would not be hard. But I think for a kid that might be a little tricky. So if we, as we continue to play, one of the things that we plan on doing is having some kind of piece of paper with us to just track the numbers, all the different superhero amounts so it moves the game along just a little bit faster.

I do think that a mathy kid will love this game. My mathy kid was like "That was awesome. Let's play again". I think a non mathy kid would benefit from doing a more collaborative style of playing possibly just because it was a little stressful because there was so much mental math and if we had been playing together. I think we could have had a lot of fun practicing those skills and they would have just had a little bit more support as they had played along.

Definitely. Definitely, definitely like this game. I just want to make another side note that they actually also have developed an app that you can download and you can play the game in an app format instead of with cards. So if you are more inclined to want that tech side as opposed to something physical you can hold in your hands. The app is another great way to go and I will leave a link to the app in the comments. All right you guys, this is Number Leagues. This is my review. I think this is a great addition to any family that is looking to do mental math with their homeschooler in their homeschool. I hope you enjoy it. I am ToriAnn Perkey and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.