Strengthen Math Skills with I Know It {Product Review}

Whether you are wanting to have your children practice new math skills for mastery, review old skills, or have something to keep the skills strong during the school breaks or summertime, finding a math program that ISN'T a workbook can be challenging. We recently were introduced to I Know It and have been reviewing the program with both of my boys for the last several weeks. Today I'd like to share with you why this online math program has been working well for us!

About I Know It

I Know It is the latest offering from the creators of the award winning website Super Teacher Worksheets. (Read my review of THAT website too!) I Know It is an interactive math practice site for elementary aged children. Not only are their interactive lessons, but you are able to assign lessons for your children to do. The program also provides progress reports so you can check on how your child is doing. 
This site is a comprehensive math practice site for grades Kindergarten through Fifth grade. It works well for students from any school background, as it allow individual progress at their own level, encourages mastery, and brings them up to speed with the skills they should have under their belt. This program is aligned with common core standards in math. The concepts are sorted by grade level, and then there are a wide variety of question types and graphics within each skill, helping to keep the students engaged throughout every lesson they complete.
Additionally, each of the lessons has a unique character and animation to add some fun to the math practice. There is also the benefit of having question hints and explanations--and your child receives instant feedback on all their answers. You can check out their pricing for this online subscription, but there is also a 60-day trial subscription for teachers and homeschoolers!
We were given a family membership--which is good for one parent and up to four students. 

Our Thoughts On the Product

We find that the boys do very well with online programs, and I was very curious to check out the interactive portion and "entertaining" aspect. The program is designed to do math concepts for grades K-5, but since my oldest (grade 7 this year) isn't the strongest in math, I thought it would be maybe a good review program to kick him back in gear for school after our summer break. The program was easy to get set up with. I set up a parent account and two student accounts (noting their math grade level and math ability). 
The parent account let me set up things like:
*did I want hints to be allowed for my students?
*did I want animations?
*what kind of score did I want my students to see when they completed the lessons?
*Did I want to allow my students to explore lessons on their own?
*did i want them to see scores from previous lessons?
*did I want them to have the ability to have it read aloud?
The next thing I did was pick some topics to assign each boy. To do this I simply clicked a skill level, which opened up all the lessons in that grade level. For instance, grade 4 has 84 lessons scattered across 14 units. I can click any of the lessons to assign and I am able to assign it to however many of my students I want. I could assign it to both, or pick a specific one. Here is the list that comes up when assigning things:

I like that I can pick how many questions I want them to answer AND I have the option of simply saying they have to work on a lesson a certain amount of time instead. It was very easy to find assignments for the boys to do. Some of them I thought were good general reviews, while others were geared specifically to what they were going to be learning.
Once I assign them, the assigned lessons pop up at the top of their own dashboards...

I have it set up so that my boys can do either the assignments OR they can just pick something within their ability list. This is just listed underneath the assignments.

Clicking on any of these opens up all the skill lessons for that level.Here is an example of what is in the level c (third grade) Numbers & Place Value skill.

you can see that he's already completed three of the lessons in this skill

Once a lesson is opened, your child can begin. This WILL NOT include a video TEACHING the lesson. It is PRACTICE of a skill already learned. The hints will help your child if they get stuck. We used them for my oldest son when he was going over decimals--something he hadn't spent a lot of time on yet. 

Because I turned the animation on, there is a little character that does little dances and stuff when they answer each question. If they get it right, the animation is a positive. If they get it wrong it does a bit of a noise or alarm. The robot has a police alarm kind of thing that goes off. LOL. Then the lesson shows the correct answer, and gives some tips for solving it--bringing in the hints that student could have looked at. 

I like that they can see their progress, as well as their current score for the work on their lesson. Some of the things require fill in the blank, some have them sort, some have them answer multiple choice. It's a definite mixed bag in every lesson.

Here is a video I took from my youngest son working on a 3rd grade money lesson:

He REALLY loves the animation element and he is always curious to see what it will do next. So far, he's had a dinosaur and a robot.
We tried using the website on the Kindle and it worked pretty well, except it was a challenge entering longer numbers as it only showed two of the ones entered, and you just had to hope you entered the rest correctly. It also had issues with clicking on options at times. Because of this, I kept that for my oldest son, not my youngest who gets frustrated easily.
I rarely need to help either of them, yet because of all the progress reports, i can see exactly how they did AND see the problems they may have missed. The following is a progress report for my oldest son. It shows every lesson he's completed, his score, the date completed, as well as where I can look at any incorrect answers.

I love keeping tabs of their progress in my own account.

In summary, I find that I don't have to fight my boys to get them to spend time on this program. It is a GREAT review program, and I've been appreciating it most for my oldest. It's really been helpful to touch again on many concepts that he hasn't been using as much--AND things he just has forgotten over the summer. I know it's set for 5th grade, but reviews over math are never a bad thing. And he actually enjoys it. He's not a workbook person. I think that this will be a very useful program for us to use when he is struggling remembering things this year. 
My youngest is my math eater. He just simply cannot do it ENOUGH. He absolutely loves this product and regularly has me let him do 2 lessons at any go. I absolutely plan on incorporating it into our studies this year. I think it will be the perfect math practice program for us to use after completing his actual lessons. 
I don't know if I really have anything negative to bring up. This was just an excellent program. I think that the only con is that it isn't a full curriculum, but they never designed it to be that way--so it's not REALLY that big of a con. The fact this is aligned with Common Core usually would be a problem, but after our experiences with it, I didn't find that it was a big deal because it was PRACTICE, not the actual lessons. It had all that the boys wanted in the lessons, and I really loved being able to quickly check on their progress. I would absolutely recommend this to ANYONE no matter if their children are in public school or homeschool. It's a great review program. I also think that the ability to have up to four students on the family account for one price is a pro. 
Make sure you check out the 60-day trial subscription for teachers and homeschoolers!

Want to Know More?

For the last several weeks, we've been enjoying the I Know It website to practice math concepts. We've been exploring the third and 5th grade lessons, but I encourage you to visit other reviewers to check out what other levels of the program have to offer!

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*****

It is fabulous to have a math program that the boys don't complain about doing! I am very happy with their progress and will be keeping it in our school lineup for the 2018-2019 year.