MLPS math students finding out Sumdog is something good

It is well-known that children and teenagers – okay, people of all ages – love to play computer and video games.

And, that many of those games are not always learning games by helping those participating to improve and/or master skills in an eclectic array of subject areas.

One program, however, that has caught the attention of schools worldwide – and the teachers at Mountain Lake Public School (MLPS) – is software the instructors actually encourage their students to utilize. The site, Sumdog, is for grades 1-through 8. It provides a way for kids to practice math skills and improve their mental math fluency – all while playing fun and interesting math-related multi-player timed games in contests against friends, classmates, students in other regional schools – or even from around the world.

The games are customized, the questions tailored for each kid’s individual ability level so that the users play against opponents who have the exact same skills as them. Meanwhile, teachers can control what the students learn. While Sumdog adapts the questions to the students’ abilities, the teachers choose the skills from where they answer questions.

The math games feature both on skills and thinking and reasoning. Topics covered are arithmetic, fractions, decimals, percentages, equations and money. Games include activities such as Talent Show, Submarine, Basketball, Junkpile and Alien Invasion, etc.  When students get a correct answer, they get a coin, which they can spend on costumes and the like for their avatar. Activities adjust, continuing to challenge students as they build skills in each subject.

Students get immediate feedback as they are playing, get total scores at the end – and that information can be saved so that progress can be tracked by the student, teacher and parents/guardians. Once signed up, students can participate at school – or at home if they have available internet access. The more questions they answer correctly, the more they progress. Every question answered correctly by a student equals one point. To make contests fair for students with limited access to computers, every student is limited to 1,000 questions.

Mountain Lake Public Elementary competes in January contest; sixth-grader Sam Paulson finishes as fourth individual

During the last week of January, Mountain Lake Public School was one of 24 schools competing in the Southwest/West Central (Minnesota) Math Contest. From January 24 to January 30, a total of 1,155 students participated in the contest, with 249,617 questions answered – including an 217,436 questions asked were answered. At least 15 students from each school must play in order to get an average school score.

Mountain Lake Public finished in the top 10 schools – ending in 8th with an average school score of 218. Sleepy Eye Public School was first with 915, followed in order by, Murray County Central Middle School (799), Prairie Elementary in Worthington (666), Tracy (448), Luverne Middle School (404), Kerkhoven/Murdock/Sunburg (KMS (289), Paynesville Area Public Elementary School (272), Mountain Lake, Winfair Elementary in Windom (167) and Northside Elementary (149).

Meanwhile, the math fluency of sixth-grader Sam Paulson, son of John and Meridee Paulson of Mountain Lake, flourished as he finished fourth individually – scoring 993 out of 1,000 – answering just seven questions incorrectly. The winning student scored 999.

Said 11-year-old Sam, “I really like working math stuff out in my head – and this helps me get better doing that.” Sam, whose sixth-grade math teacher is Annette Kunkel, while his home room instructor is Kyle Blomgren, credits his mom with helping him to be proficient with money problems as he was growing up.

The next contest for participating schools is slated for May 16 to May 22.