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Mouse Math
Mouse Math is a verbal mathematics drill program that gradually uncovers whimsical photographs as answers to spoken problems are clicked with a mouse. Setup options allow you to select problem ranges appropriate for young children, older kids and teens. Mouse Math 6 requires Windows XP or later and is free software. There is no Mac version available.
When he was younger, my son Pete used many commercial basic math programs, some shareware and a few programs that I wrote for him myself. By the time he was 11, much of this stuff was just too babyish, and so we set out to write a new program that he would look forward to using each day. What we ended up with was Mouse Math.
Although Mouse Math will work in text mode, my primary design goal was to improve Pete's mental math abilities in the area of spoken math problems. In school, math problems tend to be written rather than spoken, and students are encouraged to use paper and pencil to solve them. That is fine, but in the real world, the person who can hear a problem and spit out an answer often has a distinct advantage. Mouse Math strengthens that ability and is an interesting alternative method for drilling younger children on basic math facts.
Setup options make the program effective for children as young as 3, as well as for teens and adults. The whimsical pictures and odd comments kept Pete interested in for many months. He did a drill a day for most of a summer and enjoyed showing the program to his friends. When school was about to restart I tried him again with standard flash cards, and we were both amazed at how much faster he had become.
