Quarter Mile Math Review

Posted by Lorren on August 26, 2009

I recently had the opportunity to review The Quarter Mile Math. After both my child and I both had the opportunity to play the game, I think that it can have a place in many homeschools.

The premise of the Quarter Mile Math is simple: you answer questions as quickly as possible, and the game times you. The first time you play in any race, you’ll be playing against really slow horses or race cars. The next time you play in the same race, you’ll race against your fastest previous times. After you’ve played the same race five times, you’re competing against your best times.

The Deluxe Version with levels 1, 2, and 3 is what I had the opportunity to try out. There were easy questions that worked well for my daughter, and there were even harder questions that adults could use. There are tons of topics. In addition to the expected math problems, there are also races where you can improve your typing speed, morse code races, and much more. I tried out the number keyboarding race in order to work on my 10-key speed.

My daughter absolutely despises times tests. The make her really nervous. I think part of that is her perfectionism. She doesn’t like getting the questions wrong. Unfortunately for her, learning to recall math facts quickly is a skill that I expect her to learn. We were doing times tests drills every day with Saxon Math. As we start the upcoming school year, my daughter will still have to be able to recall her math facts quickly, but I think that we will probably be replacing times tests several times a week with Quarter Mile Math drills.

Is Quarter Mile Math going to be something that my daughter plays with on her own, replacing Webkinz, Alfy.com, and all the other games that compete for her attention? Probably not. However, it is a way that she can practice her math facts without the stress of a times test, and it will get a lot of use at our house.

It does take a little time to learn to navigate around the different topics to Quarter Mile Math (there are just so many topics). However, once you get the hang of things, it’s not so bad. You can have your child practice their math facts in many different categories. The addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts break down into different races, so children that are learning their +1 facts, for example, won’t have to compete in races where they expect you to know your +7 facts as well. Saxon Math doesn’t have exactly the same way of teaching as Quarter Mile Math drills on… Quarter Mile allows you to do +0 facts, +1 facts, +2 facts, all the way up through +9 facts, and then facts through +1, through +2, etc. Saxon teaches the facts a little bit differently, so you might not be able to throw away those timed tests completely, if your math program doesn’t teach the same way that Quarter Mile does.

Quarter Mile Math is well worth checking out if you are any kind of math teacher, whether in a homeschool setting or with a group of kids.

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