Knowing your math facts is one of life’s many essentials. If you don’t know them, math will be extremely difficult for you.
That is where Mad Dog Math comes into play! Mad Dog Math is a math program designed to help your students truly master their math facts. It is geared for students K-5th grade and remedial middle school and high school. The cartoon character, Ruff the Mad Dog, may seem a bit childish for the older students, but I if they look past little Ruff, they will be well on their way to mastering their math facts.
Mad Dog Math has 4 levels.
Levels 1 and 2 have 20 questions per drill, and cover adding and subtracting fact families 0-18. The difference between the levels is level 1 the student enters the sum or difference, and in level 2 they name the missing addends.
Level 3 has 24 questions per drill and covers multiplying and dividing fact families 0-12.
Level 4 is the challenge, which mixes all four functions. It basically helps the student to keep their skills sharpened.
Mad Dog Math works like this.
- Be sure you are logged in.
- Choose which level to begin working on.
- Select the 2 minutes time challenge
- Click on the pull down bar and begin with the first fact family given. The student will alternate between adding and subtracting or multiplying and dividing, depending on what level they are on. Underneath the pull down bar the program will tell you which fact family to work on next.
- Click on “Time Me.” If you do not select “time me” before you begin, it will NOT count toward the club sticker reward.
- begin your drill
If for any reason you need to pause, click “stop.” I will tell you though, that when you stop the timer, you will need to “fetch” new questions and begin again.
It is recommended that the student spend about 10 minutes a day working on a drill. If they pass a drill then the next day they move forward. However, if they do not pass, then they repeat the same drill the next day. This cycle repeats until they have earned their club sticker for that time challenge. My daughter enjoyed playing too much to spend only 10 minutes on it, so she worked with it as long as she wanted to. She did have a small issue that was frustrating for her, as it took her too long to type in the answer, so she was often timed out. We solved this by working as a team. She gave the answers and I typed them in. This worked great for us.
This is a screen shot of what the level 3 drill looks like. You can see where the 2 min and 1 min club stickers have been earned.
There are 3 Club Stickers to be earned. There is the 2 Minutes Club Sticker, the 1 Minute Club Sticker, and the 30 Second Club Sticker. Once the student earns their 2 min sticker, they then begin working on earning their 1 min sticker, then finishing with the 30 sec sticker.
This is a screen shot of the 30 second progress page. The check mark shows what she has successfully completed toward the 30 sec club sticker.
Mad Dog Math is currently available as a Windows PC software program or as a binder program. The binder program (paper and pencil style) is also available on a CD-ROM, which gives you the ability to print the pages as you need them. I was given a temporary download of the computer based program to review. Although I have not seen or used the printed form, I personally prefer the computer based program. Computer programs are a big hit with my children. They love interactive, educational programs that bring a new or different twist to learning.
Mad Dog Math offers a few different pricing options.
Option 1) is a one-year license for $19.99
Option 2) is a two-year license for $29.99
Option 3) is a perpetual (forever) license for $39.99
Be sure to follow the prompts to determine whether you need the Windows 32-bit version or the Windows 64-bit version.
Mad Dog Math is a great supplement to your current math curriculum. Icing on the cake, there is no limit to the number of users allowed with this program. All your children can enjoy Mad Dog Math on the license.
We have really enjoyed Mad Dog Math and I’m sure you will, too!
If you would like to read about Julie Kotoff; the master mind behind Mad Dog Math, and why she created it, click here.
Be sure to stop by and read what my fellow TOS Crew members had to say about Mad Dog Math.
I'm a crew member with The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew and I received a downloadable trial version of Mad Dog Math in exchange for my honest review.
