When we were first assigned to review Stinky Kid Math with the Schoolhouse Review Crew, I was admittedly surprised by the name. My teenage son and daughter were a bit offended, asking me if I was calling them stinky. But once we started using our 6 month Stinky Kid Math subscription, we discovered who Stinky really was.
The Stinky Kid was created by Todd Matia in 2007 to help explain algebraic movement to adults who were struggling with math in a college course. Since then, Todd Matia has been using Stinky Kid to teach math to many different ages of students. Sometimes Stinky Kid makes an appearance in one of the videos on the Stinky Kid Math website, but most of the time Todd Matia explains the concepts himself.
Stinky Kid Math contains video lessons, accompanying worksheets, and math games to teach algebra and geometry lessons to anyone who is struggling with the concepts. The website is not meant to replace curriculum, but to supplement other math lessons.
You can choose any subject from the menu and watch the videos on that topic to help your student (or you before you teach your student) understand the concept better. Let's be honest, I can tell my kids how a math problem works, but sometimes they just can't hear me. Or the only way I know to explain it isn't clicking with them. That's when it's helpful to be able to bring in another voice, another way of explaining the concept. Even if the only difference is that they can see someone else saying Mom is right, it helps to alleviate math frustrations for the teacher and the student. If extra help is needed, you can even print the math worksheet and practice a bit before returning to your regular math curriculum. The answer key is also provided on the Stinky Kid Math website.
I didn't see many sample videos on the Stinky Kid Math website but I did find some on youtube. I wanted you to be able to see Todd's teaching style, so I've added two videos here.
A serious one for you ...
And a silly one for you ...
We really enjoyed the videos and found Todd's explanations to be helpful. I sometimes found it difficult to find a video for the right concept to help my son. I had to look at his textbook and figure out some of the "math language" to try to narrow it down to the right Stinky Kid Math lesson.
The games were also a hit with my kids, though mostly the younger ones who haven't yet hit algebra and geometry. We could only get the games to work in Chrome, though the rest of the website worked for us in Firefox just fine.
The Integer Game is a basic quiz-show style math facts review. You can focus on addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. My 4th grade daughter can even benefit from this, though it isn't as fun.
The Geometry Runner game is based on Infinite Runner and the player has to differentiate between different shapes and jump over all but the one type they're aiming for that round.
Math-A-Mole has the student practicing plotting points on an x,y grid to hit the mole with a bomb. Similar to playing Battleship.
Geometry Playground just lets you change the size and dimensions of individual geometry shapes without changing the type of shape itself.
Shifter is the one game that all my children can play. It's similar to Candy Crush or Bejeweled and my kids are all familiar with those games. It teaches the conversion between fraction, percentages, and decimals. Each matching shape/color has an equivalent fraction or decimal or percentage and you need to line them up for points.
Although the video lessons are primarily geared for the students already learning algebra and geometry, the games are helpful earlier than that.
My kids have enjoyed the Stinky Kid Math video lessons and the math games. It's a very helpful and affordable resource, at only $9.99/month. In our larger family, with multiple students studying pre-algebra, algebra, and geometry ... it's a good investment!
Stinky Kid Math offers a free one-month trial, so you can test it out for awhile. You can also follow Stinky Kid Math on facebook or twitter.
April E.
