KooBits ProblemSums – Effective Help Makes Happy Kids

To my children, KooBits is fun. To me, KooBits is almost my life saviour! Do I sound very exaggerated here?

What is KooBits ProblemSums

KooBits ProblemSums is a mathematics e-learning platform, highly personalised and fun for primary school kids. I am grateful to our primary school for subscribing to KooBits. We now have a fabulous resource at home for my children and even myself to catch up with the kids’ mathematics syllabus.

Also read: A Koobits Update that We Love and its Parent App

Why KooBits is my saviour

KooBits is highly personalised. It caters to a family like mine comprising of children with varying learning pace.

I spent time standing in front of the shelves of Popular, having difficulty finding books at the foundation level. The time spent there made me realise that there is a gap. There are numerous assessment books available to lend a hand to the kids who are chasing for As and stars, but there aren’t many books to help those who need to establish their foundation. That reminds me of what I recently told my son. To build a skyscraper, you need a strong foundation.

Last year, we were fortunate that our school introduced an excellent assessment book Targeting Mathematics for helping students build their foundation. I couldn’t find this same book from Popular!

This year, the school bookshop introduced another set of books under Fan-Math. The Diagnostic Maths book under Fan-Math is lovely for establishing my child’s foundation. There are however limited practices under each topic. Targeting Mathematics has limited practices too.

My child’s Maths result for Term 2 was worrying, and it became apparent that my child needed a lot of extra help. But we were bounded by limited options.

There were limited assessment books for students at the foundation level; the school’s promise to arrange for extra lessons did not materialise; we were not so keen on engaging tutors at this junction.

Discovering KooBits

Our school subscribed KooBits for the students’ home practice. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what KooBits is. I ignored its existence until I stumbled across a set of login IDs and passwords my children have. I started to question the necessity of having so many platforms to log in to; thus I decided to see what KooBits is all about.

We spent the first few weeks fiddling with the online platform, doing the daily challenges and homework set by KooBits.

The kids earn KooBit points from doing these which are in turn used for playing one session of KooBits Brain Game. Each session is limited to 25 minutes. The kids had a lot of fun, and they felt motivated every day to return to KooBits to earn their points and play their games.

I started to explore the platform and discovered how we could personalise KooBits by the children’s mathematical competency, from foundation to genius. Then, I began to create homework and daily challenges based on each of my children’s learning needs.

Gradually, KooBits became part of our daily rhythms, something that the children would do to end their daily afternoon work. Understandably, they like to celebrate the end of their work session with a round of fun games.

The outcome was great! They both felt more motivated to tackle challenges designed for each of their ability. From facing cranky children disinterested in answering math questions and relying on me to help them with every single problem, I now see motivated self-starters working through each problem, independently every single day.

I felt a great sense of relief seeing my two children so motivated, and I gradually became less involved in their learning process.

How does KooBits work

Once you log in, you see the dashboard.

We typically go straight to the left column for our Daily Task, which is to collect the daily KoKo Credit that we use as points for games.

Next is the Daily Challenge where kids will earn between 1 to 4 Koko Credits upon completing ten questions assigned. The amount of credits varies following the difficulty level of the challenge. Completing the Master Level will gain the child 4 Koko Credits. Imagine ten questions a day, that would potentially be 240 questions a month.

What I like about the Daily Challenge is the ability for us as parents and educators to customise the practice following the child’s requirement.

Go to “Setting” in the Daily Challenge page to customize to your requirements.

For example, my children had their Holistic Assessment in May, with specific test topics. So I limited the topics in their Daily Challenges to the test topics.

Nearing the test date, I further narrowed down the topics to those that they didn’t quite master. Looking back, KooBits has helped me save a sum of money that I could have spent on assessment books. And like what I mentioned earlier, there are limited assessment books for foundation level students.

Another section that my children like to visit is the Homework section, where the KooBits portal will automatically generate some questions for the children to attempt every 5 or 6 days. Teachers and parents can also create customised homework to focus on the child’s weaker topics. My children love to do the homework because completing each set of homework earns them another 5 Koko Credits!

See some of the questions set for a Primary two kid.

Mechanical Question

Mechanical questions typically come out in Section A (Multiple-Choice Section) and Section B (Short Questions) of the test and examinations.

Problem Sums

Problem sums are often found in Section C which is the last section of the test and examination papers. These questions typically carry a higher weight.

I like it that the platform provides solutions after the question is correctly answered. This is especially important for me as a parent who does not know how to do modelling. I learn along with them, and these models are used in the daily school work too.

When the kids answer a question incorrectly, they get a youtube video tutorial to watch. The video will show a similar question and demonstrate to the student the method used to solve the problem.

KooBits Brain Games

Most of the Brain Games aim at strengthening memory, reflexes, and cognitive skills. With each session limited to just 25 minutes, I can safely leave them with the computer and not be bothered with timing their gaming session.

Other ways of motivating the children

Some children get bored after a while doing just Daily Challenge and Homework. In my daughter’s case, she got a little bored after a while and started challenging her friends via Peer Challenge. The questions are mostly the same, but when there is a competition involved, things became a little more exciting for her.

Potential Pitfalls

After going through my children’s learning through KooBits for the past term, most of the questions look quite similar. I began to wonder whether I was limiting my children’s scope of learning. So I reached out for some other physical assessment books like the ones I mentioned earlier – the series from Fan-Math.

Further, while there are videos that show the children how to tackle a problem sum, it seems like KooBits doesn’t explain the logic behind using a particular approach.

However, to be fair to KooBits, the platform is smart enough to detect progression in the kids and will not post questions that are too elementary for them to waste their time on. So, the questions do get more difficult along the way. Perhaps it’s my sense of insecurity and unfamiliarity with the portal that causes me to think that KooBits is still not good enough.

Maths Olympiad

I tried out some of the Maths Olympiad questions for this post, and to answer some of my insecurities. For the primary two sums, some thinking is required before I can get the correct answer.

My Verdict

Despite my sense of insecurity, I believe KooBits will continue to be my life saviour and motivate my children in learning their mathematics. I approve the platform for its flexibility and the countless questions my children can repeatedly practise until they can conquer the problem sum. Of course, KooBits appeals to my children for the games they get to play after that. This platform works for busy parents who are unable to be there for their children’s studies all day long.

Click here to KooBits website to subscribe.

Disclaimer: I write this post because I think it helps the kids with their schoolwork, and I am not affiliated with KooBits in any way.

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Update on 27/9/2018 – Parental Involvement is still a Necessity

We are still using KooBits regularly. It works especially on days when I am too busy to sit with the kids to work through the problem sum with them.

However, because of the self-correcting element of KooBits, my kids tend to work through the problem sums blindly when they are tired. They may not understand the question and guess through the steps without understanding until Koobits marks them right. At primary 1 and 2 levels, problem sums are typically one-step or two-step questions. Thus speculation is still feasible. If they carry out the same attitude throughout their practice all the time, they are not going to achieve much learning.

Thus it is essential that I go the Mistake History section (under the Report tab) after their practice, look out for the mistakes and analyse the questions with them again.

As shown in the screenshot below, the Mistake History page records the mistakes my children made. I can click onto the hyperlinks to go back to the questions and work with them again.

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