I Love Maths!

Players can choose from three games: "Save the World", "Free Travel" and "Challenge". In "Save the World", kids visit each civilisation while bending their brains with multilevel, mind-boggling maths games. In Greece, they can free the country's greatest athletes by playing the Measurement Olympics; although tricky at first, this activity is a great way to learn to recognise types of measurements. Players take the Time Machine to Atlantis to help Ratty the plumber fix broken water pipes (and restore the city) by practising fractions. There is even trouble with paradise--birds of paradise, that is. The Aztecs need kids' geometry skills to free their beautiful birds of paradise that are locked inside the temple.

The "Free Travel" mode allows players to explore the civilisation of their choice for unstructured play, and the Challenge area includes a multitude of multilevel maths practice questions that test a child's understanding of angles, area, length, money, perimeter, quadrilaterals, symmetry and more.

I Love Maths! covers more than 250 maths topics and contains 3,000 maths problems and 2 million arithmetic questions. Do the maths and you will discover that this software is a great value. It also scores high on the replay factor, so you are sure to get your money's worth. And the more than 6,000 helpful pop-ups make this program excellent for independent play. Parents and teachers can easily track a child's progress, making this software ideal for use at home, in-home schooling or in schools. An "intelligent tracking system" self-adjusts to individual maths abilities by topic, although the levels on any of the games can be changed manually. (Ages 7 to 11) --Tina Velgos

My daughter (going to Year 4) definitely prefers this CD -- in the past, she used to be afraid (hate?) Maths, but now she wants to "play" this CD on her initiatives!!! Talk about learning through fun!

She didn't mind the talking dog, and I believe she liked the Egypt scenario the best. She also likes Aztec (shapes), but was at first flabergasted by Atlantis (all those fractions!) and Greece. But help was close at hand via clues (she didn't even need me watching over her shoulder) and she manage alright.

She was only a bit frustrated with the bonus questions (the timer ticking down made her nervous), and she found the "Number Crunching" game too fast, even though we put the animation setting to slowest.

At the end, she was awarded with prizes, could even print out her own certificate, and was tickled pink.

I found the talking a bit verbose, but she seemed to enjoy the story telling style of the package.

There are options to minimize the chat, read questions out, animation and speed, so I believe that as she progresses, she could adjust the settings accordingly, and last her until Year 6 or 7.

Overall, highly recommended (5 stars) -- anything to make your child enjoy (and learn) something that they felt tedious.


My daughter initiates this CD   August 11, 2003
 37 out of 37 found this review helpful

At first I didn't plan to buy this CD, I also bought another in the DK catalogue (Learning Ladder, Year 5) for my 8 year old, on advertisement from a local parent magazine (Hong Kong), and also reading the rave reviews in Amazon.

My daughter (going to Year 4) definitely prefers this CD -- in the past, she used to be afraid (hate?) Maths, but now she wants to "play" this CD on her initiatives!!! Talk about learning through fun!

She didn't mind the talking dog, and I believe she liked the Egypt scenario the best. She also likes Aztec (shapes), but was at first flabergasted by Atlantis (all those fractions!) and Greece. But help was close at hand via clues (she didn't even need me watching over her shoulder) and she manage alright.

She was only a bit frustrated with the bonus questions (the timer ticking down made her nervous), and she found the "Number Crunching" game too fast, even though we put the animation setting to slowest.

At the end, she was awarded with prizes, could even print out her own certificate, and was tickled pink.

I found the talking a bit verbose, but she seemed to enjoy the story telling style of the package.

There are options to minimize the chat, read questions out, animation and speed, so I believe that as she progresses, she could adjust the settings accordingly, and last her until Year 6 or 7.

Overall, highly recommended (5 stars) -- anything to make your child enjoy (and learn) something that they felt tedious.


Educational software your child will enjoy using!   February 22, 2003
 35 out of 36 found this review helpful

This humour-filled software turns maths into games and makes them fun. In four areas you "save the world" using maths from an evil character called Gretchen. A two-player game is also possible, and you can set each player's level from 1-4 so that an older child can play against a younger brother or sister with both having a real chance of winning.

In Atlantis you have to lay pipes to save the underwater kingdom from drying up. Is the broken plumbing half a pipe in length, or two-thirds of a pipe? What if you've only got some one-sixth or quarter lengths of pipe? Can you cut them, extend them (by multiplication) or use them added together to get the right length before time runs out?

In an Ancient Egyptian tomb you are bombarded by mental arithmetic problems, all the time watched over and sneered or cheered at by some rather creepy characters disguised as the mummy's canopic jars. Not quite as much fun as Atlantis, but still useful for real-world math skills.

In Ancient Greece, you're at the Olympic stadium, and dealing with time, measure, money and area. Success in this area lights the Olympic torch.

In the Aztec area you transform geometrical shapes by rotation, reflection and cutting, in order to fit them into keyholes so that you can release some trapped birds of paradise.

At the end, you get a printable certificate, showing your score against Gretchen's or the other player's. These certificates are much coveted by the children I've played this with, and provide great motivation!


I love Maths! - Excellent value for Money   July 31, 2000
 110 out of 115 found this review helpful

This is a brilliant concept, plenty of fun with increasing difficulty. My son enjoys doing it. The challenge topics are excellent with a section targerted to weak areas, and other sections enabling you to choose topics all under 4 levels of difficulty. The 4 levels following roughly the 4 junior years (7-11yrs) One disadvantage is that you have to keep an eye on your child as they tend to stay with their favourite area (e.g. my son loves the fractions in Atlantis), but the progress screen allows you to do this!