With its strong focus on key math facts, efficient and powerful adaptive learning algorithm, assortment of modern, enjoyable and well-designed video games and fun gamified elements, Time4MathFacts can not only get students more fluent with their math facts but can do so in a way that’s much more enjoyable and effective for all involved.
What We Like
But watch out for…
What is Time4MathFacts?
Time4MathFacts is a math program designed for students in early elementary to help them hone their fluency in the four fact families (in addition, subtraction, multiplication, division).
To do so, the program uses a colorful digital world filled with an assortment of practice-based games, dedicated coaching and in-game rewards and incentives.
While Time4MathFacts is offered to homeschools through Time4Learning, the program is still sold to schools and educational institutions under its original name, Reflex Math.
What Ages Or Grades Is Time4MathFacts Intended For?
Time4MathFacts is aimed at students in grades 2 to 4, or about 7-10 years old, and primarily works on honing the fundamental operations facts learned at this stage of learning.
The company recommends the following breakdown and order of practice:
| Grades | Fact Family |
| 2 and 3 | Addition and subtraction facts |
| 3 and 4 | Multiplication and division facts |
This places the program roughly on-grade in terms of topical pacing, in our opinion.
That said, being a homeschool-optimized supplement, Time4MathFacts can be used by younger students working with a more advanced curriculum, as well as by older students in need of a bit of remediation and dedicated practice.
Interestingly, and unlike most early elementary/math practice apps that claim to be usable for remediation, Time4MathFacts can actually be appropriate for some older students.
Its graphics aren’t too cartoonish, the games are fairly reminiscent of popular casual, mobile/social games and their themes can be of interest to a broader range of kids ager, with games about ninjas, robots, animals and more.
As a result, we don’t feel that using the program would be that embarrassing or “babyish” for students in grades 5 or 6 to use if they need to.
In terms of placement, Time4MathFacts is a bit unusual in that there is no obvious or formal “test” that students can print out or take online.
Instead, its initial assessment of student ability is integrated into the program as a series of story-linked, carnival mini games students play when they first log in, the results of which work to configure the initial topics and difficulty of the following games (and can be read as part of the student progress tracking).
This method of sneaking in an initial assessment is kind of interesting as it can be a lot less stressful for students (particularly those who are test shy) and can ease students into the way the games function and what will be expected of them, somewhat like an interactive tutorial.
Look and Feel
Much like other online math practice programs, such as ST Math and others, Time4MathFacts has both student and parent accounts, the former containing the practice games and the latter being used to manage and oversee learning.
Student Account
Rather than a traditional, software-like dashboard, with Time4MathFacts students are instead immersed in an interactive digital cartoon world that is filled with colorful animal characters who provide explanation and guidance.
Students scroll through an island filled with treehouses, each of which represents a different skill-testing videogame of some sort.
Most are initially locked as progress is gated and students must earn new content, something we’ll discuss a little later on.
Students themselves are represented by a customizable avatar and, as with other gamified programs in the genre (Math Seeds in Reading Eggs, for example), these can be customized by earning tokens and visiting an in-game store.
The store looks a bit like a little department store, with a barbershop, accessories kiosk and clothing store, which is kind of fun and whimsical.
In terms of its games, Time4MathFacts offers a surprisingly wide variety of games to play.
There are, for example, carnival games that are used as an assessment, platform jumpers where characters leap from platform to platform and avoid traps, side scrollers, top down race-style games and even a polygonal snake game.
In addition to their core mechanics, the graphical style of the games can be quite varied, as well.
Some may have modern, app-like graphics while others maintain a traditional, cartoon style.
As a result, they can appeal to a wider array of student tastes and tend to be less boring and repetitive looking as a student moves through the program.
Overall, we found Time4MathFacts to be very well animated with excellent and appealing graphics and a pretty unique style.
Even if the program doesn’t make use of hyper-advanced 3D graphics, the detailed and colorful illustrations and animations are superior in quality to most of its competitors.
In addition, Time4MathFacts also includes high quality voice acting, with characters even being quite amusing to listen to at times (Crabby, for example).
Finally, with relatively average internet speed the program ran smoothly and had minimal loading times, which should make online practice that much less frustrating.
Parent’s Dashboard
As might be expected of a digital learning platform, Time4MathFacts offers parents a host of progress tracking tools and analytics in a dedicated parent’s dashboard.
By and large, the information presented is fairly in-depth but easy to navigate.
From their dashboard parents can, for example:
- Get an overview of student usage, which delves into what facts students are learning, working on or haven’t touched on yet, which is represented as a pyramid
- time spent on the program and last use
- Math fact fluency assessment results
- And so on
Taken together, these analytics can provide a pretty complete picture of where a student is currently at, at least in terms of memorizing their fact families.
One thing we like is that information is often presented in charts, graphs and other graphical representations, rather than just number bars, which can make them a little bit easier for homeschooling parents to sort through and understand.
On the downside, however, the information doesn’t always update in real time and may take a couple hours to process, which can be a little bit annoying for those on really tight schedules.
How Time4MathFacts Approaches Math Learning
Mastering Fact Fluency
Time4MathFacts focuses on helping students become more efficient math learners by helping them learn, master and become more fluent with math facts.
The overall premise is that if students are able to quickly, accurately and effortlessly recall and use math facts they can save their mental effort and memory for more complex math tasks, such as deploying more complicated strategies and algorithms.
To accomplish this, Time4MathFacts focuses on repeatedly reviewing and drilling facts from all four fundamental operations through its games, rewarding students for both speed and accuracy in remembering facts and solving questions.
The program also does so in a progressive manner.
Starting with building on understanding and skill accuracy, the program then slowly but surely develops speed and automaticity until students can knock out a surprising number of math facts quickly and correctly but without becoming overwhelmed by drill.
As a result of its focused and effective math facts practice, we feel that Time4MathFacts can be a particularly good option for homeschools following a strong conceptual math program, such as Singapore or Math Mammoth, which may lack dedicated math facts practice.
On the flip side, it may not be as valuable a supplemental resource for curricula that already have a good deal of math facts practice built into them, such as Abeka.
Self-paced, Game-based Practice
As we’ve mentioned, Time4MathFacts uses a host of games as a way of getting students to practice their math facts.
Each game centers around a succession of various math fact questions that students will have to solve quickly and accurately in order to advance or move their characters around.
This drill hones students’ skill over time and helps encode facts to memory, much like flashcards.
Ultimately, Time4MathFacts is able to mask drill activity using dynamic and interactive games that, with their brightly colored graphics and fun characters and animations, tends to be a lot more fun.
It is also, unlike flashcards, much more of a self-paced and independent learning supplement, with students being guided through instruction and practice without much need of parental intervention.
As a result, it can be a good option for busier homeschooling parents who may not have the time to be able to sit and do a lot of memory work with their child.
One thing that parents do have to be a little careful with is that, because the mechanism of the program’s games is based on repeatedly drilling fact families, things can get a little repetitive after a while.
As a result, sessions should probably be kept at or under the recommended 20 minutes or so, even if students really seem into the games, to prevent fatigue.
Adaptive Learning Algorithm
At the core of Time4MathFacts is an adaptive learning algorithm.
This means that the program and its games can become more or less challenging depending on how quickly and accurately a student is answering its problems.
For example, if a student starts mastering the content quickly, the program will respond by increasing the complexity of its questions or by ramping up the speed required.
By and large, Time4MathFacts’ adaptive learning algorithm is a little more sophisticated than most.
It can, for example, change up the content to boost the morale and confidence of a student by selectively introducing math facts it knows they have already mastered at the beginning of a game.
Additionally, and quite interestingly, the program also frequently tests the speed and skill of student typing, which it then uses as a baseline in order to factor out typing errors or difficulties from its assessment of skill development.
In other words, it should be able to figure out if a student’s slow response is a result of their lack of keyboard skills or if they genuinely don’t know a math fact, which is pretty cool and makes the program a little more practical for younger kids.
Gamified Learning
Finally, in order to keep students’ attention and interest, Time4MathFacts also includes a variety of video game elements .
In particular, students earn tokens throughout the program, usually as a result of completing coaching or completing their daily tasks, which they can then spend at an in-game store to buy items and customize their personal avatar.
The game limits the amount of tokens a student can earn to about 120 a day, which mitigates a common problem with such gamified learning, i.e. keeping kids from ignoring their lessons in order to style their characters or environments.
More than that, Time4MathFacts also forces students to earn new content by completing several days’ tasks, which can prevent them from jumping around from game to game and keeps learning a bit more organized and incentivized.
That said, this gating of content and tokens can be a little frustrating for students, as they may have to work fairly hard to get to play a new game or wait another day to pick up more items from the store.
Additionally, not every homeschool may be a fan of this type of monetary incentivisation and, of course, parents should note that not every student is incentivized by buying things for and customizing virtual avatars of themselves.
How It Works
Getting started with Time4MathFacts is a pretty easy and guided process.
Once a parent creates and account for their student they can log in either from the main site or from a Time4Learning account.
The first time a student does so they are then given the opportunity to play around and set up their own, personal avatar with some basic options.
They are then greeted by a friendly crab named Crabby who takes them to a circus and gives a typing accuracy and speed test in the form of a minigame, an exercise that will pop up in one form or another at the start of each subsequent lesson.
As we’ve mentioned, this acts as a kind of control so that the system can try and filter out student typing ability and speed from its assessment of their ability.
Although there isn’t too much typing required in the program (most games only require users to input 1-3 digits at a time), students with very weak or no typing ability, however, may need some parental help or may wish to practice with Keyboarding Without Tears or some other keyboard skill-building program.
Following this typing test, students progress to Crabby’s Circus.
The Circus guides students through various amusement park-style minigames (darts, strength testers, etc.) that get them solving some basic math facts, masking what is essentially an initial student assessment that configures the program’s level of challenge and topical coverage to one degree or another.
Once this is complete, students earn a “ticket,” which allows them access to the game area where they can select a game.
When it comes to its game-based practice, Time4MathFacts tends to follow something of a process for developing skill fluency.
In essence it takes students from learning math facts to working on honing their speed and accuracy until students have them down cold.
Before starting a game, students receive brief “coaching” or lessons covering each math fact set.
These coaching sessions are done by an animated bear called Coach Penny and explicitly introduce each math fact before engaging in guided practice with fill in the blank-style questions and by having students type them out from memory.
Just before starting a game, students are given another opportunity to review math facts with Coach Penny’s Picture Puzzles, a kind of puzzle game where students answer math fact questions and flip cards over to reveal a picture based on the game’s theme.
The puzzles are, like the games, adaptive and increase or decrease the challenge of unflipped cards depending on the performance on previous questions, as well as helping set the game difficulty to better match student ability.
These puzzles are an interesting minigame of their own and act as a kind of readiness check – should students really struggle they are sent back to a refresher lesson to shore up their knowledge.
Once a student is ready, the game will start.
There are quite a few games in the series and they come in a wide variety and styles, but they all work in more or less the same way.
In order to move forward and win students must answer math fact questions as quickly and accurately as they can.
Just like with pages of workbook drill or with flashcards, students end up practicing facts over and over again until they become automatic…just with more entertaining graphics, sound and gameplay that make things a bit more palatable for kids.
As students progress, the questions become harder and the time they are given to provide responses is reduced, which together challenges students to improve their math fluency.
Once a student completes a game and develops mastery of a math fact, they are awarded a certain number of tokens (to a maximum of 120 per day) that they can spend at the store on virtual items, such as hats, clothing, new hairstyles and so on for their avatar.
In addition, each day students have to complete a certain number of tasks.
After a few days of logging completed tasks, the light at the top of their screen will turn green and students will be able to access new games.
Students and parents can check how they are doing with a fluency pyramid and math fact table, which lists which facts students have, are or have not yet learned, and parents have access to additional, more detailed, information (charts, graphs and so on) that can help them keep track of learning from their dashboard.
Our Thoughts
Overall, we feel that Time4MathFacts is a fun, easy to use and straightforward math supplement.
We like the fact that the games are part of a sequential and comprehensive process for teaching math facts, providing a full suite of instruction, guided practice, assessment and drill.
More than that, it goes well beyond the ability of most similar programs by monitoring students in real time and being able to send them back for refresher coaching if needed, thereby providing more individualized, intelligent and effective practice.
We also feel that the program’s games are quite well done.
They are very cool to look at, with modern animations, graphics and sound, and they work quite well online, avoiding the glitches and choppiness that many competing products can be subject to.
They’re also based on concepts that we feel kids in the age range will really respond to, featuring hot air balloons, ninja action heroes, robots, snakes, cartoon squirrels, daring animal rescues and more.
As a result, we believe they can do a good job at masking memory work, drill and assessment from students, which can make learning math facts a lot less stressful and frustrating for all involved.
Parents, however, should keep in mind that, at the end of the day, Time4MathFacts is still a drill based program.
Some students, particularly those who hate drill and rote work, may see through the games to their purpose, which can reduce their motivation to use it.
Further, it is important to note that the program is really designed around quick and accurate recall of fact families and doesn’t really touch on much in the way of understanding concepts or strategies, nor does it teach any other procedural topics, so its use is ultimately pretty specific for a math program.
Pros and Cons of Time4MathFacts
Pros
Provides instruction, review and practice of math facts
Time4MathFacts is a pretty comprehensive way of learning math facts, providing short explicit instruction, guided practice and a lot of solid drill to help students encode and recall math facts quickly and accurately.
Adaptive and personalized learning
Time4MathFacts contains a fairly powerful adaptive learning algorithm that increases or decreases the challenge of each game, as well as intelligently changing up the topics covered, which can keep students on their toes without overwhelming them.
Self-study
For the most part, students should be able to use Time4MathFacts without much parental supervision or help, which means that parents have more time to take care of the myriad of other tasks homeschooling can involve.
Fun, colorful graphics and sound
The program’s games are all wonderfully designed.
With modern, colorful looks, smooth graphics and animations and fun voice overs they can be very enjoyable and are a definite step up from most competitors out there.
Wide range of interesting games
Time4MathFacts also offers a wide range of games that students can play to practice their math facts.
From platformers to overhead races to snake games and more, there is a lot of variety to prevent students from getting too bored.
Useful and detailed analytics
Time4MathFacts also provides parents and students with a host of interesting and easy to understand data points that track how well a student is doing, which can give parents a very granular idea of their students fluency progress
Low stress math drill
With its use of games and fun gamified incentives, Time4MathFacts can be a lot less stressful and more enjoyable for students compared to the usual flashcards and workbook page drill sessions.
Cons
Gamified nature not for everyone
Time4MathFacts is based in a game-like world where students earn tokens and can buy and equip virtual goods, which not every parent may approve of.
Only really covers math facts
Although it is a very powerful and useful program, Time4MathFacts really only covers math fact fluency and doesn’t teach the concepts behind them or much in the way of math strategy.
Who Is Time4MathFacts Ideal For?
Those using conceptual math programs looking to add math facts practice
Certain conceptual math programs have been criticized for emphasizing strategy and understanding over traditional math fact practice, leading to students who may struggle with traditional computation.
With its dedicated fact family practice, Time4MathFacts can be a highly useful and targeted supplement for these programs.
Students who get bored or stressed out by flashcard work
Some students have a very hard time sitting through math flashcards and other fluency-oriented memory work.
With its enjoyable games, tokens and incentives, Time4MathFacts can provide the same effective practice as the above methods but make things a little more enjoyable and less drill-like.
Parents looking for more independent learning options
Time4MathFacts is a self-study math facts practice program that parents can largely set their child to and periodically check in to make sure learning is proceeding apace.
As a result, it can be a good option for busy families.
Students who love video games and respond to gamification
Time4MathFacts includes both a variety of fun games to help students do math fact drills in a more enjoyable way and includes a lot of video game elements, such as tokens, avatars and virtual goods, to help incentivize practice.
Older elementary students in need of remediation
Although really aimed at students in grades 2-4, Time4MathFacts can still be effective for students in grades 5 and up who need help working on fundamental skills as its graphics are quite modern, fun and well-designed and shouldn’t be seen as too “babyish,”
Who is It Not Ideal For?
Homeschools looking to avoid drill
Although it does use games and gamification to help make things more enjoyable for students, at its heart Time4MathFacts is really designed to help students acquire math fact fluency through dedicated and focused practice (drill) and so still may not be the best option for those looking for alternative learning approaches.
Homeschools looking for a comprehensive math practice program and/or tutoring
As its name implies, Time4MathFacts really focuses on helping students learn key math facts in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and so may not be ideal for those looking for learning and practice in other topics.
Those looking to limit screen time
Although its lessons are short (with daily lessons of 15-20 minutes), Time4MathFacts can still represent a good extra hour or more of intensive screen time per week, which may be a bit too much for some families.
Price
Note: All prices correct as of writing, all prices in USD.
Time4MathFacts costs about $39.95 per year per student.
Sadly, there is no free trial available, although the company does have a 14-day money back guarantee.
As always, we recommend that parents check for the program’s latest prices, as well as any specials or discounts that may be being offered.
Or
Is It Worth It?
While it’s perhaps not the cheapest math practice solution out there, Time4MathFacts can still provide a lot of value for homeschooling families.
It offers effective instruction, practice and focused drill of key math facts and does so in a self-study manner, which (unlike flashcards and most other memory work) allows busy parents to step away from the process to focus on other tasks.
More than that, Time4MathFacts helps students achieve fact fluency in a much less stressful and frustrating manner, using enjoyable, modern games that contain high quality graphics and sound to make the experience more enjoyable and less workbook-like.
Finally, the program is highly adaptive, which allows it to personalize learning around a student’s specific needs, providing them with greater challenge or instruction when and as needed, which in turn can make it more effective as a practice tool.
Bottom Line
With its strong focus on key math facts, efficient and powerful adaptive learning algorithm, assortment of modern, enjoyable and well-designed video games and fun gamified elements, Time4MathFacts can not only get students more fluent with their math facts but can do so in a way that’s much more enjoyable and effective for all involved.
About the Author
David Belenky is a freelance writer, former science and math tutor and a tech enthusiast. When he’s not writing about educational tech, he likes to chill out with his family and dog at home.