Math Your Way

There have been many opposing views regarding how best to teach math.
We believe these controversies have arisen because many tools and approaches have required an “either-or” choice. With Zillio you now have an “and” choice. You can have rote-learning and conceptual understanding, visual learning and tactile learning, individual exploration and social activities, and enrichment and remediation. You decide how best to use Zillio to support your goals. Zillio is used as an educational toy, as a series of progressive educational games, and as math manipulative in universal instruction, strategic and intensive intervention, and enrichment.

Educational Toy:
As an educational toy, children take the lead. They explore and discover wherever their imagination and interests take them. They make up games, craft stories, stage theatrical plays, check out their math homework, run timed trials, and generally experience the joy of play. Don’t be surprised if they incorporate Zillio in their other play with dolls, stuffed animals, Legos, trucks etc. They’ll be developing a framework for math as they play.

Educational Games:
In the beginning you take the lead. You watch them setup the mountain or playground with either consecutive numbers (1, 2, 3, …) or multiples (2, 4, 6,… , 3, 6, 9,.. . 4, 8, 12,… and so on) and then decide which game is appropriate for them. Sometimes you’ll pick an easy game to build confidence, other times you’ll select a more difficult one to challenge them, and sometimes you’ll play a game in the middle to reinforce skills they are learning. After they have played a game once or twice, they will be able to play independently. In the classroom, the games provide an excellent break in routine without sacrificing learning. In the home, the games become a favorite family activity with friends, siblings, parents and grandparents. Even better, make up your own!

Universal Instruction:
In the classroom and home school environment, the games become an excellent assessment tool as well. You’ll observe your students’ fluency, understanding and ability to use skills in problem solving and critical thinking. The lessons, however, are designed to teach a very specific skill to the right learner(s) at the right time. The rules and algorithms come alive due to the very nature of the design of Zillio. You are able to communicate and connect math concepts in ways that may even surprise you. Each lesson includes worksheets to transition the skill to symbolic representations on paper.

Strategic & Intensive Intervention:
Sometimes children need more instruction to get beyond a stumbling block, fill in a gap or overcome learning disabilities. Whether you are a classroom teacher, a special education/resource teacher, a tutor, a parent or an educational therapist, Zillio will help you provide this instruction in a powerful, fun, engaging way. Keeping children on task is a major part of Zillio’s effectiveness. The highly visual, tactile, colorful Mountain captivates. The tokens have a pleasing feel and are “begging” to be put in place. You can tailor our hands-on activities to meet your goals, deciding on what is the right amount of scaffolding to provide. Equally important, when you see a specific gap in understanding you can easily develop quick ad hoc activities of your own to drive home a particular point. Recommended for all three tiers in RTI programs.

Enrichment:
Sometimes to meet gifted children’s needs, you want to incorporate activities that are intellectually challenging, yet remain developmentally appropriate to meet their social and emotional needs. For a youngster who can finish the multiplication facts in record time, more multiplication facts is not an enriching activity. When using Zillio as an enrichment tool, you will be able to not only move the youngster through the series of games more quickly, but you’ll also be able to play the variations that require more reasoning and problem solving skills. This will allow gifted students to have the same opportunity to “struggle” with a skill just out of reach and feel same joy of discovery and pride in their accomplishments as other children do.

The depth and breadth of Zillio programs will allow you the flexibility you need to present math your way!