Fables World Review – Maths Made Fun
AD – Gifted subscription – like ALL children, my girls are getting paid by Fables World for doing maths!
Do your children struggle with maths or find it boring? Would you like to see them enjoying their maths lessons and finding the subject a little easier? Fables World is a website that aims to make maths fun, AND provide real motivation for children to learn. Based on research proving that funny cartoons and stories are easier to retain than numbers, Fables World utilises cartoon characters to deliver the maths lessons. And children can earn REAL MONEY for keeping up with their maths lessons! I asked my girls to try out Fables World to see whether it would make a difference to their maths learning.
What is Fables World?
Fables World is a web based maths learning platform that uses engaging cartoons, quiz questions and heaps of motivation to get kids into learning. We have tried a few maths learning platforms before with varying degrees of success. Both girls are quite competitive so anything that makes things into a competition does tend to work for them. However, keeping them motivated can be a bit of a struggle and that’s where Fables World differs.
If your child is a visual learner, Fables World’s cartoons are ideal. Instead of black and white numbers on a page, the numbers come to life as characters. Kids who appreciate a bit of toilet humour will love clever clocks and farting fractions and times tables cartoons help with recall of multiplications.
Motivation
I’ve seen a few learning platforms that offer reward points to spend in their virtual shop and this is one of the motivation strands used by Fables World. Kids can buy outfits for their avatar using points that they have earned by regularly doing maths practice. However, Fables World also uses a slightly different method of motivation which in my view is a stroke of genius. They have lots of amazing Trustpilot reviews too, so it seems I’m not the only one who appreciates this method of learning.
As well as virtual rewards, children can earn real-world rewards for regular learning. Firstly, they earn £5 every time they complete a quest. Each quest consists of between 10 and 20 lessons. The lessons take the form of cartoons that are just a few minutes long. After watching each cartoon, children have to complete a quiz to make sure the learning has gone in.
Once a quest is complete, children can choose to move on to a consecutive day quest on the same topic. They have to complete this daily or their progress goes back to the beginning. If they complete this daily quest, they earn £20 and a cuddly toy.
Fables World Competitions
In addition to the cuddly toy that children can win for completing a consecutive day task, Fables World are currently offering kids a staggering £100 on completion! All they have to do is complete this second quest and the money is there.
These additional prizes are limited to £100 per family. So, if a sibling also completes the second quest, they win the normal £20 plus a cuddly toy and Fables World ask the siblings to share the total amount. So, they both earn £60 and a cuddly toy.
Fables World Review: How did my girls get on?
My two girls have both been trying this out. Lia is nearly 10 and in year 5 at school. I would say that the learning is very appropriate for her age although some of the cartoons are a little young. The Simply Maths was quite easy for her, and she found the farting fractions quite difficult to understand. The table fables and clever clocks were about right. At nearly 12 years old, Libby is at the upper age limit for the learning. That said, it has been really good for her to do some additional revision on her maths, particularly fractions.
Motivation
For me, this has been the huge difference we’ve noticed between Tables Fables and other maths learning platforms. Libby in particular has been fully self-motivated due to the promise of cold hard cash! For the past month, she has been getting up early every day and completing her learning. She didn’t bother with the second quests to earn a cuddly toy, but as soon as the extra money was on offer, she was on it!
As for Lia, motivating her to do maths is not an easy task. To give some context, Lia is quite gifted at music and has been eyeing up a music scholarship at a local school. We have told her on multiple occasions that if she wants to stand a chance of going, she has to sort out her maths. Up to this point, even that hasn’t been enough to motivate her.
Fables World has done better than most things when it comes to motivating Lia to do maths. She has been plodding through the quests at her own pace, usually doing it once every few days. However, now that the competition has started, she is not only in the running to earn a bit of extra money, but she is in competition with Libby to do so. She is fully aware that if Libby completes the second quest in time and Lia doesn’t, Libby will get £100 and Lia will get nothing.
This competitiveness has caused a bit of an uptick in Lia’s time spent on Fables World. She is very near to finishing the first quest and moving on to the consecutive day quest. Whether she can stick with doing maths every day for long enough to earn her competition money remains to be seen!
FAQs
Fables World is aimed at 4 to 14 year olds. I personally think my daughter is at the upper age limit at 12 and I would love to see them tackling trickier maths for children working towards GCSEs.
The costs vary depending on whether you sign up for a month or a year, and whether you go for all the quests or just select ones. All information on pricing is on the Fables World sign up page.
When a child completes a quest, Fables World transfer the appropriate amount of cash to the bank account that the parent paid for the subscription from. It’s then up to you to transfer the money to the child however you see fit – as cash or to their bank account.
Fables World will post a cuddly toy to the child wherever they are in the world. It will be sent as soon as the consecutive day quest has been completed.
