Will You Be My Valentine? My Love Letter to Manga High

In honor of Valentine's Day, I would like to share with you just what has stolen my heart this Valentine's Day.

It is not chocolate, or an actor, or a cute puppy.  It is in fact a website. A wonderful, engaging website for students of all ages. And it goes by the dreamy name of Manga High.

I always spend way too much time during my planning and lunch break googling "fun angle games!" or "inequality games". Basically *insert common core standard here* and then games.  My google searches are so obviously that of a teacher, showing nothing but middle school resources and recipes for crock pots.

I have always seen Manga High games mentioned on different sites when the intro piece came up, but for whatever reason had never actually gone to the site myself because I knew it was one of the dreaded sites that COST MONEY.


via GIPHY

But one day about a month ago, I was scarfing down a ridiculous radish salad that I was pretending was anything but a radish salad, when I noticed that the website allows you a free trial with access to their site. 

AND NOW I AM IN LOVE PEOPLE!


via GIPHY

The website is easy to use.  You can actually assign each student a standard based on need or an entire class. What's better, is that the website also recommends to the students a skill based on how well or poorly they are doing.  

Because I am using this website with low level students, it is creating a wonderful atmosphere where the students come in excited because they can play a game and compete with each other. The program will actually show them how many points they have compared to other students.  While this isn't for every student, I have a large population of gentlemen in this class that always want to one up each other.  This has provided them a huge amount of momentum into actually wanting to do their math work! This allows me to successfully sit in small groups and provide small group instruction while the students go through lessons and games on their own.  

Overall, this year, my heart goes out to Manga High.  If I could, I would shout out my love for the website from the rooftops of my school.  Instead, I decided to be a bit more professional and meet with my principal to beg and plead for the funding to use all the aspects of the website.  Wish me luck!

For now, I will have to just continue on knowing that Manga High probably loves me too.

Interested?? Visit the website here. Be warned - your heart will never be the same.

Resources:

Giphy. (n.d).  Retrieved February 14, 2016, from https://www.giphy.com

Manga High. (n.d).  Retrieved February 14, 2016, from https://www.mangahigh.com