Discovered something new, and in a spur of the moment change of lesson plans decided to spend two lessons with Tutpup.  I’m sending home notes afterwards, so students can continue the program at home.

So, what is Tutpup?

It’s a drill-the-skills sort of site with a twist: students practice math and spelling skills by competing with other players that can be anywhere in the world.  So, in essence, you also have the potential for some social studies.

As a teacher, you sign up and create classes.  Assigning the classes a code, students then sign up using the given class codes and in that way, student accounts are kept neatly by classes.  To save time and tears (yes, tears…”I wanted PinkPony8 and it’s taken! waaaah!”) I went ahead and made accounts for students.  Yeah, the number gets staggering, and it does take time on my part, but when a class time is 30 minutes, you can waste it all on setting up accounts.  Plus…tears.  Best to be avoided.

Student accounts are made by selecting a color, animal, and number–eg. PinkPony8 or BlueCrab246.  Student names are not used.

Despite the competitive purpose of the site in which students are in essence “interacting,” there is no chat feature or any other way for students to communicate.  This is simply a place to practice skills while competing against someone else.

Pros:

–Students get timed tests in addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, times tables, algebraic equations, and spelling.

–Range of difficulty allows for ages 5-14.

–Good graphics and sound, plus no ads.

–Keeps track of wins, special awards, and worldwide and country wide high scores.

–Kids have a blast playing it.

–It’s FREE!

Cons:

–Slow load times midday because I’m sure a lot of kids are using it.

–Spelling is difficult for American kids due to the accent of the word caller.

Other than that, it seems to be an overall attractive site for students.  Besides the practice of skills, every player is marked with a country flag.  When students challenge one another, they see the flag and country name of their opponent.  Opportunities abound for including this in social studies–learning about the countries, keeping a map with opponent countries marked, discussing languages used in opponent countries, learning international flags, etc.  Tutpup is in beta right now, but it is already top notch.  Great for kids to play at school, Tutpup is an equally great game for home.