Your child can have fun while learning math concepts! Find out how in this story sponsored by UMIGO.

There are a lot of benefits to being a mom who works from home, especially during the summer. I get to spend quality time with Ayva doing fun activities, and I have an opportunity to really catch up on everything that she learned during the school year. Ayva just finished kindergarten, and even though I was there the whole time, I’m still amazed at how much her teachers were able to accomplish with her in just 10 months. I definitely don’t want her to lose the momentum, so I’ve been looking for ways to make sure she continues to learn while she’s on her break. I found a few online programs and apps, and Umigo is one of our favorites.

Umigo is an online learning program that uses engaging, musical “appisodes” to teach kids math concepts. It’s genius, really. If you get children laughing and having a good time, they’ll want to learn. Ayva has a lot of experience with apps, but we’ve been having a tough time finding an elementary school focused program that’s still fun. Ayva is just going into the first grade. I know that with Common Core and standardized testing it feels like we don’t have time to play, but children learn best through play. Umigo really gets that.

Funded in part by a US Department of Education Ready to Learn grant awarded to WTTW Chicago Public Media, Umigo is aligned with the Common Core Standards for Mathematics for first and second grades. It’s a wonderful tool for helping to prevent summer slide, and we’re using it to prepare Ayva for a new school year. One of the best parts about Umigo? It doesn’t cost anything!

For years I worked at an educational non-profit that served children who lived in impoverished neighborhoods. Our academic based afterschool programs were free, and our full-day summer camps were very low cost. We were able to support so many children because of programs like UMIGO that were committed to making education accessible to everyone. This year, UMIGO kicked off the Summer of UMIGO on National Summer Learning Day, Friday, June 19, to help combat summer slide. In partnership with the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA), UMIGO will take its programs to more than 70 communities around the country. You can find a location close to you by looking on the NSLA’s interactive map at SummerLearningDayMap.org.

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