Free Rice is a website where students can practice things like math facts, English vocabulary, even finding countries on a world map. While it is in many ways a "drill and kill" website, it is a fantastic resource for students. Why? Because students can make a world of difference while they practice! Free Rice is run by the United Nations World Food Programme and helps support its cause of feeding people who go hungry all over the world. They do this through the website's sponsors, who fund Free Rice. The website works by having students answer multiple choice questions. For every question they get correct, 10 grains of rice are donated by the World Food Programme. Many of these subjects are self-leveling too, so students can get ample opportunities for practice while also ensuring plenty of opportunities for donating rice. They do pile up quickly!
I've noticed that Free Rice motivates two types of learners in particular. Of course, people who are motivated by service and helping others will want to do what they can to donate rice to those that are hungry, but I've noticed that students who enjoy video games and are motivated by achievements and competition are also motivated by Free Rice, as they seek to donate as many grains of rice as they can and to answer as many questions correct in a row as possible.
Best of all, Free Rice offers something for almost everyone. With subjects like multiplication tables, basic math, and English vocabulary or grammar, even students from third grade on in elementary school are able to get in on what this website has to offer. In fourth grade at SES, the students are using Free Rice and then keeping track of how many grains of rice they are donating using a Google Spreadsheet.
Free Rice is free to use and doesn't require an account, though you can create one if you are 13 or older (or younger with parental permission). Give it a try!
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