Once upon a time, Amy and I were at war over long division. She just could not get it, and I could not understand why it was so hard for her! In desperation I finally googled "long division" for an alternate method and found this blessed site, DoubleDivision.org. The result was a girl who could not only divide large numbers confidently, but who was even cheerful about doing it! Yippee! That student is now very capable of doing division the old-fashioned way.
Forward three years. I have another fifth grader. She is actually way past division, but she never really got long division down well. As a result we were having trouble with more complicated operations. I don't like having to back up; it seems so discouraging to my students. So instead of starting over with division again, we sat together at the interactive DoubleDivision site to learn something entirely new. After two demonstrations Elisabeth was ready to do it on her own. I love this method. The guess-work is gone, it almost always results in correct answers, and it almost never brings on teeth-gritting, hair pulling, tear-inducing frustration!
Tomorrow we will go back to DoubleDivision.org and learn how to divide with remainders written as decimals.
Forward three years. I have another fifth grader. She is actually way past division, but she never really got long division down well. As a result we were having trouble with more complicated operations. I don't like having to back up; it seems so discouraging to my students. So instead of starting over with division again, we sat together at the interactive DoubleDivision site to learn something entirely new. After two demonstrations Elisabeth was ready to do it on her own. I love this method. The guess-work is gone, it almost always results in correct answers, and it almost never brings on teeth-gritting, hair pulling, tear-inducing frustration!
Tomorrow we will go back to DoubleDivision.org and learn how to divide with remainders written as decimals.
Oh - You don't know how timely this is. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting that!
Thanks! :)
ReplyDeleteI am going to need that with my Grace. She is having trouble with larger multiplication problems. Any site suggestions for that? PS. You are right about teaching my kids to do their own. I am just a laundry addict. I love doing laundry. There is a begging and an end, at least for a moment! Have a great weekend.
ReplyDeleteJenn
Just stopping by today to wish a lovely weekend.
ReplyDelete~Tamara
BranchOfWisdom
I'm definitely looking into this website! Aubrey is frustrated w/ the whole division thing and bless her heart her mom is not strong in math. Thanks for this!
ReplyDeleteBlessings, Julie