You know those irritating compasses? The ones that are half eye-stabber, half pencil, and 100% irritating? The ones that somehow keep getting bigger as you use them, so instead of making a nice circle, you wind up with a drawing of a snail?
Well, leave your snails behind and get this great SAFE-T compass. While it’s not perfect, we’ve found it to be SOOOOOOOO much better than your average math tool. At this cheap price (just over a buck+shipping), you can’t lose!
Khan Academy is the single-most helpful resource I’ve come across. Although I’ve not utilized the site’s other areas such as science or humanities, the math videos provided have been my saving grace more than once. The concepts covered range from fairly simple arithmetic to trigonometry and precalculus.
Sal Khan (the site founder) explains things in a real and understandable way, and you can review the video as many times as needed. His videos stand out from others in that instead of watching a teacher standing in front of a math problem, what you see is simply a black screen with neon writing while the problem is being explained. To me, this is less distracting.
We’ve been using this site for awhile, and have watched it grow to include practice problems and more. You are not required to make an account (FREE!) to view videos, but if you do it will keep track of your child’s progress and they can earn “badges” etc.
With the addition of these new features, it seems to me that the site is a little harder for newbies to understand. The easiest way to get around is just to type a simple phrase into the search bar such as “integers”, “negative numbers”, or whatever topic you are currently working on. A list of videos should come up then, and it would be a good idea for you to pre-watch it to make sure it’s applicable to what you’re doing.
As much as my son does not favor math, he loves Sal and sometimes asks to watch the videos again just because! No one I’ve ever talked to has been disappointed with this site. Start here.
Sal, if you happen to stumble across this, I just want to say–THANKS! 🙂
Three Cornered Hug 