My Favorite Learning Websites

Starfall.com was a great tool in teaching my daughter, Lizzy, to read. It is fun and has some wonderful phonics songs and games for early learning.

If you have a Minnesota library card, you can access ELM online: www.elm4you.org. It has thousands of ebooks, encyclopedias, and articles online to access for research and any information.

My local library has an interesting link to Tumblebooks. Go to the Fergus Falls library website to access it: www.fergusfall.lib.mn.us Click on the image that says "Tumblebooks." It has many audio books with illustrations online. Some of the books are just fluff to me, and I sometimes have my kids turn off certain books. However, there are some excellent learning books including some great non-fiction and some very fun fiction books. Our kids' favorite story is "Marsupial Sue presents 'The Runaway Pancake'" narrated by John Lithgow. They also love the Arthurian medieval stories that teach about math: Sir Cumference and the First Round Table and Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland. These books are FANTASTIC tools to teach geometry concepts.

For some fun, innocent games without licensed characters Highlights Kids at www.highlightskids.com has some wonderful hidden pictures games and fun art games. They also have stories and non-fiction articles and pictures for learning.

Wikipedia still remains a great resource!

Refresher Course in Long Division

The teacher in this video teaches long division in the exact same way that I learned it in fifth grade in Minneapolis. My daughter is now learning long division, but the curriculum we are using (Math U See) teaches it using place-value notation and includes several extra steps. She has to add many zeros, thus making her very mixed up. I see what Math U See is trying to accomplish by teaching the children the "reason" behind long division. They are learning problem solving also by including the place-value notation, but I find it too cumbersome. Therefore, after watching this Math Mammoth video, I am going to start teaching her the way I learned. It is so straightforward and very understandable to me. If you need a refresher course in long division, I recommend watching this video.