Customer Reviews

Standard Deviants School - Basic Math, Program 7 - Fraction Basics (Classroom Edition)

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Well, I had heard that the Standard Deviants items had changed a lot after being purchased by
a new company. This is apparently very true!

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER pay the full price for one of these DVD's. By that, I mean if you pay over $10
total, you'll feel a little ripped off.

Apparently, what the new owners have done is take their basic instruction and break it down into
infinitesimal sections in order to sell more DVD's. If you think this will give your child a good
overview of fractions, you will be disappointed.

The DVD itself was fine. Mine had little lines across the bottom, but I suspect that might have been
because this was for a regular screen and I have a widescreen, but not sure.

What is un-be-freakin-lievable is that this DVD is only SEVEN MINUTES long! Yup - infomercials are longer.
What this DOES do is introduce the CONCEPT of fractions. It explains what a fraction is, what numerators
and denominators are, how to get a common denominator (but that isn't explained well, IMHO. As an adult, it was
easy, but if a kid was watching this, I am not so sure they would really get it). It also explained equivalent
fractions (as in, why 1/3, 2/6 and 4/12 are all basically the same fraction of 1/3). It shows via pie charts
which might help a child visualize hat they are talking about with a fraction.

But, that is where the instruction ends. Abruptly.
It does not show how to multiply fractions, which was the "fraction basic" info that I was hoping for
when I purchased this DVD.

All in all, this was disappointing. I'd bought 3 SD Math Basic DVD's, and really wasn't looking at the length.
NONE of the newer DVD's run very long, and are apparently broken into so many sub-sets of information that you'll
end up having to buy a lot of their DVD's (and they hope spending a lot of money) to get all the basic information.
This shows a real greedy side to the company, in my opinion. Just make a DVD about fractions, period.
Don't make me buy 2 or 3 of the DVD's to get good fraction information for a child who is having a rough
time with the fraction concept.

This is better than nothing, but that's all. You could make your own pie charts at home just as effectively,
or use cookies laid out in a clock format, etc, something that kids can relate to. The only benefit to this short
DVD is that the kid can watch it any time s/he wants to without your being involved.
Don't pay full price for these, because it definitely isn't worth it.