DD1 has just spent an hour working out the cube root of 426 to 2 decimal points. She's convinced that she has to do all the calculations by hand - no calculators allowed. She understands the method perfectly well - work out between which two whole numbers it falls, then work out between which two numbers to one decimal it falls, then down to the 2 decimal point numbers.
She has spent an hour on one sum and has 2 more to do. One of them isn't a cube, it's a fourth power.
I don't see the point of doing it all by hand. I really, really don't. Everything I have looked up suggests that 'doing it by hand' will still involve using a calculator for the individual sums. Am I being dim? Is there a possibility that my DD has misunderstood and that it's OK to use a calculator for the 7.52x7.52x7.52 etc.? I get that it's useful to practice multiplying decimals, but this?