Life of Fred

[Kindred Hearts]

Has anyone used this series of math books? What did you think?

[Storm Bay]

They are a huge hit here (alliteration intended; dd is studying poetry right now).

 

My eldest did the Geometry, my middle one is finishing up Beginning Algebra and my youngest is doing Fractions. My eldest has read all of the books from Fractions through Trig just for the story.

 

The stories are somewhat silly to me, but fun and incorporate the math in such a way that dc can see how the math applies in real life without boring problems (in my dc's opinions) about mortgages, etc. Of course, my dc do those, too, because I have them do Algebra 1 twice.

 

Two other great points about this math are:

a. The author gets students to think. Some of the learning comes in the answers to problems in the text, because he has students do some problems before they know everything to see what they can do, but never does that in the final 2 cities for each chapter which are more like a test (no answers in the text). This is a fabulous learning tool, IMO.

 

b. He's also very good at taking things that have been traditionally explained in more complicated ways and simplifying it. He'll show both types of explanations/methods in the book so that you can choose.

 

There isn't a math curricula out there without some type of shortcoming, of course. Some dc need more practice that LOF gives even with the Home Companions, which isn't hard to do if you have something else. Not all dc will need more or even the extra problems in the Home Companion.

 

In the Geometry, students write 2 column proofs, but are allowed to simply say "Algebra" instead of naming which Algebra Postulate is used in a step in the proof. In our case, dd did 2 column proofs in another Geometry where she did have to name them. If you want your dc to do paragraph proofs you'll either need to teach that yourself and have them do some of the problems that way or use something that teaches paragraph proofs along with it.

 

The author is good about answering questions, and helped me a couple of times while my eldest was doing the Geometry.

[TravelingChris]

I have strange history with this. I started with geometry with my older dd. SHe did almost all the book but thought she hadn't learned it well so we turned to ALEKS. She got stuck in that after a while and I finally decided she had done enough and gave her a B in geometry. Then she started ALg 2 with Chalkdust and did her ACT. She did okay, not great in math overall but she did fantastically on the geometry part (95%). I think the LOF did teach her well but she just didn't think so. So I was noticing that she was having stupid problems in Alg. 2. So I chucked it, went back and went over the second half of ALg 1 in LOF and am now continuing with Adv Alg with LOF. My new plan with her is to finish Adv ALg this summer, then go on to Trig and then Calculus. It'll be okay if she doesn't finish it next year but should help her in college.

 

WIth my younger, she has done Fractions, Decimals and Percents, and now is midway through ALg 1. I am very happy with the program and find it has enough material for my girls.

[Kindred Hearts]

Thanks for the information. I just bought the 1st 2 LoF books and am hopeful that this story approach will excite my dd.

[mombygrace]

my older ds 12 has used lof fractions and decimals. He started alg after singapore 6 but found it difficult due to topics he had not covered yet. He would like to go back to it so we would use it again after sing. discovering math 1. For my next dd 11 I would have her do lof fractions, decimals and pre algebra this summer b4 starting beg. alg.

[Kendra]

My math-headed 6th grader reads LOF books "just for fun, before I go to sleep". Whatever. :laugh: I'm so NOT a math head, but I think it's great. More power to her, and she thinks LOF is fun.