Savermom Posted July 10, 2010 Share Posted July 10, 2010 A little background--we used and love Singapore Math with ds #1. I knew ds #2 wouldn't do well with it so we used Horizons Math for the last 5 years. 4th grade and 5th grade were a huge struggle trying to get lessons done. ds hates math and drags on and on for hours. Although I like Horizons, the thought of repeating it next year with the same attitude makes me want to :banghead: I have a copy of Life of Fred Fractions and Decimals & Percents and wonder if I could use that instead of Horizons 6. I can't really tell if LOF is meant more 5th or 6th grade and how it falls in with what Horizons 6 teaches. It's hard to compare their Scope & Sequences. Has anyone switched to Fred after Horizons 5? Can you tell me if I'd be "going backwards" a year or not? Thanks so much Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catholicmommy Posted July 10, 2010 Share Posted July 10, 2010 I have a copy of Life of Fred Fractions and Decimals & Percents and wonder if I could use that instead of Horizons 6. I can't really tell if LOF is meant more 5th or 6th grade and how it falls in with what Horizons 6 teaches. It's hard to compare their Scope & Sequences. Has anyone switched to Fred after Horizons 5? Can you tell me if I'd be "going backwards" a year or not? Thanks so much I'm no math expert, but we found horizons a little crazy for awhile near the end of grade 4... I think it was a few reasons: 1) my dd didn't have her math facts SOLID so all of the long division/fraction reducing etc.. took FOREVER because she still had to ask herself what 9x8 was, and 8/4. 2) There is just WAY too much work on the horizons lessons for her to do without burning out. SOOOooooo... realizing that horizons is a spiral approach to math, and that each topic will come back again and again, i only made her do a few problems on each page, (things i knew she needed practice in). I crossed out at least half of the questions, sometimes more. BUt the deal i had with her, was that she had to do at least one page of Life of Fred every other day, otherwise she would have to do all of horizons again. So I make her do bits and pieces of horizons, and ALL of the tests, and slowly work her way through Life of Fred. Life of Fred is great at showing where their gaps in understanding are, especially if you have been using a spiral curriculum... because when they get to the Bridge section, they have to demonstrate mastery. hth :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savermom Posted July 10, 2010 Author Share Posted July 10, 2010 Last year I had ds do only 1/2 the review problems but for every one he got wrong, he'd have to correct it and do another one. That still took too long so I was hoping to not do Horizons at all this year. After reading posts on Fred, I'm thinking it's not enough for a 6th grade stand alone year. (or is it?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catholicmommy Posted July 10, 2010 Share Posted July 10, 2010 I don't know if I would do it for a stand alone math program or not. In the first two books there are so few problems for them to do, so if they do need more repetition, i'm not sure what you would do. Also, there are a million topics that horizons covers that wouldn't be in LOF like measurement, metric, calendars, graphing etc... Those things are easy to pick up later, but I found that LoF fractions would not have been sufficient for stand alone program for a whole year... although maybe when I get to grade 8-9 I'll look back and wish we had done it the more simplistic way with LoF alone. Sorry I can't be of more help :confused: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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