Colleen in SEVA Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 I am trying to get a long term plan worked out for Blue. He will have completed LoF Fractions, LoF Decimals & Percents, and Singapore Primary Math 1A-6B by the end of this year. Since he has done well with this combo, the logical plan would be to continue with Life of Fred and Singapore NEM. I have looked over the first few chapters of NEM1, and it doesn't look too scary, despite its reputation. :) Has someone worked out a logical sequence for combining these two programs? And... for those who have BTDT with "mathy" kids, is there a different route you can recommend for after Singapore PM? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelly in the Country Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 I just did a board search to see if anyone had done this. My dd is finishing up PM 4B and has begun LoF Fractions. She loves Singapore Math, has fallen in love with Fred and is very "mathy". In the spirit of sticking with what works... I do like to plan ahead. :001_smile: Bumping this :lurk5: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarenC Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 I am trying to get a long term plan worked out for Blue. He will have completed LoF Fractions, LoF Decimals & Percents, and Singapore Primary Math 1A-6B by the end of this year. She is half-way through 6B now. Earlier this week I had her start slowly on NEM. I think we will do a little each day in NEM while we finish up 6B. 6B is mostly review anyway and she gets tired of that. This way, she feels like she is doing something new and we can go slowly. Karen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chai Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 I was hoping that someone will have figured this out, as well. My dd has finished LOF Fractions and is dying to get into LOF Decimals. I'm making her do some Singapore first, but Singapore 5 seems to be mostly review after doing LOF. I love Singapore too much to give it up, but dd loves LOF. Do I dare make the switch or do I continue to combine them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plimsoll Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 My son finished LoF Fractions, Decimals and Percents, and started Beginning Algebra. We took a pause for review, finished the Extra Practice book for Singapore 5, and are about to start the book for 6. I let him breeze through these, with more focus on stuff he needs additional practice on. We plan to resume Beginning Algebra after the Singapore 6 review. We will continue to do some review using the Challenging Word Problems books as well. We plan to continue with Singapore NEM also, since the combination of LoF and Singapore works well for us. Anybody else who's doing this and has ideas, I'd welcome input. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpupg Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 ... for my very extremely mathy DS after he completed PM 6. I spliced the two curricula by topic & chapter. I used Fred for the spine and spliced in the appropriate chapters of NEM, either right before or right after the Fred chapters. At some point, you leave NEM 1 and go into NEM 2, and eventually NEM 3 for a couple of chapters (I think). This worked great for us. We repeated the approach for Geometry, also using Fred and NEM. The boy sure knows his algebra and geometry after all this! Karen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Bay Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 We haven't tried LoF, but may. However, we do plan to combine NEM with other things we already own. I've found using 2 programs a big hit for my 10 yo, especially if she views one as being easier than the other (it doesn't matter which) so that sometimes she's just doing "easy" math. Plus, she doesn't always get certain things the SM way. We already have TT Alg 1, which has a lot of pre-Algebra, so will probably combine NEM 1 with that, and perhaps the MUS pre-Alg DVD we have for fun, since I think she's finally starting to miss Mr. Demme. I'm not a huge fan of TT, but some are, however I think she'll find the humourous problems fun. I am attracted to the story idea of LoF, but mainly for my youngest, who isn't even close to Algebra yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamato4 Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 I'm deciding between Videotext and LoF to go along with NEM. :-)Anna Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colleen in SEVA Posted March 28, 2009 Author Share Posted March 28, 2009 I spliced the two curricula by topic & chapter. I used Fred for the spine and spliced in the appropriate chapters of NEM, either right before or right after the Fred chapters. :D So how much are you selling this data for? Wow, that would save me a lot of time! :D I'm glad to see others have the same LoF/NEM plan, I think the two programs are such complements! I agree that PM5 is a lot of review after Fractions/Decimals, but it also provided Blue with a different way of thinking through the steps of some problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Bay Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 :D So how much are you selling this data for? Wow, that would save me a lot of time! :D I'm glad to see others have the same LoF/NEM plan, I think the two programs are such complements! I agree that PM5 is a lot of review after Fractions/Decimals, but it also provided Blue with a different way of thinking through the steps of some problems. Since I've never seen LoF in person, could you tell me how it and NEM complement each other so well? Also, do you use LoF as the spine due to the story telling aspect of it? (I've got that right, don't I? LoF has a story it tells or something like that?) We've used 2 math programs through SM, but didn't bother trying to correlate them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colleen in SEVA Posted March 28, 2009 Author Share Posted March 28, 2009 Since I've never seen LoF in person, could you tell me how it and NEM complement each other so well? Also, do you use LoF as the spine due to the story telling aspect of it? (I've got that right, don't I? LoF has a story it tells or something like that?) We've used 2 math programs through SM, but didn't bother trying to correlate them. I meant to say that Primary Math and Life of Fred Fractions/Decimals complement each other nicely, and it was nice to hear that continues with NEM and higher Fred books. You are correct that the Fred book series is based around stories of a young boy who is a math professor. As he encounters a need for a certain math topic in his daily life, it is taught. For example -- in the beginning of the Decimals book, he needs to make a fence for his pet microscopic bug so he can keep it in the view of his microscope (therefore the fence must be circular). He needs to know pi to determine how long to cut the string, so it discusses pi as a decimal (it was taught as a fraction in the Fractions book) and then teaches how to round decimals to make them easier to work with. I didn't correlate the first 2 Fred books with PM, we just sort of did one for a few days and then the other for a few days. The Fred books are easier if the student knows the basic concept from PM, but we encountered most things in Fred first, which allowed us to use the PM exposure as reinforcement. There were topics in Fred Fractions from PM 4, 5, and 6 -- so it would be hard to align them exactly. I think they make nice complements because neither program has an overwhelming number of exercises or review problems. A topic is introduced, there are a couple of problems to be sure you know what to do, then they move on to a new topic the next day. Blue does well with this -- he likes getting new topics every day and can keep up. By going through both programs, he was exposed to 2 or 3 different ways of thinking about concepts. We were also able to move through each topic a little more quickly, since I knew we'd be coming back to it again in the other program. Like kpupg, I feel that Blue really knows the material after the double exposure (even though it was only discussed briefly in each). Perhaps kids who need a lot of practice or review would not do well with this approach, but for "mathy" kids who get it the first time, and own it the second time, these two programs complement each other perfectly (at least at the levels we've covered). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Bay Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 I meant to say that Primary Math and Life of Fred Fractions/Decimals complement each other nicely, and it was nice to hear that continues with NEM and higher Fred books. You are correct that the Fred book series is based around stories of a young boy who is a math professor. . Thanks! I've been using MUS as a complementary program for PM, which has worked well for my vs/kinesthetic middle dd. But I am considering LoF with my ds who is my most verbal learner and may add it to my vs middle dd for the Algebra if I don't have to buy her too much else. We need to make a smaller book budget this year. It's hard, isn't it? So many great things, only so many dollars in the budget and hours in a day. Plus, my kids like to get out and play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpupg Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 ... I just cleaned up my HST database and Algebra I and Geometry were erased -- just a couple weeks ago. :blush5::( My younger child will never use the same program, so I got rid of them during a decluttering rampage. My plan was not complex, though. I used the tables of contents pages and just made a list of which chapters to do in order by topic. Decide whether you want to introduce the topic using Fred or using NEM (which would appeal more or make more sense to your student?). Then make a list of books/chapters in order. Within the chapters ... well, there you're on your own. My ds is so very mathy that he has never required lots of repetition. I think he did 5 of the 6 cities in each Fred chapter, and up to (but not always all of) half the problems in the NEM chapters (odds or evens or suchlike). Then you have to allow a few days for the reading of the Fred chapters before doing the cities .... YMMV. I think I decided to use the Fred for our spine/sequencer because I wanted him to follow the American math sequence, which Fred does. The NEM chapters very generally fall in line, but there are some times when you'll be sort of jumping back and/or forth in the NEM books. I just did it in chapter chunks, which minimized jumping around, and worked well for us. I hope this all makes sense, and I am really VERY sorry I was so uncharacteristically tidy about that. Karen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpupg Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 II think they make nice complements because neither program has an overwhelming number of exercises or review problems. I can't speak to Fred Fractions/Decimals, as they weren't yet out when DS was at that stage. NEM ratchets everything up a couple of notches from PM, and there is plenty of practice, from introductory exercises up to very demanding challenger exercises. We also bought and used the NEM workbooks. Fred keeps the same format thoughout the curriculum -- 6 cities per chapter. I did not use the Home Companion for Fred at that time, though I have bought it for Advanced Algebra. For Algebra I and Geometry, I thought NEM and Fred were great complements. Fred is more "socially" accessible, due to the wacky storyline, and it tries to teach underlying concepts and applications, not just procedures. NEM is more computationally intense, and approaches everything from that slightly different Singapore Slant. I look on this as having more tools in the toolbox, always a good thing. In Geometry, Fred is entirely proof-oriented. In NEM geometry, the proofs are there (but not in the standard American two-column format, and they are not identified as proofs, even though that's what the student is doing), but it is vastly more oriented toward computation and practical problem solving. I've heard lots of comments that Fred doesn't provide enough practice problems. NEM sure does. And the word problems in NEM can't be beat. OTOH, when you catch the kid reading the Fred books in bed ... well, ya can't beat that, either. That's when I just went and ordered all the rest of the Fred books I hadn't already bought :lol: I felt that every weakness of the one curriculum was offset in the other curriculum. BUT ... we are talking about doing two full curricula here. Not for the non-math-lover, I think. My very non-mathy DD (more from attitude than ability) will be following a different path, sigh. Karen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamato4 Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 And please don't feel bad for catching up your decluttering. I should do the same :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chai Posted March 28, 2009 Share Posted March 28, 2009 So, if you combine Singapore and LOF, do you need LOF Home Companion? It doesn't seem like we would need the additional problems if we are using Singapore. Is there any other benefit to the Home Companion? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LanaTron Posted March 29, 2009 Share Posted March 29, 2009 I'd like to know the answer to this, as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plimsoll Posted March 29, 2009 Share Posted March 29, 2009 Is there any other benefit to the Home Companion? Starting with Beginning Algebra, the Home Companion is needed if you want all the answers to all the problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LanaTron Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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