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LIfe of Fred--Elementary


ProudGrandma
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I have a question...I bought Apples and Butterflies....and will be buying Cats and Dogs....they are fun books to read and look through. And maybe learn a few things from...but what am I missing that other people (including the people who wrote it) think that it is a stand alone curriculum? Am I not thinking about something...are there workbooks or something that I need to buy...I don't get it. Can someone clue me in as to how I am to use these books...

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I've borrowed Apples and Fractions to look through because I was thinking about getting the elementary set for my ds.

 

My initial impressions---I don't get it either.

 

I think my ds might enjoy reading them, but the elementary books are listed for 3rd-6th???!!

 

As far as the math goes---I found Apples to be lacking. It repeats the same addition problem over and over. Also there's two pages that are full of a list of 5+1 does not equal 7 and so on and so on. Simple shapes, basic clock reading.

 

I don't think there are workbooks or anything since the author clearly states in the intro that is what he is trying to avoid. The child is supposed to answer the questions at the end of the chapters. But more often than not the questions are "what do you think about when you think of the words ice cream?" or "What animal is quiet like a butterfly?"

 

Also (and ymmv) but there were three religious references that I felt were unnecessary in a math book. When talking about sets there are references to one God, 10 Commandments, and 12 apostles.

 

I personally would rather teach my child religious references in other contexts than math. It wasn't overbearing and could probably be skipped, but it did put me on my guard considering that my kid would likely be reading these on his own and those statements exclude a variety of religious traditions.

 

That aside I would use Apples as a read aloud with a Kinder maybe--but I'm not sure what math an older kid would get from Apples that they shouldn't already have mastered. Which is why I'm confused about comments about this being written for "gifted" students.

 

Fractions seems better in the math department and I think there are extra supplements for it. But I haven't actually read it in it's entirety yet.

 

I would consider them fun books for a kid to read if they were interested, and for the price---imo, maybe not even worth it. To be honest.

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My son loves reading them. We have learned a few things, but not basic math skills. He finds them very funny. I think it a fun and silly way to get a kid to like math.

 

The elementary books are definitely supplementary.

 

Also, an alteration has been made to Dogs. The story has been fixed to appease the many unhappy parents.

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We've used Applies, Butterflies, and Cats. They are painful for me, but DS6 liked the first two. There is virtually no worthwhile math at these levels. The writing is not good and the stories are disjointed. The first two books were funnier, but Cats we just waded through. It was really boring to us.

 

It was a good idea, but for $16 a book, it's too much like twaddle for us.:leaving:

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I have a question...I bought Apples and Butterflies....and will be buying Cats and Dogs....they are fun books to read and look through. And maybe learn a few things from...but what am I missing that other people (including the people who wrote it) think that it is a stand alone curriculum? Am I not thinking about something...are there workbooks or something that I need to buy...I don't get it. Can someone clue me in as to how I am to use these books...

 

Perhaps a math professor who wanted to spend serious time every day planning extra lessons and extra practice might use LOF as a stand alone curriculum.

In my opinion, though, LOF Elementary (Apples-Dogs) is a series of math stories to read to children. Each chapter has a few follow up math/logic questions. I have not personally read the elementary books after Dogs. I do however, have and use Fractions through Algebra.

We use MUS, MM or Foerster Algebra as our teaching textbooks. We use LOF for the love and enjoyment of math.

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Perhaps a math professor who wanted to spend serious time every day planning extra lessons and extra practice might use LOF as a stand alone curriculum.

In my opinion, though, LOF Elementary (Apples-Dogs) is a series of math stories to read to children. Each chapter has a few follow up math/logic questions. I have not personally read the elementary books after Dogs. I do however, have and use Fractions through Algebra.

We use MUS, MM or Foerster Algebra as our teaching textbooks. We use LOF for the love and enjoyment of math.

 

Us too :D We love Fred. As a math person I love Fred. My high schooler was so excited that her littlest brother was going to get to start enjoying Fred now, and my 10 year old finds them hilarious. My middle, very literal daughter(12) cannot stand them.

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In my opinion, though, LOF Elementary (Apples-Dogs) is a series of math stories to read to children. Each chapter has a few follow up math/logic questions. I have not personally read the elementary books after Dogs. . .

 

We use MUS, MM or Foerster Algebra as our teaching textbooks. We use LOF for the love and enjoyment of math.

 

:iagree:I use MM in addition to Fred. I have to say, though, Fred has a deceptively large amount of conceptual math in it, presented in a manner that is perfect for my verbal DD (and her mother). Just not much computation. You would definitely need to add practice with basic computations.

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Do you know about the, um, interesting story line at the end of the Dogs book?

 

OK, what happened at the end of the Dogs book?

I've used LoF, but not the Dogs book, and I keep hearing about this "interesting/disturbing/inappropriate/odd/etc" plot twist at the end of the book.

What happens?

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We've used Applies, Butterflies, and Cats. They are painful for me, but DS6 liked the first two. There is virtually no worthwhile math at these levels. The writing is not good and the stories are disjointed. The first two books were funnier, but Cats we just waded through. It was really boring to us.

 

It was a good idea, but for $16 a book, it's too much like twaddle for us.:leaving:

 

:iagree: We ended up returning ours. Also, the number of typos drove me crazy!

 

There were some great math concepts in there, but it was too painful (for me) to read through the rest. If they hadn't been so expensive, I might have kept them and let dd read them on her own.

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:iagree: We ended up returning ours. Also, the number of typos drove me crazy!

 

There were some great math concepts in there, but it was too painful (for me) to read through the rest. If they hadn't been so expensive, I might have kept them and let dd read them on her own.

 

You are the first person I ever heard complain about typos. Can you be more specific please. :)

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:iagree:I use MM in addition to Fred. I have to say, though, Fred has a deceptively large amount of conceptual math in it, presented in a manner that is perfect for my verbal DD (and her mother). Just not much computation. You would definitely need to add practice with basic computations.

 

OK, what happened at the end of the Dogs book?

I've used LoF, but not the Dogs book, and I keep hearing about this "interesting/disturbing/inappropriate/odd/etc" plot twist at the end of the book.

What happens?

 

We didn't read that one, but my understanding is that there are some dogs at a shelter who are scheduled to be euthanized. Originally, the book ended with the dogs in limbo, perhaps implying they would die. My book had a sticker with a happy ending about a large donation making it possible for all of the dogs to live.

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You are the first person I ever heard complain about typos. Can you be more specific please. :)

 

The Butterfly book is where I noticed the most. There were 4 in the part we read. It seems like they were words used incorrectly in a way that didn't make sense. Spellcheck wouldn't catch them. As an example of what I mean, but NOT from the book- "the dog went it the store". There was also a problem/answer that was incorrect. I returned the books so I can't look them up for you. I read the book aloud to my dds, so I corrected as we went along.

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We love LOF Elementary, and my dd is in 5th grade this year. She has always loved living math books and begs to read them. However, she hates math curriculums.

 

We made it through MM 4A, and I decided to take a break because she hit a wall at division. We're going to blast through LOF Elementary, and than go on to LOF Fractions. I'll supplement if we need to, and hopefully we can stick with LOF all the way.

 

Although, I'm a later is better kind of homeschooler. I don't mind if she is "behind." If I wait, she catches on very quickly, and then we don't waste a lot of time on math.

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FWIW...I guess it really depends on the kid. I borrowed Apples to read to DS and he loved it. He thinks Fred is funny, and asked me to get the next book. We are finishing Butterflies now and he is looking forward to Cats.

 

However, we do use them as a supplement to MEP. LOF is cuddle-on-the-couch time. We usually do all of the "It's Your Turn" exercises orally or on a small white board.

 

DD also uses LOF Decimals and Percents as a supplement to MEP. I am not sure if she will continue next year, though. She likes Fred, but is not overly excited about the books. We might just switch to CLE instead.

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I really don't think they're *meant* to be stand-alone. Does it say that somewhere?!?

 

Not for the Elementary series. I do think he says the higher levels are a complete math program, but the elementary series says things like "it is really important to memorize addition facts. Go do it and come back when you are done!" So I think he clearly recognizes that kids will need extra practice, drilling, etc. on math facts.

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Just chiming in to say, our local library system just picked up the entire LoF series from Apples to Linear Algebra, several copies of each book. This is in a major metropolitan area, but FYI, maybe if you are on the fence you might check your library before you buy.

 

That said, I didn't care for the elementary series at all. The higher level books are interesting as a supplement, but not enough computational practice for us to use it as a stand-alone. Plus, it's pretty clear that Fred and I differ greatly on politics and religion :-) I'm just starting to read Advanced Algebra though and haven't read the highest level books yet. (And when I say 'read', I mean I'm reading like a novel, not working like a text.)

 

HTH!!

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:iagree:I use MM in addition to Fred. I have to say, though, Fred has a deceptively large amount of conceptual math in it, presented in a manner that is perfect for my verbal DD (and her mother). Just not much computation. You would definitely need to add practice with basic computations.

 

:iagree: I don't believe the elementary series is stand alone. It is a good for Friday Fun math.

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Plus, it's pretty clear that Fred and I differ greatly on politics and religion :-) .)

 

 

This is true for me too!! But I'm finding it leads to some *really* interesting discussions with DD about POV, truth, and whether you should mindlessly accept everything you read (even in a textbook!). . . so I'm kind of counterintuitively liking that. It did just occur to me, though, I wonder what Pre-Algebra with Biology will be like??? ;)

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