Life of Fred, elementary--a question

[Mama_Rana]

For various reasons, we need to take a break from math for a bit and get the fun back in. So I impulsively ordered the entire elementary set of LoF. They arrived today, and I want to dig in tomorrow. My plan is to work our way as slowly as necessary through them to get him wanting to do math again. The first couple books will be "too easy" for him, but it's my understanding that I should go through them anyway [and after reading the first one, I think if I didn't he'd miss too much of the story].

 

Since my goal is to make things fun for him, do you think I should still have him write out all the answers? Or should I give him a pass on that for the first 2 or 3 books?

 

Ultimately, I hope to get to a point that we can use Beast Academy 3A/B and onwards. Or else I need a personality transplant that will make math fun. :/

[bolt.]

I wouldn't make an older child write out the answers to the early books.

 

I would make it seem like a 'rule' of the books that a child has to start writing the answers on the book that 'starts after' their grade -- a 2nd grader would start writing for the 3rd book, etc. That way it won't always seem debatable and turn into, "Do I hAAAAve to?"

[Chrysalis Academy]

Oh, welcome to Fred fun! I hope you guys like it as much as we do.

 

I make dd9 answer the questions out loud. There are actually a lot of questions about things like sets and functions and geometric figures, rather than straight computation, so I don't skip it, because I want to make sure she is paying attention to the math, not just the story.

 

Later, you will start seeing "A Row of Practice" in addition to "Your Turn to Play" after a lot of chapters. I have her do those mentally, and at this point (Farming) they are 3-digit addition and subtraction problems, so doing them mentally is far better practice for her than doing them on paper would be.

 

I have dd5 write the computation and the answer on the white board, for computation problems, but for questions like "what is the 4th day of the week" she just does it out loud.

 

HTH

[SunnyDays]

I let DS skip the writing on the first four books. Now that he's in Edgewood, he's encountering a few new concepts, so I've had him start keeping a notebook of answers. Perhaps you could do the same... I like bolt's idea of starting him at or after his "grade" which sounds like maybe around the 3rd book. :)

[Mama_Rana]

I like Bolt's idea, but I'm not really sure where we are. :/ I admit we've been skipping around a bit trying to find a good fit, and just struggling. We were doing 2 digit addition and subtracting with regrouping, and had just started some multiplication at a very basic level.

 

I also really like the idea of a notebook to "collect" all the answers. Or a journal of sorts.

 

Thanks all!

[Cindyg]

We've always done LOF orally and with scratch paper to work out the problems. If you're trying to make it fun, and if writing is torture, then I'd skip the writing.

[Dassah]

We have a small, hardback notebook that my 1st grader uses for LOF, "the Fred Book". It is easy for her (we are doing Butterflies) but she LOVES writing in her Fred Book. She enjoys copying funny cartoonish Fred drawings into it and she voluntarily writes each problem set. :001_smile:

[joyfulhomeschooler]

We have a small, hardback notebook that my 1st grader uses for LOF, "the Fred Book". It is easy for her (we are doing Butterflies) but she LOVES writing in her Fred Book. She enjoys copying funny cartoonish Fred drawings into it and she voluntarily writes each problem set. :001_smile:

 

I like this!

[Mama_Rana]

We have a small, hardback notebook that my 1st grader uses for LOF, "the Fred Book". It is easy for her (we are doing Butterflies) but she LOVES writing in her Fred Book. She enjoys copying funny cartoonish Fred drawings into it and she voluntarily writes each problem set. :001_smile:

Yes! This is what I was imagining when I said a journal. L might go for that.

 

We'll find out today when we get started!

[Mama_Rana]

Ok, he LOVED it. He read 6 chapters on his own. I let him choose between a B&W composition book and a spiral notebook with a cool cover, and he chose the B&W. I showed him the questions, and said he could write his answers in the B&W journal. He took right to it! The only thing he asked me to write was the chapter title [and that was just for me anyway; I thought it would be cool to have the chapter titles and all in there rather than just the anwers]. I made him stop after the 6th chapter in Apples, and said he could do more later. He said if I bring it in the car [we're driving to my sister's tomorrow], he'd do some then.

Yay, I'm so happy. :D

He said this is what he wants math to be. He likes the reading, and the fact that there's not much practice. I did warn him that later as he learns new things, we'll probably have to add in some practice to round it out, but we'll worry about that when we get there. :)

 

Thank you thank you!!!