Life of Fred!

[kailuamom]

We just got our Life of Fred books (we got Fractions and Decimals & Percents) in the mail today and, so far (we did chapter 1), we love it! And the author (Stan Schmidt) was very nice via e-mail, and even autographed the books!

 

Thanks to those of you who suggested LOF on various threads -- I am glad we got it. :D

[hsmom]

I was wondering if that program was as great as everyone raves. Well I guess I will have to check it out.

 

Could you use it to supplement? Or is it a really stand alone program?

[kailuamom]

I was wondering if that program was as great as everyone raves. Well I guess I will have to check it out.

 

Could you use it to supplement? Or is it a really stand alone program?

 

We have only done one chapter, but it is funny and the kids like that. I even find it entertaining! It is just for my older dd, but the younger two were listening along, too.

 

We are going to use it as a supplement to TT7. The author says it is stand alone, but I think some more practice would not hurt. :001_smile:

[Heather in Neverland]

We just got LOF fractions too, did the first chapter and ds asked "Can we do more?" :svengo:

 

We plan to use it as a supplement with MUS Epsilon.

[swimnactmom]

Yes same here. We received it last month (I read all the rave reviews about it here on this forum.) My ds really loves it. We are on chapter 17 of the Fractions book. For the summer, ds is between Singapore 5B and 6A and LOF is the only math he is doing this summer.

The LOF website (I think it is the publisher's site) is a great resource because you can actually check out the pages of text from each book. Please don't ask me to provide a link here (I had googled it) because if you notice on my signature, I'm technologically challenged. A request like that may cause me to sweat profusely and hyperventilate.

[Heather in OK]

My oldest dd is loving the Fractions book too! :)

 

If you have a child who LOVES to read this would be great for them. If you have a child who does really well having Math explained to them in real life situations, this will work! My dd and I are VERY alike when it comes to math (a lot of this: :confused:..lol) and LOF appeals to me too! If I had had something like this in school I would have done a lot better.

 

Could you use it to supplement? Or is it a really stand alone program?

We are using it as a supplement to R&S.

 

Since there are still concepts they need to learn other than fractions and decimals alone, I think those two books are best as a supplement.

[GSMP]

LOF worked well for me. I have a child who is very literal. So reading the stories and they are funny stories has made math fun for the kids.

 

Granted, my daughter did think they were a little odd......:D

[Guest]

at what grade would you start these? also, i noticed from reading the fractions table of contents that the books cover more than just fractions or decimals/percents. (sorry about the lack of proper sentence form. i have my new daughter asleep in my arms.)

[HSDCY]

Based on great reviews here I bought both fraction and percent/decimal books last week. I thought the books were OK but ds loves them. He's done Singapore 4B, 5A and CWP4 last school year so I am using this as a review during summer. He is already working half way through the fraction book and I caught him reading the percent/decimal book the other day.

 

Although ds gets math easily, he dislikes doing any math, even math games. Primary Challenge Math and Life of Fred are the only two math programs that bring excitement to him. That says a lot about these programs.

[Carmen_and_Company]

Thanks, for all the great Life of Fred reviews, as I currently waiting for copies of Beginning Algebra, the Fractions, and the Decimals and Percents books that I bought off the swap board.

 

My dd loved the Singapore word problems and not so the Dolciani's Algebra text I wanted her to use, while my youngest ds thinks working fraction problems is an ancient form of torture--lol. Hopefully, Life of Fred Fractions grabs his attention this fall.

[Sunshine State Sue]

Could you use it to supplement? Or is it a really stand alone program?

To quote Kathy in MD in this thread:

Added: I think some will be reluctant to use it as a stand alone program until it has more of a track record on these boards, because something so fun shouldn't be so good. OTOH, some may be forseeing trying to explain to the admission officer at MIT that a book titled Life of Fred IS a serious calculus text.

:iagree:

[Sunshine State Sue]

at what grade would you start these?

 

From the website:

 

1) When should my child start the series?

 

Life of Fred: Fractions is the first book in the series. It presupposes that the reader knows three things:

 

i) the addition tables What's 5 + 8?

 

ii) the multiplication tables What's 7 times 8?

 

iii) long division What's 6231 divided by 93?

[2cents]

We do ABeka M-Th and LOF on Friday. My girls LOVE LOF and always want to keep doing more. It is great to see that they are enjoying math. 'Fred' is a very entertaining character!

[Free Indeed]

We are using LOF- we are on chapter 16 of fractions. Absolutely LOVE it! He wants to do math. :001_smile: It is been a blessing in our family. I don't see a need for extra practice at this point, if he needs extra practice I will add it in, but one of the reasons I chose LOF (besides the wonderful story) was the amount of problems was not overwhelming. They have to show mastery because to pass the bridge they can only miss 1 out of the 10 problems given.

[sadiegirl]

My boys love the books but I am going to supplement. I think that this is a very way approach to learning and I am glad to see things like this out there to teach kids(as well as adults like myself!) that learning math can be fun!

[Deece in MN]

I was wondering if that program was as great as everyone raves. Well I guess I will have to check it out.

 

Could you use it to supplement? Or is it a really stand alone program?

 

I think I am the minority here as my dc use LofF as a stand alone program. When I had purchased them I thought we would use them as a supplement, but it just became too much. So I decided to take the plunge and drop everything but the LofF. My dc are doing very well with it. We received testing results a week ago and my ds improved 30% on math computation and he has only been using LofF for the past year. Now, I don't know if all the credit should go to LofF or if he was just more mature and things finally clicked or what, but we are going to continue with it this year and see what happens come testing time. If they do well this next year then I think I will be satisfied that LofF is working just fine.

 

Anyway, in the end I think it is a personal decision and you have to choose what feels right for your dc.

 

HTH

[hsmamainva]

My oldest son is really enjoying the LoF books!!!

 

We've started with the fractions and decimal books because he really struggled through TT Prealgebra last year and he never really understood either fractions or decimals.

 

He's using it as a stand-alone text because he really loves them and I think they're sufficient all by themselves.

 

Our plan is:

 

Beginning Algebra - 9th

-- beginning this book by Christmas --

Geometry - 10th

Advanced Algebra & Trignometry - 11th

-- 1 semester for each book --

Calculus - 12th

[Matryoshka]

I am really looking forward to what people using this stand-alone have to say about the program after getting through a couple years of algebra.

 

My older two kids have finished up Singapore 4B and I'm having them do LoF fractions over the summer for fraction review. They are really enjoying it so far. One of my dds especially can relate so much better to it as a story - got a hint of this earlier when she begged to do the problems at the end of each Penrose chapter even though we were having almost daily tears with "regular" math. We'll do Singapore 5 next year - if the LoF fractions book finishes up as well as it's started, I'm wondering if I should do the Decimals/Percents book next summer, or even to supplement during the school year...

 

I've been supplementing the Singapore with Math Detective and Cranium Crackers from Critical Thinking Co. - I'm wondering if when we get to algebra I found something similar to supplement Fred if it would be enough to use it as our main curriculum. So I'm going to be very interested to hear what everyone has to say after they've used it longer!