Life of Fred- curriculum or supplement?

[cabdriver]

I have been looking at Life of Fred. Do you use this as their full math curriculum, or as a supplement? How long do the lessons take each day? Would you use a book like Decimals and Percents for a whole year or can you do more than one book?

Thanks for helping with these questions and any feedback- good or bad would be appreciated!!!

[Sunshine State Sue]

I have been looking at Life of Fred. Do you use this as their full math curriculum, or as a supplement? How long do the lessons take each day? Would you use a book like Decimals and Percents for a whole year or can you do more than one book?

Thanks for helping with these questions and any feedback- good or bad would be appreciated!!!

We just started LoF Algebra last week, so I'm not really qualified to answer any of your questions, but I agree with this quote from 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.

[cabdriver]

Thanks for the link to the previous thread. My dh has some reservations about using LoF as a primary curriculum, mainly because it doesn't sound serious enough. I really appreciate hearing from both sides of the issue of stand alone vs supplement. Glad to hear it is going well for you so far!:001_smile:

[jacqui in mo]

Did you dh look at the evaluation bridge (not sure what it was exactly called) section of the books? Those looked really challenging to me as I was looking at the pdf files today.

[Free Indeed]

I am using it as a stand alone program for my son. He is doing well with it. It is not overwhelming, it still challenges them, and he has to show mastery before he can cross the bridges. If I see that he needs more practice, than I will give it to him, but right now we are half way through the Fractions book and it is working very well. Best of all- he is enjoying math for the first time in a long time.

He does math for about 20-30 minutes each day. I am thinking that unless something major happens we will do both fractions and decimals and percents in the same year. Of course that may change. After finishing those 2 books he will be ready to begin the LOF beginning Algebra book. HTH!

[danielle]

Here's my experience so far with LOF. It IS fun, but it covers a lot of ground. I used Fractions with a girl I was tutoring in the spring. She has many learning challenges, but loved LOF and kept asking why school math couldn't be this good. She is VERY learning challenged, and I did find that I sometimes had to make up extra practice problems for her--maybe 3-5 extra examples on a white board the day after a specific lesson, to reinforce what we had done the day before. For a dc in a more "normal" range of work, I'd say you could complete at least a lesson a day, sometimes more if you give it about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Fractions + Decimals & percents might last you a year--it can take a bit of time to pass the "bridge".

 

I also used Beginning Algebra with my very-able daughter. She is very accelerated, but math is definitely NOT her strongest subject. She whizzed through 3/4 of the book, but needed extra problems in working the quadratic formula. I'm not sure how much of this was a lazy slump that set in about February and how much LOF. Anyway, we pulled some problems from a chapter in Jacob's Algebra and she practiced them for a week or so, while continuing with LOF. Once finished with LOF, I had her take the Teaching Textbooks online test, which she got better than 90% on (I forget the exact score). She also took the Saxon placement test, with same results. However, she decided to cross-check herself and spent about 2 weeks at the end of the school year working through about 3/4 of Algebra the Easy Way (the chapters with material covered in LOF). These turned out to be no problem, but built her confidence.

 

In summary, LOF definitely did the job, with delight. But I've never (6+ years now) found any program in any subject that didn't need a little help from outside materials. It's easy to pull problems from the internet or all those other math books we all have that didn't work for our kids.

 

We'll be continuing with LOF for the next level of Algebra, and most likely onward from there. The author recommends doing Algebra 2 before Geometry, and that's the sequence we'll follow. There is one tiny problem with this--it's outside the normal US sequence of math. Therefore, if the child is taking the SAT or ACT early (talent search programs, etc.), they won't score as well on anything requiring geometry as they will have had very little. This should even out by sophomore or junior year, when the tests really "count".

 

I've also found the author very helpful and responsive.

Danielle

[swimnactmom]

My ds loves it. It is quite fun and unlike any other math "program" we've ever used. I would not use it for him as a stand alone program. While it's fun and all that, it just doesn't offer enough practice and depth for him.

We use Singapore as our primary curriculum, and we will do LoF in the summer as a fun reinforcement.

Lof is great exposure for him to the self-teaching concept. He checks his own answers after each chapter. When he gets to the Bridge, the 5 chapter quiz, I check that. So he knows that if he peeks at the answers while doing the chapter questions, which is very easy to do because they're right there on the next page, he won't be able to successfully complete the Bridge. He really is learning the value of self teaching and how important it is to be honest about his work.

[Murphy101]

but should I find they need help crossing those bridges, I will simply use whatever Key To.. goes with it.

 

I'll have to let you know around Dec how it's actually going...

 

We are very much looking forward to using it just because it is very different. And I don't like the math/science is always presented as hard and serious. I think such an attitude towards any subject sets a kid up for thinking it's "too hard" to do and wanting to give up.

[Mom2GirlsTX]

We are using it in conjunction with Singapore, but we just started the Life of Fred Fractions several weeks ago. We love Fred, but I doubt we would use it as a stand alone program. I noticed that Susan Wise Bauer posted on one math thread she uses both Life of Fred and Chalkdust. I suppose it depends on the child, but for my kids I will probably use it in conjunction with another program.

[cabdriver]

Thanks for all your responses!!!:001_smile:

 

I think at this point I will plan to use LoF as a supplement, but I'll just see how it goes. Math as always come pretty easily to my dc, but they haven't really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to trying something that would make math fun.

I ordered the books today so I plan to start them as soon as they come before we get back to full time school.