Math for 5yo, how far to go in LoF?

[Eagle]

Ds (5) will start K in September. Last September I felt he was ready for school, so we homeschooled a practice year of K. He had only missed the age cutoff by a couple of weeks and already knew how to read well when we started the school year. I chose MM1 for his math curriculum and it has mostly gone well. Occasionally he will get overwhelmed with it and then we stop for a few weeks and work on math only through games, living books, and LoF. Eventually he asks for MM again. We will probably have finished MM1 by September, our official K start time.

 

He LOVES LoF. He is now in Cats and the material is ahead of where we are in MM. Which appears to work well for us so far. He picked up place value really easily because he loved the story in the book and wanted to do what Fred was doing. Ds is way more interested in learning math that he is told is for "older kids". Last week he demanded that I teach him fractions because he liked "the fractions dude" in the Basher algebra book. Now he wants to learn multiplication for the same reason. Subtraction, not so much. He can do it, but doesn't fully understand how you can turn the same set of numbers into both addition and subtraction sentences.

 

How far can we go with the elementary LoF books while he is still so young? Do I let him race through them all because he enjoys the story and may pick up something new here and there? Do I hold them back until he is ready to cover the same material in MM? Is there a certain book in the elementary series where the challenge really ramps up and we should steer clear until he is older?

 

Do you have any general advice about how to approach math if you have btdt with a child like ds? Any resources we may not know of that may interest him?

[kiwi mum]

I haven't used Fred with a child this young - I have been using the Elementary series this year to fill in gaps for an older student. But I believe the recommendation for younger students is that they will read through the series more than once. So I would let him go all the way through to Jelly Beans if he wants to and then go back to the beginning. On the second time through he may be developmentally ready for the things he didn't get the first time through.

[Ravin]

I'd say go as far as you want with Fred, and bring up the rear to cement things with MM. We started remediating DD with Fred, and now we're blazing the trail with him while bringing up the rear with something else.

 

Fred can also be re-read. We hit a wall at Ice Cream, so we're re-reading from Goldfish on while catching up and reinforcing in our other math curriculum. As young as he is, I see no problem with reading on up through Ice Cream or even Mineshaft then re-reading them. Just go back and start over from further back if/when he hits a wall, and let it be "Fun Math."

[boscopup]

My K'er just finished Dogs. We'll start Edgewood next week. I'm just going until he hits a wall. Then we'll restart with Apples. So far, the only thing we've hit before learning it in Singapore 1 is addition with regrouping, and I glossed over that because I want to do mental math longer before I introduce the standard algorithm. He'll do the standard algorithm this summer in 2A, I believe.

[Greenmama2]

I agree that he could just keep going through the elementary series (unless he hits a wall) & then start again. My almost seven year old is using Beast Academy as her main program but we started Fred on a break while we waited for BA to arrive. She's in Dogs and it's all been revision so far (apart from the tidbits about calculus etc) but I'd still like to have her reread them as I know she'll get even more out of them a second time.

[Mélie]

My 5yo is just finishing up MM 1B, but he's been doing LOF with his older brother and is still tagging along at Ice Cream. He still enjoys the stories and gets bits and pieces of the math. He also goes back and reads Apples-Dogs (the ones he really understands) for fun. When my older son moves on to Fractions, I'll have my younger guy start back at the beginning.

 

I would keep going as long as its fun for him, then start back at Apples.

[2smartones]

Keep going! As others have said, you can repeat books if necessary, or if you find that you just have a mathy kid, you can keep going. There is way more math in the Fred series than any high schooler will ever need, so it's not like you'll run out of material or anything.

[Eagle]

Thanks everyone for the advice. We'll just keep reading about Fred as long as ds is interested!

[LEK]

Yep keep going, we started LOF at 5 the plan was to stop and backtrack when needed however i do not feel the need to hold them back. (we have not needed to backtrack yet though)

[Grover]

we've just kept on trucking too... when it gets too hard we'll double back, but we're not there yet :-)