Life of Fred Pre-Algebra 2 with Economics reviews

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

I am interested in reviews of Life of Fred reviews and Life of Fred Pre-Algebra with Economics. Do the books have a bias towards a free market only approach without reasonable regulations for example? Any use these or the high school Life of Fred and your thoughts?

 

 

Thanks!

[Chrysalis Academy]

You know, I didn't even get that far (into the heavy-duty discussion of economics) before throwing it across the room . . . he lost me on his very bizarre and disturbing revisionist history of the causes of the civil war.  We used all the books up until that one, but gave it a pass.  

 

It's not that I don't accept textbooks with views that differ from mine - those can be good food for discussion.  But this was too far out there.  Sometimes, you need a math book to just cover math, KWIM? We'll discuss competing views of history and economics . . . in history and economics class.  It would have been a distraction in PreAlgebra.

[Ravin]

So...what was his view on the cause of the civil war? I've heard theories that the economy played a role, and certainly slavery was only one factor and emancipation was an economic as well as political weapon. Also the lack of industrialization in the south put them at a grave disadvantage.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Honestly, I can't remember it in detail well enough to articulate his position fairly.  Maybe someone else who has the book can chime in with what he actually said.  I sold the book quite awhile ago now, so while I can report on how I felt about it, I can't remember the details of why it bugged me so much.  I do remember that up to that point, I thought, "Ok, I can work with this - i don't agree with all of it, but I can work with it." but then at that point he lost me completely.

 

Anybody with the book? Check the index for "causes of the civil war"  I wish I could give you a more detailed answer.

[dbmamaz]

I have heard of several people being offended by that book.  I dont intend to get it.  We have bio and physics

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

Are his books worth it for high school math? Do they offer great understanding of high school math in a fun way? I am hoping for a fun supplement to Saxon that offers greater understanding. Is this it???

 

Also, if anyone has the info about the civil war mention in the economics I would appreciate it.

[Alice]

Honestly, I can't remember it in detail well enough to articulate his position fairly.  Maybe someone else who has the book can chime in with what he actually said.  I sold the book quite awhile ago now, so while I can report on how I felt about it, I can't remember the details of why it bugged me so much.  I do remember that up to that point, I thought, "Ok, I can work with this - i don't agree with all of it, but I can work with it." but then at that point he lost me completely.

 

Anybody with the book? Check the index for "causes of the civil war"  I wish I could give you a more detailed answer.

 

I just looked. It’s a sidebar thing that takes up 3 pages. He says it was fought over tariffs, specifically the Morill tariff. He also makes it sound like Lincoln wasn’t interested in freeing the slaves. I think that could be argued to be true at the beginning of the war but he leaves out that Lincoln’s complicated feelings towards slavery evolved over time. 

 

We haven’t gotten to the book yet for Math so I haven’t really looked at it otherwise. We have used the other LOF books (Fractions, Decimals and Percents and now the Pre-Algebra with Biology one) as mostly a supplement. Ds really enjoys them and I have him work through them behind what we’re doing in our main curriculum, mostly as review and for a slightly different perspective. 

[dbmamaz]

My older son liked LOF as a review after we did math in another source.  I guess it probably has more why than saxon, but its light in general in instruction.  

[arborite]

We used the LOF PreAlgebra books last year, along with Fractions and Decimals. With Econ, DS paid close attention to the math and rolled his eyes when the econ rants got ridiculous. I let him skip most of the econ questions, which contributed little to the algebra. By contrast, in the Pre-Bio book there was a real link between the math and the bio topic (e.g., balancing equations, which has arisen in chemistry this year).

 

The method the Econ book develops for solving rate problems (six easy boxes) is extremely useful, and that alone made it worth dodging the siller stuff. Algebra has been much easier this year because of the foundation laid by the two Fred pre-algebra books plus Everyday Algebra.

[Amira]

Both of my sons did that book in the last couple of years. Neither one seems to have been scarred by the weird econ stuff and both definitely benefited from the math.

[Dmmetler]

Math is good, the econ stuff lead to some discussions on author's purpose and how people don't always agree-and how a math professor isn't a historian or econ expert. We mostly skipped the Econ questions, or discussed them and discussed multiple answers.

 

 And, honestly, DD likes LOF more for the purpose of laughing at how Fred can be so smart and so dumb at the same time (and how the girls are always more competent than the boys in LOF). She loves the story part of it.

 

I do really like the 6 pretty boxes for rate problems, and I think one reason why she's been so successful with AOPS is because LOF laid a transition between everything being explained up front and fairly straight forward, to having to discover and work it out on her own.

 

 

 

 

[EKS]

I am interested in reviews of Life of Fred reviews and Life of Fred Pre-Algebra with Economics. Do the books have a bias towards a free market only approach without reasonable regulations for example?

 

Yes, it does.  It drove me crazy.  So even though my son was in love with Fred, about a third of the way through the book, I told my son I was going to stop reading it.

[nmoira]

After that book, I showed DD one of the videos from his website... and we had a short talk about fact, opinion, and OPINION. She's well read in skepticism, and understands that very smart people can get caught in self-contained bubbles... perhaps are more likely to. Then we moved on. 

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

After that book, I showed DD one of the videos from his website... and we had a short talk about fact, opinion, and OPINION. She's well read in skepticism, and understands that very smart people can get caught in self-contained bubbles... perhaps are more likely to. Then we moved on.

Have you used any of the higher LOF books like Algebra or Geometry? Does LOF explain the concepts well along with the whys?

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

We used the LOF PreAlgebra books last year, along with Fractions and Decimals. With Econ, DS paid close attention to the math and rolled his eyes when the econ rants got ridiculous. I let him skip most of the econ questions, which contributed little to the algebra. By contrast, in the Pre-Bio book there was a real link between the math and the bio topic (e.g., balancing equations, which has arisen in chemistry this year).

 

The method the Econ book develops for solving rate problems (six easy boxes) is extremely useful, and that alone made it worth dodging the siller stuff. Algebra has been much easier this year because of the foundation laid by the two Fred pre-algebra books plus Everyday Algebra.

I see you have LOF Algebra and Thinkwell Algebra listed. What do you think of them for supplementation? My ds uses Saxon because his school uses Saxon but I would like fairly easy things that explain very well for review and supplementation purposes.

[nmoira]

Have you used any of the higher LOF books like Algebra or Geometry? Does LOF explain the concepts well along with the whys?

We've used Beginning Algebra, but DD had moved on to AoPS. LOF does explain concepts.

 

I haven't seen the new Beginning Algebra text, IIRC it combines the original text with the Home Companion and Zillions of Problems. I don't know to what degree the text has been altered, but the experience should be less disjointed.

[Amira]

Have you used any of the higher LOF books like Algebra or Geometry? Does LOF explain the concepts well along with the whys?

My oldest is doing geometry and my middle son is doing algebra 1 this year. They are both using other math programs in conjunction with LoF and always have (we started with fractions before there was an elementary set). My oldest in particular really likes how Fred explains things and always prefers to learn new concepts from Fred instead of his other math programs. For us, LoF has been a perfect supplement, especially since my children actually like doing it.

[NittanyJen]

Have you used any of the higher LOF books like Algebra or Geometry? Does LOF explain the concepts well along with the whys?

 

DS12 used LOF Beginning algebra and did very well with it.  We own the rest of the series (except geometry, for some reason) and I have looked through them, and I love the detail of the math instruction in them, as does DH (who is a math professor, btw).  

 

For this year, I did switch gears, just because DS has been using Fred alone since the Fractions book, and I wanted him to experience a different POV for a short time-- I wanted him exposed to problems written by more than one author.  So this year we are monstering together algebra II and geometry, using Tobey & Slater (algebra II) and Geometry (AoPS-- an experiment, since I loathed the AoPS prealgebra book and tossed it-- however, I really like the geometry text quite a bit).

 

He will go back and do LoF Algebra 2 on his own starting in January, as that really is his main math program-- I do just think it is important for kids to periodically see problems written by other authors, no matter how good their current math program might be.

 

The depth of understanding required to move forward in Fred is fantastic, when the student takes his time to digest the information.  This is really good for math-capable students and gifted & talented students in particular, who are often accustomed to sailing through things without applying a lot of thought-- in Fred, doing so can cause one to miss an awful lot of the instruction present in the book, and then trouble starts!  Using Fred in a careful manner teaches the student how to slow down and think in order to really succeed, which is an amazing life skill for these students for later, for when the work gets harder, whether that is in college, grad school, or whenever; if you hit that wall only when the work becomes truly difficult, life can become very hard very fast.  Fred requires the student to really pay attention; the information is all there, and it teaches the students the "why" behind the number relationships-- and it also teaches them how to ready carefully and how to study.  The problem sets are like the ones they will encounter at a quality university-- shorter, but higher quality, in that instead of plugging in problems just like the examples, they will need to apply what they have learned in order to succeed.  That is what we love about Fred.

 

I see that recently the Beginning Algebra set was reorganized; instead of a book and the Home Companion, these two books have been merged into one single volume, providing more problems in the actual algebra book, along with additional teaching and pacing.  There is still the Zillions of Problems book by the same author (or Khan Academy, which is not related, but is free) for those who need more repetition.

 

We've been very happy with Fred.

 

Regarding the Economics book:  Yeah, his opinions on Economics are a bit out there.  However, they provided great fodder for discussion for us, and the PreA topics in the book were rock solid.  In fact, the Economics discussions we had were apparently really inspiring.  My 12YO has, for a year now, been watching the stock markets, developed opinions on whether Greece should reintroduce the Drachma and ditch the Euro, China's influence in the US, and different scenarios that could happen depending upon how China's economy goes, and so on.  In other words, although his opinions do not at all mirror Stan Schmidt's, our son has become an economics junkie.  We set him up with a Flipboard account just so he could get news articles about what is going on in the world on his ipad without random articles that would be uninteresting to him (or unhelpful).  Who would have figured on that one?  I hated economics as a high school senior.  My kiddo halfway through logic stage is hooked on it.  Without LOF PreA, would we have ever have given him enough exposure to it to get that connection?  We disagreed with it.  Big deal.  He didn't try to tell our kid to eat babies or anything.  And it did teach him excellent mathematics :)

[arborite]

I see you have LOF Algebra and Thinkwell Algebra listed. What do you think of them for supplementation? My ds uses Saxon because his school uses Saxon but I would like fairly easy things that explain very well for review and supplementation purposes.

 

We have been alternating between the two. ThinkWell has terrific, thorough, straightforward explanations and lots of drill. It works well for DS. Fred also works well for him, though it is very different. After a a month of either Fred or TW he is antsy and we switch to the other for a change of scenery. Variety is the spice of life!