Deidre in GA Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 (edited) my son is in his first year of conventional school. in georgia. 9th grade. georgia has switched how high school math is implemented and the implementation is failing the students. and my son is in a supposedly GOOD school. math is not his forte but he had reasonable success with Singapore though TT Algebra I. we finished about 80% of TTAlgebra I before 9th grade began. very long story short, i want him to work at home on math over the summer. with most of TT Algebra I under his belt and what little public school added to his skills, would it be possible to complete Life of Fred Beginning and Advanced Algebra over a summer doing 2 lessons a day? is it also necessary/advisable to add the LOF Companion books into the mix? i'm looking for him to work on this 90 minutes or so a day. from reading threads here, LOF seems like it would be engaging. he did well with TT but i think going back to it at this point would feel regressive to him. Georgia's new curriculum integrates geometry every year but my son's been doing okay in that unit, comparatively speaking, and the author of LOF really stresses finishing algebra before moving to geometry. if this works out well, we could do geometry next summer. btw, doing LOF would be in addition to summer school math. i'm pretty sure my son and a whole lot of others in his class will not be passing the Georgia Math End of Grade test. what a disaster... Edited March 20, 2009 by Deidre in GA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bkpan Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 The LOF Algebra books contain a significant increase in workload compared to the Fractions and Decimals books. I think that even trying to complete one of the Algebra books in a summer would be heavy. And on top of your ds doing summer school - it just sounds like way too much, IMHO. You might want to forward your questions to the author of the LOF series. He is very responsive and a great help. HTH! Kim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 Just fyi, the beginning algebra book has 108 lessons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deidre in GA Posted March 20, 2009 Author Share Posted March 20, 2009 You might want to forward your questions to the author of the LOF series. He is very responsive and a great help. HTH! Kim i have communicated with the author although at the time i asked him about doing Algebra and Geometry concurrently. this was his reply: The place to start for your son would beLife of Fred: Beginning Algebra and its study guide Fred's Home Companion: Beginning Algebra. The study guide takes the student through the textbook in 108 daily lessons. Since your son has had some exposure to algebra, he will probably often be doing more than one lesson a day. The pair of books cost a total of $43 and I pay the shipping and handling. (This is "slightly" less than Teaching Textbooks!) He could start now. It would help his current situation. Then in the summer begin Life of Fred: Advanced Algebra and its study guide. This "integrated" stirring together of algebra and geometry invariably means that everything gets watered down. Especially the geometry. The heart of geometry is doing proofs. All the area formulas and definitions of triangles, etc. are secondary to the real meat of the course. Life of Fred: Geometry is centered on doing proofs. I recommend that it be studied after Advanced Algebra. It takes an older mind to work with the creativity of proofs---in contrast to the more mechanical feel that algebra has. Doing advanced algebra and geometry at the same time would be like taking an elementary and an advanced chem course at the same time. this was in early February and his suggestion/assumption was to start then. given that, i was thinking the entire Algebra combo might be doable over a summer given that my son has a fair amount of algebra I under his belt. in the TOC for Life of Fred, my son covered about 2/3 of it in TT. i'd still have him start at the beginning as both review and getting into Fred mode. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deidre in GA Posted March 20, 2009 Author Share Posted March 20, 2009 Just fyi, the beginning algebra book has 108 lessons. so hyper mom, not having seen the books, is now thinking hmmm, 4 lessons a day until he hits new material and then 2 lessons a day...that might work... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mims Posted March 21, 2009 Share Posted March 21, 2009 My daughter finished TT Textbook Algebra I in the beginning of February. She is doing Life of Fred Beginning Algebra right now at a rate of 2 lessons a day and it is not finding it stressful at all. I would guess about 30-45 minutes a day to do this. She will be done the middle of April (I think about 11 weeks). Now I'm trying to figure out our path! Starting TT Algebra II in September seems like a long gap but our summer is very interupted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deidre in GA Posted March 21, 2009 Author Share Posted March 21, 2009 My daughter finished TT Textbook Algebra I in the beginning of February. She is doing Life of Fred Beginning Algebra right now at a rate of 2 lessons a day and it is not finding it stressful at all. I would guess about 30-45 minutes a day to do this. She will be done the middle of April (I think about 11 weeks). from comparing the Table of Contents, I would think LOF would be reviewing/repeating most of what is in TT Algebra I. have you found that to be true? also, why are you doing LOF rather than moving right into TT Algebra II? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mims Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 I'm not sure I can totally answer that. I helped her a fair bit with TT - I graded everything and anytime she struggled we worked through it together so I always had to stay on top of it. She really understood most of it but only got about a B or maybe B+ so I thought it wouldn't hurt to solidify some of it. In addition we are gone a good part of the summer so I really didn't want to stop halfway through TT Algebra II. I didn't realize she would fly through LOF so quick! From what I could tell LOF seemed to approach some things different and definately was an enjoyable program. But now I really can't tell you how different it is because she is totally doing it on her own. She doesn't ask for help and grades her own daily work. I am grading her tests and she is doing quite well except for occasionally missing a negative or things like that. I'm really don't know if I would recomend this path or not. She is doing well, enjoying it, and has a good grasp of beginning Algebra. But I can't really say if it would be worth it for others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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