Update on Life of Fred

I thought it would be good to give an update on Life of Fred (elementary series) after using it for a year. Let me just start by saying the love Emma had for Fred has never waned. She still is enjoying this math program even though the books have introduced much harder math concepts.

The books in the Life of Fred elementary series are:
Apples
Butterflies
Cat
Dog
Edgewood
Farming
Goldfish
Honey
Ice Cream
Jellybeans
*Kidney
*Liver
*Mineshaft
*these are the intermediate elementary books
I previously posted I thought each book would concentrate on a math fact like Apples did with the addition facts for 7, but I was wrong. More and more math facts are add in to each consecutive book and by Farming you have learned them all....and the way Fred does it Emma had them all memorized (no more pauses in her recitation of addition/subtraction facts). In Honey you began memorizing the multiplication facts in a way only Fred can do it, which means painless. He even has you make math fact cards and in the next few books you can not proceed to do certain chapters until you work on these cards.

Dr. Stanley Schmidt strongly recommends you start with Apples even if you are in 4th level math. Many will try Apples and feel this is way beneath their child's level, and it will be, however if you bear with the simplicity your child will embrace math like never before. Simply go faster through these first few books and cover the ground work Fred is laying down. Besides the story is fun and quirky enough to keep you and your child interested. Trust me, within a few books your child will go from very simple math to geometry, algebra, trigonometry, and even calculus concepts I never covered until advanced math classes I took in high school/college, as well as all the elementary math concepts they need to know.

In these books when a concept is covered it is not then drawn out to get increasingly harder like most math books do. What I mean is when a child is learning addition facts, they learn all the facts and continue to add one digit to one digit equations (5+6=11) until all the facts are introduced, then proceed to two digit plus one digit (12+4=16), then two digit plus two digit (12+13=25), then carrying and so on....tiny baby steps. Not Fred. Once you begin adding he shows you adding with however many digits you want, and 156943726+852081= is not scary or anymore advanced math then 2+2. I think this helps take the fear out of math for some kids, Emma for one. The not announcing of doing 2 digit multiplication or the starting of algebra keeps some freaking out before they attempt the math and only after they see it and do it do they learn they just did advanced calculus helps add to their confidence that they CAN do math.

Another thing Dr. Schmidt recommends is go through the books together then have your child redo the entire series on their own. I sort of scoffed at this idea as we worked our way through the elementary books, but when we started working through Kidney I felt Emma was relying on me more and more to help her with the Your Turn to Play sections. She was using me as a crutch. I decided to trust Dr. Schmidt and have Emma reread and redo the series over on her own. Emma has worked through Apples to Goldfish so far with only a little help from me. This gives me the reassurance she knows the concepts covered.

So far Emma has worked 2 lessons a day, making each book take about 2 weeks. When we return to school after our Winter break she will start Honey and maybe start doing just a lesson day since things start getting a little more time consuming with the making of math fact cards and the pre-lesson drills.

Life of Fred Intermediate Books

One thing I do find I dislike with Fred is I think a few more daily problems are needed. Maybe a side book for the Elementary series with daily drill work. Although as I type this I am wondering why, since Emma seems to be learning the stuff.

Life of Fred....turns kids from math haters to math lovers.