Life of Fred as a stand alone curriculum?

Hi Heather,

We’ve used LOF alone for 6 months and think it is terrific. DS10 picked up Teaching Textbooks 5 which we’ve had sitting here and chooses to do it. He has completed TT4 and is playing with TT5 but he eventually finds it boring. Personally I can see us always sticking with LOF where other things will come and go. I don’t require anything else with LOF and think it is a stand alone programme. I do find alot of home schoolers use another programme with it, but I feel it is overkill. It looks at things differently (better) IMHO.

I had a friend high school math teacher check it out and at first he didn’t like it, but as the books progressed he saw the benefits and thought it great and stand alone. His opinion helped me relax about it and we are happy with it.

It is different for everyone and as with anything it is how you use it.

Warmest Wishes, Renelle

I’ve thought about LOF a LOT. Here’s what I’ve come up with, for what it’s worth.

The Elementary books I would not use as a stand-alone, but I WOULD use them ALMOST stand alone. =) Clear? What I mean is this. I would be doing flash cards with them. Card games. Dice games. If there is a page where we count by 2’s to 20, I would continue working on counting by 2’s, only higher. If there are problems she doesn’t get, I may make a few more of my own. At the Elementary level I can still do that! Also, I like Kumon word problem books with Fred Elementary. So I have my dd7 doing LoF Cats right now, but she is also doing Kumon Word Problems Grade 1. She will do grade 2 as well this year. They have 36 section, I believe, with about 10 problems or so each section. So, since there are 36 weeks in a school year (although we do more) I can have her add in a couple story problems each day along with Fred. Or I could have her do one section a week if I like that better. Make sense?

As far as LoF Fractions and above, I do believe it could be stand alone for many children. My ds12 is not mathy. He finally has made it through the Fred Fractions books and he felt such a sense of accomplishment in passing the very first Final Bridge with a passing score. I am still going to make him do the other four Final Bridges for practice anyway before he’s officially done. I know some kids will pass right through the Fractions book by 5th or 6th grade. Well, he actually went through part of it, then backed up all the way to the beginning and did it all again, because he was stuck on multiplying fractions with mixed numbers. It took him going through it twice to truly understand that he has to change it to an improper fraction first. But now he HAS it. He will be starting the Decimals books soon and is very excited to FINALLY get to hear more story. If we get to a place where he is stuck we will use Khan Academy online. That should be plenty to get him some more practice and get him unstuck, and it’s free.

Ok, I have to go. Hope you find some wisdom in all of this. It was a fast response and I haven’t re-read it. Hopefully it makes sense.

My son used LOF Fractions and Decimals & Percents in 6th grade as a stand-alone that year. It really was just what he needed to go back over these concepts that he had been given in public school, but which he was frustrated and mostly not understanding of them. He started loving math again after LOF. He is NOT using the upper level books right now. I just felt they were not what he needed, but he did complete LOF Pre-Algebra I in the first sememster of 7th grade last year.

I can see us using the upper level books as supplements, but not as the whole curriculum b/c he is not mathy and needs more. Maybe one of our sons could use LOF alone, but time will tell. I am always looking for used copies b/c I would love to own the whole collection of LOF Fractions and above. I don’t think we’d use the elementary books, but I’d buy those at a cheap enough price if the opportunity ever arose.

HTH