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Life of Fred as supplement w/ MUS
- This topic has 11 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 4 months ago by
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How would that work?
I do like MUS and want to continue w/it. I am just thinking about Life of Fred as a way to make it more alive and interesting. My kids hate math and I would like to see that change, if at all possible!!
My only concern is that we are falling a little behind. If I was to use life of Fred as supplement about how long would that take a day or a week in addition to MUS.
I want to know if it is realistic before I start to buy something new.
For those of you who have done it this way, is it worth it?
What ages or levels are your kids? We have used both together but when you get to fractions it gets to be a bit much to do both. I am having my sons this year do LOF first and then will have them do the tests from MUS to see if there are any holes of things we need to go over.
Nebby
This year I’ll have a 6 year old on Primer (will probably finish that quick, a little too easy for him), a 10 year old starting Delta and a 12 year old on Epsilon.
Isn’t LOF mostly stories? I was thinking to read that as a way to make math come more alive but still continue w/MUS for practice. Does it make any sense? I actually have never seen the books!
I do like the repetition in MUS, I find my kids often need that to really get something. I just like the idea of them understanding how it applies in real life. I am not too good at explaining that to them.
Well, my dd12 is finishing MUS Delta this week and LOF Jelly Beans next week. She uses MUS 4-5 days per week and LOF 1 day per week.
That brings us to LOF Fractions and MUS Epsilon (fractions). The LOF Fractions book is much larger than the elementary books. I don’t want overkill for dd, who is not super strong in math. However, I would love to get her through both Fractions and Decimals with something during the coming year. It would put us in a better place for more advanced sciences in the future. So, I’m trying to decide where to go from here. Continue with MUS and sprinkling in Fred or use Fred in full and sprinkle in MUS. Hmm.
I saw the books at the convention in Houston and have decided to use them in addition to our primary math. the stories are cute and I like how it shows using math in everyday situations. My two are young yet, so I will be starting with apples. The primary books show that the book has 19 lessons and should take about a month to complete and with 10 books that is 190 lessons. I’m just going to stretch it out and add one lesson or chapter per week year long and then those ten should be about a 2.5 year stretch having my oldest being about 11 which is the age to start the next set of Freds. So maybe you could use them like that as well? Just as a supplement? If anyone that uses Fred believes or knows this won’t work or won’t be useful, please let me know.
My older ds will be using LOF this year. We will go through the last two books of the elementary series, and the three intermediate books before Christmas with a plan of starting Fractions in the new year. My younger son, who loves math, will continue on with MUS, starting Epsilon in September. He has been doing LOF for fun during his bedtime reading. Though I’ve not read the entire elementary series, I think they are light on practice. For some it may be sufficient, but not likely for my older ds. However, I’ve read that from Fractions on it is a stand alone program. I should have a much better idea after this year exactly how to use the programs. I may do something similar to Nebby with using MUS worksheets to supplement LOF.
LOF definitely requires students to think, but it’s so fun that they really enjoy doing it. The elementary series would still be enjoyable to your older kids and there would be sufficient new concepts introduced to challenge them that they won’t see in MUS for several years.
We’ve used the entire Elementary series (Apples – Jelly Beans) as a supplement once per week. However LOF Fractions is in a different league. It isn’t going to be able to be a once a week supplement as easily.
I think the LOF website suggests repeating the elementary series yearly. Doing a lesson a day you would be able to finish the series in a year. I’ve read Apples, with my then 2nd and 4th graders. It was fun, but way to easy for them. I would be very surprised if your kids didn’t beg to read another chapter. The story is so fun, you may want to go quicker with the early books, until the math starts to be challenging maybe. Personally, if I were set on spreading the series out I might consider either reading more frequently, maybe three times a week, until we finished a book, then wait a while (maybe a month) before starting the next one. I think your idea would work fine, too.
Is LOF elementary something they can do on their own in grade 4 or is a teacher needed?
For those who have been through this set, was it worth your time? Was there significant improvment in their math understanding?
thanks for the replies, appreciate all of your feedback. That is a though decision especially because I have already bought all of MUS books up to Epsilon. I do like the idea of using them together.
I like wings2fly questions as I am also trying to figure out if it is worth the time but also the $$$.
I could use them from the start w/my 6 year old although so far he is the only one who loves math.
I wish I had found this when my oldest 2 were younger. sigh..
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