I currently have the Life of Fred Pre-Algebra on my wish list to purchase for my daughter’s next school year. She has completed Fractions and is almost done with Decimals and Percents. My good friend’s daughter completed Fractions, Decimals and Percents, and Pre-Algebra this last school year and found the Pre-Algebra to be a nice gentle introduction to Algebra. I did look at her Pre-Algebra book and was equally impressed with that book as I was with the titles we already own. The title is actually something like “Pre-Algebra – the Biology of Algebra” and is a review of arithmetic and introduction of algebra themed around biology topics. Before I ever purchased any of the Life of Fred books or recommended them for my friend to look into, I emailed Stan (the author of Life of Fred). He told me about his upcoming Pre-Algebra book and had some interesting comments about whether or not his books needed to be supplemented with other curriculum. Here is what he said:
You write of flying through, just to end up with the recommendation that we then move on to other curriculum (such as Saxon) This won’t be the case for several reasons: (1) Fred goes a lot farther than Saxon; (2) Saxon is light-weight, mathematically, when compared with Life of Fred. A couple of months ago I looked at his Alg 2 and compared it with Life of Fred: Advanced Algebra.
I counted a dozen major topics that he leaves out that Life of Fred: Advanced Algebra includes:
1. Permutations
2. Matrices
3. Linear programming
4. Series
5. Sigma notation
6. Sequences
7. Combinations
8. Pascal’s triangle
9. Math induction
10. Partial fractions—needed in calculus
11. Graphing in three dimensions
12. Change-of-base rule for logarithms
Finishing up the Life of Fred series will place your child at the junior level in mathematics at the university. If you want to pass CLEP exams, I know of no better curriculum than Fred. And besides, Fred is a lot more fun.
“Flying through” is not a bad thing. My daughter entered college at the age of 13 1/2. For the last 25 years her resumes have mentioned that.
All the best to you,
Stan
Hope this helps your decision.
Angie