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Math: What to do next?
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Ds8 finished MUS Beta today!!!! I am not ready to order Gamma yet, though. I would like to actually start a math curriculum at the beginning of our school year, so I’m going to wait to purchase Gamma until we need it in September. Hopefully our math will fit neatly in the span of September-June…;)
So, in the meantime, what do you recommend we do to keep him practicing? I know I can use the MUS website for drills and worksheets, but I was hoping for something a little more…fun?
Any ideas?
Lindsey
As a filler in between? Or as a whole curriculum? I don’t know anything about Life of Fred, but I was under the impression that it is a full curriculum. Thanks!
My son just finished Zeta. 🙂 It’s a good math day! Anyway, I’m going to have him start Pet Store Math but yours won’t be ready for that yet–I’d stick to games. Find some, buy some, make some, whatever. Search for ones on addition/subtraction facts and you should find a bunch!
We’ve only read the first book of Life of Fred Elementary series. Though I am told it could be, I wouldn’t use it as a full curriculum, personally, but my kids are in 3rd (7) and 5th (11) and working at opposite ends of Gamma. I do agree that it would be an excellent choice for filling in the rest of the year. There are 18 chapters in the first book, I think, and you will find your daughter goes through them quickly — you will have to limit her reading to a chapter a day and make sure she does the “your turn to play” portion rather than just rush to the next chapter to find out what happens to Fred next. My boys love Fred and want all the books. I am considering using LOF Fractions after my older ds finishes Delta next year. There is a lot of great material in the Life of Fred elementary series. Make sure you read them with her — that was how the author intended them to be used, as a read aloud. The chapters are short and funny. You’ll love it.
Hmm, if you don’t want to spend much in the way of money why not buy Pyramath OR let them play it FREE online. It’s a card game and you do the four basic operations, but when I did it with a younger child we just used add and subtract. It’s a fun way to practice and can be done 1 or 2 player.
My son enjoys the Greg Tang books – they are living math books that teach different concepts and have puzzles, etc.
We will be finishing up Beta this week too. I bought the first two Life of Fred books. I think I’m going to use them during the summer and start Gamma with our new school year in August. They look good, but I only skimmed the first one so far. My plan is to read a few chapters from the first book each week.
Check your library and find some living math books that relate to what you have been doing this year in MUS.
http://www.livingmath.net/Home/tabid/250/language/en-US/Default.aspx
Joanne
Completely new to forums so if I break a rule please tell me.
We just finished our first year HS (boxed curriculum just to ease into schooling at home). My children are aged 11,10,8,6. Just curious as to what the issues are with using Life of Fred as a full curriculum? I keep seeing it mentioned as being used as a supplement. What do those you who have used it see it lacking? I’m curious b/c I ordered it for simplicity this year as I am just learning how to teach CM/unit study styles, and I didn’t want to have to learn to teach a math curriculum at the same time. What are your thoughts?Jen S
Jen S. – We began LOF as a supplement a few months ago. I think LOF is FABULOUS and helps get kids to thinking about why we need math and how we use it everyday. We plan to continue using it alongside MUS. However, I don’t think there is nearly enough practice to make LOF a whole curriculum. Perhaps it might work for some very math-y kids, but I can’t see it working as a stand alone for the majority. In the elem. series each ch. is a brief story followed by 10 questions. It’s been of great benefit and worth every penny for us, but it would not be enough on its own.
HTH,
Christie
The books are very short – 18 to 20 chapters each, and each chapter is a very quick lesson that can be acomplished easily in one day. In fact, many students woul love Fred’s stories so much you’d have a hard time keeping them to only one chapter. There is no where near enough material in them to make them a full year, stand alone curriculum, but as Christie said, they are excellent for introducing concepts and showing how we use math in our every-day lives. I have been debating getting the rest of the series — we only have Apples so far, but my boys LOVE Fred. I thought maybe I’d suggest them as a Christmas gift from the in-laws.
I do think that LOF can be a stand alone curriculum. To say that it cannot is like saying living books for science and history aren’t enough. Saying that you need to have your kids do a page full of problems is like saying we can’t get by on history and science without the worksheets to fill out. If you do FRED with your kids and know what they’re doing, I think math can become part of your daily life just like Science and History. You need to start thinking math, talking math, etc. just like we do with the other subjects.
That said, I do have my kids do other math besides Fred because they were already doing it when Fred came along. That is why we use Fred as a supplement. If they weren’t already doing the books we have, I would probably just stick with Fred alone. We have the Strayer-Upton math books and I think they would be an ideal supplement to Fred, rather than Fred being a supplement to the Strayer-Upton. KWIM? That is how I am planning to structure math with my youngest three. In fact, as I type, I am thinking about doing that with all the kids. Hmm….
And, by the way, I have not seen any of the elementary books beyond the ones we’ve completed, so perhaps the lessons are a little more demanding as they go on. I know that starting with the fractions book, they are definitely more demanding with more problems and tests. Except they’re not called tests.
Christie, which LoF are you using for supplentation? I was thinking about having it alongside for my dd who is not mathy, but likes silly stories. She’s going through Beta and then Gamma quickly to catch her up-to-speed.
Pslively, do you think that perhaps LOF maybe to math what the living book is to history, but the extra practice the others are suggesting is to math what narration is to history. A living book alone would not provide a complete history education, but coupled with narration it’s complete? I haven’t looked at LOF for more than a minute at a friend’s house, so I don’t know for sure, but I’m looking forward to getting it for helping my girls synthisize how math fits into life, because for one of mine MUS is not enough in terms of story problems… we need a supplement.
We just finished our first year HS (boxed curriculum just to ease into schooling at home). My children are aged 11,10,8,6. Just curious as to what the issues are with using Life of Fred as a full curriculum? I keep seeing it mentioned as being used as a supplement. What do those you who have used it see it lacking? I’m curious b/c I ordered it for simplicity this year as I am just learning how to teach CM/unit study styles, and I didn’t want to have to learn to teach a math curriculum at the same time. What are your thoughts?
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