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Teaching Textbooks with Life of Fred
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My 6th grader is just about to finish up SCM’s Business Math (which he LOVED by the way) and I would like to start him on Teaching Textbooks now. Previously, we had used Ray’s Arithmetic, which we loved, but I am now finding it too teacher intense. I also would like to use Life of Fred, to keep that love of math that SCM’s Business Math gave him. Has anyone used these two curriculums together? How did you go about doing it? Did you start at Apples? Fractions? Do you line up the teaching text book lessons to coincide with LOF?
Thanks for the help!I’ll let you know how we are doing it now, and it seems to be working well. (Although, we are only 2 weeks in.) We started at Kidneys, which is the Intermediate Series, before fractions. We use it with Teaching Textbooks, but don’t line the lessons up. We do Teaching Textbooks daily for 30 minutes, and Life of Fred every other day, a chapter at a time. He’s loving both Teaching Textbooks and LOF, and still refers to math as his favorite subject – so something must be working well!
I also started him on 5th grade TT since he was a little behind. I figured 5th grade would be a good review and cover anything he’s missing.
I just switched dd13 to TT7 from MUS, it was a toss-up between TT7 and Pre-algebra, but math is a struggle for her. I switched ds10 from MUS to TT5. Both continue with LOF also. DD7 is doing MUS Alpha, but I plan to eventually switch her to TT, too. I love MUS, but find I like TT simplicity and that every problem is explained to the kids. Also because MUS has very different ways of explaining, it was more difficult for me to jump in and help without watching or reading the lesson sometimes 2-3 times. Frankly, I don’t want to learn a new way. I understand math just fine.
We had been using TT for about five years, then had switched to MUS this year, but we are returning to TT. My biggest issue with TT was the time it was taking each of my four children due to the listening and small pauses for each question while the computer stated whether it was correct or not. It all added up to ALOT of total time for the four of them tying up the computer. Often they would do the problems at the table and then just use the CD to type in their answers so their grade would get logged in, but it still took a lot of time. Anyone else have this issue and any suggestions on how to get around it? I agree with Christine…I do like the fact that for each and every problem, the student can view the solution if they need to. Incredible help.
marmiemama, We have the same issue at our house with the time it takes. I’d love to hear any suggestions others have.
I don’t have this issue bc my kids have their own computers. If I did have them sharing, I would schedule them each at different times.
I have 3 that use TT. The oldest 2 do two lessons each, then the younger does 1. We have family work from 9 to 11 (sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more). They are free to use the computer before or after. The rule is you can only do one lesson and then have to offer up the computer to someone else. If nobody wants it you can do your second lesson. They just do their lesson sometime during the day along with their independent work (meaning I don’t have a schedule, I let them work it out). We don’t have any other computer-based learning that needs to happen and I try to stay off FB, Pinterest and other distractions. They are all (usually) done by 3. Most of the time the lesson only takes them 20 to 30 minutes. I do have a set of headphones they can use so the whole room isn’t listening to the math lecture…but often we listen to it anyway and little brothers yell out answers.
I, too, schedule my boys at different times. One begins with TT first thing in the morning (first subject) on M/W/F and the other gets TT as first subject on T/Th/Sat. On the days they don’t do TT first they start with an independent reading and narration, so usually the timing works decently where they finish “subject 1” around the same time.
I will add that if you have multiple children on TT, having a second computer is very handy. For some this may sound like a luxury, but the nice thing about TT is that it can run on a fairly bare-bones computer and it doesn’t require internet access. That means an inexpensive, second-hand or refurbished computer will do the trick just fine! I have my third son coming up the line to begin TT next year so we’ve now loaded TT onto an old clunker laptap we got from a company going out of business. This computer is almost 10 years old, but TT works perfectly fine on it 🙂
Another point on the question above – when my kids do TT on the computer, they aren’t filling in the workbook at the same time, so the overall block of time spent in front of the computer is not usually longer than 15 minutes (20 minutes at the very most). My boys keep scratch paper or a lap size whiteboard beside them to do rough work when necessary, but for the other computer questions they can fly through pretty quickly just by entering the answer…makes the whole thing quite efficient! They do the workbook portion later in the morning or even after lunch (they choose). I like the fact that doing the workbook portion separately means that if they get stuck they have to look up and READ the math lecture notes that are at the front of each workbook chapter rather than always getting the help from the computer voice-over. In short, they are being taught their math both in audio/interactive format AND via book-reading. The combination of the two seems to be getting math to “stick” for us.
We have everyone use headphones, too.
Yes, we do the headphones as well. I think there’re probably just no getting around the issue of four students tying up the computer for a computer based math. We used to have a PC hooked up as well, but it was so slow, the drive sometimes didn’t accept the CD, the screen was small, yadda, yadda yadda! Plus, no one wanted to switch computers because their scores weren’t logged in from the other computer. Guess it’ll just have to be the price to pay! At least I’ll be down to three this coming fall! My little guy will be in 1st and they don’t have a TT for that young. I hear they’re working on 2nd grade though, then the following year, they’ll work on 1st.
I hadn’t thought of combining TT with LOF. Thanks! Last year we did TT plus Critical Thinking’s Mathematical Reasoning which was TOO much. Now we are going more CM this year…hence my interest in LOF, but TT is great for simplicity (mine!). I was surprised though at the end of the year when I asked the kids what their favorite/least favorite part of our inaugural year was, they said they did not like math (TT) because it took so long. Surely there are ways around this. Being a novice homeschooler, I had them doing math every day and then we finished with TT like 6 weeks early. This year, I’m thinking I will drop the Mathematical Reasoning, space out TT (or put a daily time limit on it) and add in Life of Fred every other day for the conceptual aspect.
We do TT with LOF and it works well. Last year we only had one computer for the three children to share, it didn’t work well. This year we have two laptops and one regular computer (but it doesn’t have a disk drive) and i am contemplating purchasing another laptop so the four children who are now school age will not have to wait around to get assignments done (plus we can get all the computer stuff out of the way at one time).
Thanks for the help!
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