Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: common core and mus, HIgh School math, Highschool Math, Life of Fred, LOF

This topic has 10 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 12 months ago by Benita.

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

Author
Posts
May 9, 2014 at 7:11 pm
Benita
Participant
My high schooler is terribly behind in math. He is not a math lover and has no natural inclination to it. We have been painfully moving thru Teaching Textbooks and he is a 10th grader in Pre-Algebra! I know! And he is so advanced and together in so many other areas. Just math really. For the money, teaching textbooks has been a disappointment. Well, not for the fifth grader.It works for her. But for my 8th grader and high schooler, we are struggling. I think it just doesn’t work for their learning styles.
Two questions:
How do I help him catch up? He wants to go to college and hopefully in a non traditional way- finishing early, dual credits, online classes, CLEPing out of classes. He is not going to do anything with science or math as a field, but he needs four credits for high school and I am told that prealgebra doesn’t count. His dad is committed to helping him this summer to move thru Algebra 1. But I think we are beating a dead horse with the current program. Which leads to the next question…
What about Life of Fred and Khan academy for him? This may be a better fit for his learning style. But should he do the before high school life of Fred now and thru the summer and move into the high school program next year working thru the summers to finish up?
Any advice? Other suggestions?
May 9, 2014 at 8:32 pm
petitemom
Participant
I would contact Mr.Schmidt, he would be the best to guide you on how to go about w/this. His e-mail and phone numbers are on the website.
May 9, 2014 at 8:35 pm
Rachel White
Participant
Question: Why do you think he’ll like LoF?
May 10, 2014 at 2:05 am
Benita
Participant
Well, I am not sure, but he is quite the reader and loves anything in narrative form. So, I thought maybe that would resonate with him more than a lecture based program like Teaching Textbooks. He never seems to remember what was said in the lecture he just listened to, yet remembers everything he reads.
May 10, 2014 at 12:25 pm
retrofam
Participant
My catch up plan for my son is Math U See. There are 6 worksheets per lesson. The 1st one will be graded. If he gets 90 percent or higher, he skips to the review worksheet(#4), which is graded. If 90 on that, he moves to the test. Hopefully, he will be highly motivated to pay close attention and score well. If your son prefers books vs. the video you or he could read the lessons in the teacher’s manual.
My son is using LOF for Algebra now, but is running out of time. I am unsure how to tweak it. He used LOF for pre algebra and Algebra and decided that he prefers just the math vs. the stories.
My younger son, avid reader, prefers LOF.
Both are taking longer with Algebra than planned. I also got Algebra help books from the library, and use purplemath.com
Even for my struggling learners I require Algebra, geometry, and consumer math.
Hth,
C
May 10, 2014 at 1:00 pm
TailorMade
Participant
FWIW, our 14yos has been able to continue with TT PreA BECAUSE we added in LOF topics.
May 10, 2014 at 11:21 pm
Benita
Participant
When you say added in LOF topics, what do you mean? Reading LOF prealgebra books while doing TT? Did you have to do much to get it to coordinate or did you not worry if the topic was not always the same? Does that make sense?
May 10, 2014 at 11:36 pm
Tristan
Participant
You can also look for a nontraditional math course for one of his 4 high school credits (Stewardship from MUS comes to mind).
May 11, 2014 at 12:13 am
retrofam
Participant
I use Stewardship math for consumer math. It is a good one.
May 11, 2014 at 3:02 am
TailorMade
Participant
When the fractions part of TT was giving him trouble, he went through LOF Fractions quickly and it made sense to him. That sort of thing. With LOF, I don’t plan to match up everything. He’s enjoying it so much that I’m not worried about whether it’s an exact fit. He’s willing to do all the bridges even though he knows how to solve the problems. He doesn’t want to miss any of the silliness, or added non-math info. It’s been very helpful. He even figured out rain totals yesterday because he knew exactly what to do. No one else really even cared. But, he hopped up when he found out we needed to add 3/10″ to 4 3/4″. I was shocked that he even decided to try to solve it. It was a relief to me to know that he can now actually apply what he’s learning in real life situations, not just on paper. He’s motivated to find ways to use the math that he’s learning instead of trying to figure out a way to avoid math.
May 11, 2014 at 6:59 pm
Benita
Participant
Thanks for the encouragement TailorMAde.
Tristian-he is getting a credit in Consumer Math. Thanks. So I am hoping to limp him thru Algebra 1, 2, and Geometry in 2 years plus summers.
I guess economics is an elective not a math credit.