Life of Fred

Although my son loved these books, they were not rigorous enough for him.

My daughters love Fred. we had to limit how often we could do Fred because my girls would power through an entire book in one sitting. We use the books as a reward for finishing work they aren't as interested in now, if they had a choice they would only do Fred math and nothing else. We love this product.

As a former math teacher, I love Fred. My first grader gets bored easily and didn't find the illustrations enough to hold his attention. He enjoyed the storyline and is an excellent reader but I had to read with him to keep him going. I was hoping it would hold his interest more. I will introduce them to his brothers and see how they do.

We have used this a supplement , especially when my kids hit a wall , so to say in math. This provided a break, and had the work broken down and explained in another way, so they" got it" We've used the Fractions book and percents, book. And I am so thankful! The work was challenging them, but they didn't fight it as well as it did not overwhelm them. Love Life of Fred!

I just started on Apples with my first grade son. So far, he seems to be enjoying it. The lessons are short and funny. It's also nice that there aren't a lot of problems to solve at the end. My son gets overwhelmed with too many problems. So, this seems to be a good fit for him.

We've used Fred as a fun supplement to Math-U-See. Fred adds a real life side of math and is a fun way to learn!

When I first looked at LOF it seemed that people were clearly divided into 2 camps…. you either love it or hate it. I read the reviews on Amazon and based on some of the reviews I felt like I should pre-read them before letting my kids start LOF. We all started in Apples. At first I thought there was no way there was enough math in LOF to make it a stand alone curriculum. It seems to build very slowly in the early elementary books. After reading a number of them I realized the author was doing was focusing each book on one or 2 addition facts, trying to instill those basics solidly and to memory of the child. By the 8th book (honey) the child is expected to know all the multiplication facts. They are asked to make honey cards (flash cards) and practice regularly. Parents are also encouraged to quiz their child in day to day activities (like driving to the store) on the addition and multiplication facts. I found that several of my friends who were using LOF and didn't feel like their children were grasping the concepts were not doing the additional practice times outside the reading time of LOF. I found that when it came to long division I need to give my child a few more practice problems than what was covered in the book as he wasn't remembering what exactly he was suppose to do to get to the answer. But by supplementing a few more problems he remembered the steps and had a good grasp of the concepts.

Once the books get into the middle school/high school levels the amount of math is drastically increased and moves much faster (it's presumed that the child has a solid understanding and foundation from what was covered slowly in the previous books) There are still the entertaining stories about Fred except in the expanded volumes (the expanded books I believe start in Algebra) contain no stories, just practice problems (along the lines of the drill and kill the author is opposed to) to ensure your child understands the math concept. (In other words the Algebra book contains the stores and math situations and the secondary expanded book is just practice problems to supplement the initial volume. The expectation is not that the child will do all the problems in the expanded version but that there are additional problem so the child can do as many as necessary to have a firm understanding of how to do that particular kind of algebra equation). From the beginning the author states that he expects the child to read and figure out what is going on, although that is easy in the early books, it is sometimes extremely difficult in the higher level books, given that there are times he presents a math situation but doesn't explain how to do the math problem until a few pages later (sometimes the next chapter). For some kids their learning style will allow them to study what is happening and figure out how the answer was derived, but if your child is a visual learner who needs to be shown how to do a problem first they are going to have difficulty understanding the concept and may get frustrated. For those who fall in that category, LOF will be a great review and good way to reinforce the concept once they have been taught and learned how to handle the concept being presented.

I've used the beginning of the elementary books with my "advanced" daughter in kindergarten and first grade, and the fractions/decimals books with a middle school son.

I found the early elementary books alleged scaffolding to be rather scattershot and random. My daughter originally found the whole concept of learning Fred's way fascinating, but that waned by the time she finished half the book. "Well, I like the story about Fred, but it didn't teach me much real math." I agree with her. We looked at another one at the bookstore half a year later and she wasn't interested in bringing it home. I can't imagine using Fred for anything but a supplement for elementary math.

The fractions and decimals/percents books were also originally well-received by my middle school son as well. He loved the story. This child did struggle with math, and I was hopeful that the entertaining story would reel him in. He loved the story aspect and the tiny problem sets. Unfortunately Fred lacked teaching the WHY of the math and my son struggled to learn new concepts with these books. Anyone can memorize an algorithm, but if he isn't taught how and why it works, it won't be retained long term. After my son learned his fractions and decimals with a traditional math book that explained the concepts thoroughly he could enjoy Fred as a fun summer review. Again, this would not be sufficient as a primary math text, but it could be a fun supplement for the right kid.

Life of Fred is a fun math series. It is a set of stories about Fred, a 5 year old math professor. The stories go through basic mathematical concepts Fred uses in his daily life. However, practice is limited and supplementation is likely needed. For students who love to read, this would be a good math series, or good supplementary material.

My math-haters love Fred! We'very used Fred for about 20 months. My now 12 year old complained about another program, "This isn't teaching me anything! " After using Fred for a year, she said, "(Life of Fred) doesn't teach me anything, but it is making me better at math, so maybe it is teaching me something! " My now 14 year old was recently heard saying "I like Algebra. " She used to complain and put off doing the other curricula. Now she does multiple lessons of Algebra 1 at a time.

My daughter loved the stories and not having to do a lot of worksheet work with it. I like that they cover stuff you would not normally see in a math book.

We love Fred! For the first time math is fun! Fred uses relatable stories to teach math concepts. Its easy to expand on them if need be. My kids love the fact that Fred goes jogging like their parents! The kids ask for Fred when its time to do math!

My daughter struggles with math and Life of Fred has opened her eyes to a new way of looking at it so in that sense I really like it. The Fred stories are great for kids and include lots of good information. However, my daughter needs a lot of practice to retain the concepts so I only use Life of Fred as a "bait" to engage her with math.

We started the series with Fractions and Decimals & Percents. We just continued on through the books - not expecting one year for each book - many of the early ones took only a short time. It was a godsend for my not-so-math-minded student, although, we did need to seek out a different book to explain geometry to him. For my math-minded student, he has worked through all of the subjects on his own and is currently working on Calculus in 11th grade. Another reviewer stated that problems weren't explained right away, and honestly, I think that is part of the genius of the program: Dr. Schmidt expects a certain amount of critical thinking which makes it a challenge.

I wouldn't suggest this for a student who needs several problems to remember a concept, or frequent review, or in depth lessons to understand. This was not a good fit for my eldest daughter, though she loved and laughed at the stories and really enjoyed the chapters. She just wasn't learning math with it. I do plan to pull it out for my youngest to try again, though. She'll love the stories as well and the short lessons may work better for her.

Number one, I will say that we LOVE Fred! These books are fun and engaging and have sparked an interest in mathematics for my children. I use it more for math encouragement, which is totally worth it if you have those cross-armed math naysayers abounding in your home. Each of my children look at math with different eyes after a reading of Fred. I usually read the lessons as a family and the children each have their Fred notebooks and try to answer the questions at the end. I don't have much negative to say about Life of Fred. Used as a valuable suppliment to you math program will give you the best results.

We love the Life of Fred books at our house. I would recommend starting with Apples, even if you have an older child. There are concepts taught in the early books, that come back later. We do sometimes take a few days "off" from Fred to find additional problems to cement a concept. This was especially true with multiplication and division facts. My daughter who struggles with math, appreciates that this doesn't take her all day and that once she passes the bridge, she can move on. Life of Fred made math do-able for my kids that struggled as well as taught them lots of random information about history, biology, and economics. I highly recommend this series.

We used Life of Fred when we began homeschooling. My daughter loved the story and enjoyed reading the books with me. We did a chapter a day. My only issues was that I felt, for my daughter, there wasn't enough review questions. I would have to spend extra time and either make up my own worksheets or find some on Pinterest or from doing a Google search. We have since gone on to use Teaching Textbooks.

We are loving life of Fred. We switched to this curriculum in October of last year. My kids were 9&10 at the time. They were able to move through all the elementary series fairly quickly and will be starting the intermediate series soon. They love how it is in story form. Especially my daughter. She learns best through stories. It use to be a struggle each day when it was time for math. That has all changed. I can see how some may feel they need to supplement with this curriculum. I did at first. After looking ahead to Fractions and Decimal & Percent books we now are just doing Fred. I highly recommend this curriculum. It has made a huge difference!

Such a fun storyline with real-life applications of math!