Life of Fred Fractions - How it Works

I am back again today ready to show you a new topic - my math. What I am currently doing is Life of Fred Fractions. Life of Fred is a math series that goes all the way up to college math. If you read my past post called A Day in the Life of Me - Friday you might remember me mentioning Life of Fred math. Well, I am going to explain it more in detail in this post so you can really get to understand what math I do.

I had tried Life of Fred Fractions in the past but I did not like it. It was probably because the math was more advanced than most. Well, I am doing it again and my point of view on the math has changed. I like the Life of Fred Fractions book very much and I like how it is taught. The math series is all based off this - in the Fractions book - 5 and a half year old boy named Fred. A lot of this math is reading so it is great for kids who like to read. The author of the book, Stanley F Schmidt, is telling the story. Sometimes Fred will add in his own thoughts, and sometimes it will be the "reader" giving questions. As the story progresses, you learn math by reading and then you get to try it yourself. The story is basically about Fred wanting a bike. Fred is a teacher (even being 5 1/2) at the KITTENS university so he wanted to get to class quicker. He also wanted to have a helmet but he would need a bike first (he gave six reasons why he wanted a bike). Anyways, the story is sort of about him wanting a bike and what happens after that. Enough about the story, a lesson normally goes like this:

You read a few pages - normally 1-3 pages - and then you do the Your turn to play which is where you answer no more then ten math problems. After that you check your answers in the Complete Solutions part. Each answer is completely explained so you know what to do if you get something wrong. The answers are in the same book as the questions and story - Don't read ahead to the answers. Doing that will help you get through the lessons quicker but you're not learning anything and you will completely fail the Bridges (tests). I do 1-3 chapters Monday - Friday because they are so short but you can do it anyway that works best.


Now I will move onto explaining the Bridges. A Bridge comes after doing about 5 chapters, but it will review all the past chapters you did. If it is the second Bridge for instance, it will review chapters 1-15. There are ten problems on the Bridge and you have to get 90% or higher (9-10 right) to move onto the next chapter. Each Bridge gives you five tries, and if you still cannot pass you try back at the first try. I have done 2 bridges so far and today I will start on Chapter 13. For me, this book is mostly a review but I am trying to fill in any gaps before moving onto algebra. Luckily each Life of Fred book is short, about 32 Chapters, so I should get to algebra in no time.

Hopefully you enjoyed reading this post about the Life of Fred math series, and maybe you are willing to try it out. The lowest level book is Apples which is what Katie will probably be starting soon. The highest is Linear Algebra. Here is a link to Life of Fred if you are curious: Life of Fred Math I will be signing off here, but be ready because tomorrow I will introduce my online classes.