So we have been marveling at how mild a winter we had. Spring came early. The buds on the trees are out...and then....
SNOW!
On Wednesday, it snowed all day long it seemed. It was such a downer of a day.
Ok, enough about the weather!
We are currently finishing up school, but this week we started a new curriculum! I know that makes no sense, but I have been looking high and low for something...anything to spark in Zach a love for math. Or at least a tolerance for it! He is very science-minded and loves technology. If he continues on that road, he is going to have to make peace with math. There is no way around it.
I have been looking at Life of Fred for about a year now. We finally took the plunge this week after another homeschool mom raved to me about it! We have used Math-U-See during all of our homeschooling years and don't plan to switch. I am using Life of Fred to help Zach review concepts and hopefully spark an interest in math. So in Math-U-See he is working in the pre-algebra book whereas in Life of Fred he is reviewing fractions.
Life of Fred is unlike any other math books I have seen. There are more words than numbers! Basically you read a chapter for each lesson (the story tells about, you guessed it, the life of Fred!) and then do math problems related to the story at the end. Zach is really enjoying this method of math! It is catching his attention, and he is enjoying the review. The storyline is humorous...if not bizarre at moments, but so educational! The math is solid (from what I can tell) and there is motivation to move on because of the storyline and the "bridges" that must be crossed to move forward in the book.
We plan to do a little math during the summer month...Zach will do Life of Fred and Noah will work on mastering the multiplication facts.
5 comments:
Wow, I have been homeschooling for a lot of years and I have never heard of The Life of Fred. I will have to check it out. Thanks for sharing. Have a great Mother's Day!!
Wow, snow! We use Life of Fred, too, as a supplement. My kids love the funny stories.
Hope your back to Spring soon!
Janet W
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/wdworkman/
I'm so glad you're trying to make math fun, or at least tolerable, rather than forcing him to suffer through. That will make all the difference in keeping school fun :)
Oooo. Thanks for sharing about Life of Fred. I'll be checking it out for us, the Math challenged :)
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