Smrt Lernins

For today’s Secular Thursday, I thought I’d try something different: a review of one of my favorite secular* curricula, the Life of Fred math series.

Captain Science has always been pretty good at math, but his one true love is reading. The kid will read anything you put in front of him, from books and magazines to product packaging and insurance forms. If it has words, he can’t help but read them (we’ve learned to be very careful about the materials we leave lying around!). While looking for a math curriculum, I’m sure you can imagine my pleasure when the Life of Fred series, which teach post-long division level mathematics within a novel format — and by “novel,” I mean both “fiction book” and “unique and new.” Life of Fred, by Stanley Schmidt, follows the story of a boy named Fred, a mathematical genius who, at age 5, is teaching college-level math at the fictional Kittens University.

The Life of Fred series covers fractions, decimals and percents, algebra, and other higher-level math concepts. To begin this series, your student needs to show mastery of addition, subtraction, multi-digit multiplication, and long division. Each short chapter contains a section of ongoing plot, some discourse between author and reader, footnotes with all manner of not-necessarily-math-related information, and a set of mathematical concepts. Because the math is contextual (something is happening to, around, or because of Fred), a strong reader can easily understand the relevance and mechanics of the subject matter, making this a fairly self-guided curricula. At the end of each chapter is a section entitled “Your Turn to Play,” where the student works through a set of problems, which cover the new material learned in the chapter and hearken back to earlier chapters. The students are encouraged to check their own work after the parent has looked it over, because the answer key** contains even more instruction and shows the different ways in which one could get an answer. Every five chapters or so, students do a 10 problem “bridge,” which covers all materials learned to date. If they get at least 9/10 correct, they can move on. If not, there are four more bridges to try.

In Life of Fred: Fractions, Captain Science is not only learning about various things to do with fractions (reduce, convert, add, multiply, etc.), but also about things like Roman numerals. He’s also learned additional vocabulary, some rhetorical concepts, and other facts not precisely related to math, but still handy to know. He wants so badly to know what happens next that he sometimes begs me to let him do an extra math chapter!

The questions I hear most often are “Is it rigorous enough?” and “Does it need to be supplemented with additional work?” My answer to question #1 is yes, it is, a) if your student is a strong reader and learns well through reading and b) especially taken as a whole series, as it builds each new concept upon the previous concepts so well that your children seem to be learning very complex concepts with minimal effort (hence the “is it rigorous enough?” question). As for whether a student needs supplemental materials, I’m of the mind that extra practice doesn’t hurt and that some kids will need additional help on certain concepts, while others won’t. Captain Science will probably benefit from some additional mixed fractions additional and multiplication work as he’s working on those concepts in Life of Fred, but he hasn’t needed any additional practice with the other topics he’s covered. Keeping a concept-matching Key To… book around for additional practice would very easily provide a gap-filler if there’s something in a chapter that your child just cannot get. This is where the bridge between chapters is so beneficial, because it provides a method of making sure concepts are being learned and retains. If your child can’t pass the bridges or struggles with the same types of problems in multiple bridges, you’ll know it’s time for some supplemental work — a situation, by the way, that can happen with any curriculum, no matter how rigorous and thorough.

Captain Science and I give each this secular mathematics program two thumbs up (or more accurately, two thumbs up from me and a nose buried in the book for him).

*The author of this series is Christian and there are a few minor Christian references in Life of Fred: Beginning Algebra, such as a mention of Fred saying his prayers before bed (the actual prayer isn’t in the book), a discussion with an Army chaplain who says he learned Greek to read the New Testament, and a reference to a quote from Deuteronomy about taking care of widows and children. This does not, to me, negate the value of the series to a secular homeschooler and my experience with the earlier books has been that they are entirely secular.
**The answer key is immediately after “Your Turn to Play,” often with no page in between the questions and the answers. The major flaw of this book is that I have to cover it the answers before the Captain can start working to avoid him just copying down Fred’s way of solving the problem. Having the answers on the other side of the page would have been appreciated! Maybe in later editions?