In one book Fred drops a knife (that he had purchased for a friend's birthday -- a 20 year old friend) on his foot and begins to lose blood. His friends take him to the emergency room and he goes to triage (the girls learned about triage) and the staff has to figure out how quickly Fred is losing blood and how much time they can leave him in the waiting room. I've never seen Big C do her multiplication so quickly. I explained to her math can save lives! If she mixed up her multiplication Fred might have died!!
The series incorporates other topics into the math curriculum. Little c and I are doing the Cats book and she learned about what the Pacific Ocean was named as so. She learned about Magellan and about how he sailed all the way around the world, starting in Spain, and lost four of his five ships during the expedition.
The girls beg me to read more chapters. Math has gone from a total bore in our house to something they look forward to completing. I was ruining math for Big C because it was just black and white problem after black and white problem. For a while we were using the ixL math program online. I felt like it was a good mastery program, however, if Big C made one small error it sent her back a considerable amount of problems. She found that frustrating, which resulted in her dislike of math.
This works for our family! I am supplementing a bit with a geometry program for Big C. She is really into geometry and claims it's the only kind of math she likes right now.
One thing I've learned with home-schooling is you don't have to go in the same progression as the schools. You can do what your kids like and support their interests. I like child-led learning versus teacher led learning. At this point, I just want our girls to like math. I want it to be a positive experience and for them to know that math can be fun! Life of Fred is helping me accomplish this in our home.
The series can take kids through high school math!
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