Fred and J

I'd like to introduce you to a new friend of J's. His name is Fred. Fred Gauss. (Rhymes with "house.") He's 5 1/2 years old and is a professor in Mathematics.

We met Fred a couple of months ago and he assured me that he could help J overcome his distaste for all things math. Fred has lived up to his word!

The books are entertaining, yet they're written so that it's clear that math is important to everyday life. It's important to be pretty well versed in the addition and multiplication facts, but the rest seems to make so much sense to J that he's absorbing the processes along with the stories. (He quotes passages from the stories when the mood hits him.)

The series currently begins with Fractions (lower grade math books are supposed to be for sale soon) and moves through Decimals and Percents, Pre-Algebra, then Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and finally Calculus, Statistics, and finally Linear Algebra!

According to the website, this means all the way through to college math. We're both very excited about this possibility.

There are a LOT of good reviews and I am adding my own "thumbs up" from our experience so far.

One thing that many families commented about was that there didn't seem to be enough review. I think I may have an answer to that. If you're using Life of Fred and want to know my take on that, please leave a comment and I'll fill you in.

If you're intrigued, please use the following links for more information:

Books for sale with descriptions of every volume.

Reviews from Amazon.

Reviews from Homeschooling families.

Cathy Duffy review.