Life of Fred

Oh my goodness, if you have an upper elementary or older child who has done significant work with basic addition and multiplication facts (ideally, has them mastered, or is close to mastery), I have to recommend Life of Fred. (The first book says addition and multiplication; the website says long division as well. Hm...) We picked up the first two books of the series today after having had the title show up repeatedly recently: I had 2 different people tell me about them, had read about them not too long earlier, and then after I asked a friend if she sold them, more people asked about them (without them knowing I had asked her)! My life is just like that. lol. Although, now I have to wonder if that means I need a lot of hints before I get moving on something. ;)

In any case, Life of Fred is the story of a 5.5yo boy who has different issues over the course of his day and how he incorporates math to help him solvehttp://www.stanleyschmidt.com/FredGauss/index2.html his problems. There are some opportunities to practise what is being taught in the lesson, as well as a recap every so often. You might be thinking, "So what?" Well, they are HILARIOUS! Dd has already read half of the first book and plans on going back later to actually do the math.

This is Fred (my apologies to Stan Schmidt if this is not acceptable, but consider it free advertising! :D):

You can find out more about Fred here:  http://www.stanleyschmidt.com/FredGauss/21Fredstory.html

And some sample pages here: http://www.stanleyschmidt.com/FredGauss/31samplepages.html