Life of Fred: Part 2 (a little more information)

I was pleasantly surprised with the number of comments I got on my Life of Fred post in just 24 hours. And, I wanted to add an update.

As I mentioned, we finished school TODAY(!) and I was only "requiring" Alex to do chapters 1-5 and the "bridge" which is like a unit test. Well, she completed 11 chapters... because she was having so much fun! And, that was in 2 DAYS!

Since quite a few of you said you weren't familiar with the Life of Fred books, I thought I'd tell you a little more about it.

After every unit (about every 5 chapters) there is a "bridge." The bridge is kind of like a unit test. There are 5 "tries" to pass the test and the author recommends you have the student get 9 out of 10 questions correct before they move on to the next chapter. (He also suggests a few other options.) So, they take the "first try" bridge. If they get 9 or 10 correct, they can move on to the next chapter. If not, they take the "second try."

Another neat thing about Life of Fred is that it teaches a lot of other tidbits besides math. These are usually found in the footnotes. For example, there is a funny footnote about "onomatopoetic words" on page 20. And on page 31, there is a footnote about "hyperbole." Here's that footnote which also shows you how humorous this book is:

Hyperbole (high PURR bow lee). Exaggeration. Mothers use it when they say, "I've told you a million times to clean up your room!" Darlene would be using a hyperbole if she tells Joe (this is from the story), "It takes you forever to write your class notes."

I hope Alex decides to continue with this book during the summer... since the story is just too good to put down! But, if she doesn't, we'll start it up again in the fall.