Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Murderous Math Series vs. Life of Fred Books?

For those of you familiar with both...which of these should I have DS10 delve into first? He is very mathy and very bored in school (was in tears today saying his teacher is giving formulas for things he can do in his head). Both look great but do they have different methods of teaching?

Any advice would be appreciated before I go on my book buying spree : )

Thanks!

Nadia

I'm ignoring the spec as I haven't seen Life of Fred! It's clear though that one difference is that Murderous Maths isn't really teaching as such; it is deliberately recreational maths, delighting in not being aligned with anyone's syllabus. (One of the books awards Perfectly Useless Fact badges to some of the things it points out.) Of course, there's no such thing as maths that connects with nothing else, so it will support syllabuses, but only accidentally. Life of Fred, from the sound of it, takes a much more path-like approach. I'd say you can't really go wrong with MM, unless in fact your DS is past it and better suited to adult recreational maths such as the Martin Gardner books.

Everything ColinsMum said. My son reads both side by side (sometimes literally!). LoF does follow a "path" with Your Turn to Play questions after each chapter and Bridge questions after every 5 chapters--these are questions parents may want to assign. Assigning them though took the fun away for my guy. So we ultimately stopped using the LoF books to teach. They've become reading-for-fun books. MM books are usually free-time/weekend/roadtrip books for the boy.

Given the choice, my son chooses MM over LoF, possibly because I started using LoF to teach while I let him read MM on his own. But this is just his personal choice.

And according to my son (I haven't read all the books myself), LoF does veer towards non-age-appropriate themes in the higher level math books while MM doesn't. Again his personal opinion.

Have fun choosing!

The Martin Gardner books Aha! and Gotcha! have great re-readability as you age. The comics can easily be read by kids and the text as they get older. Man, I LOVED those books... I think I first dipped into them in third or fourth grade and brought them with me to college, working out the harder problems as I got more skilled in proofs. Also good is Math for Smarty Pants, though it's at a lower level and doesn't have the re-readability. They're recreational math and lots of fun. I sure wish I could get Square One TV on dvd (you can watch on youtube, but it's not great quality).

Hmmm. My son likes both, but definitely prefers LofF to MM. I purchased the first LofF (I think decimals, but maybe it was percents) for him when he was crying over his math nearly ever day in 2nd grade math. I tired to be formal and told him he had to do the problems at the end of each chapter in order to move on. Well, that lasted all of about 3 weeks, because shortly after he tested up 2 years in math! At that point I let him read decimals and percents just for fun!

Fast forward to this year. He read the algebra one for fun and never did any of the questions. But he loved it and begged me for the higher level math ones (geo. , trig and calculus). Teasingly I told him I couldn't buy them for him because his brain would "explode." At that point, I purchased a number of the MM books (I currently have the last LofF on order and will let him read them this summer, he is dying to find out what happens to Fred, but in some ways, I didn't want him to get ahead of himself). He has read some of the MM books, but not with the same passion - he likes them, but he loves LofF.

So, why did he like the MM books, but def. not as much as LofF. I have read the first 3 LofF books and I laughed the entire time, the MM books seem to have a different type of humor. I think it may just depend on personality. LofF are more linear, and I think my DS and I both are fairly linear thinkers. Maybe that is why?

Anyway, both series are fun. Maybe just pick up one of each used and see which your child prefers?

Cat

My girls (and I) have enjoyed LoF. We're reading the books together, and usually spend a lot of time giggling.

MM sound like fun too. I ordered a couple and will let you know when they get here.

Our MM books came a couple days ago. DD10 started reading one, and I read about halfway through another. To me, they seemed to be fun books to read that happen to have math in them rather than something I'd use to teach math. The LoF books seem to better fit the way DD10 and I think. I expect DD8 to prefer MM though, especially if I read them to her.

Yes, I'd consider MM more recreational math reading and not something you'd teach from. In my eye, LoF is just an non-traditional text book. One that our mathy kids tend to gravitate towards.

JB

My DD9 loves the Life of Fred books. As a matter of fact just today she was reading one and said how much she loved it! We have some Murderous Maths books and she hasn't picked those up to read as much.

The first two Life of Fred books arrived today. DD took the fractions book to school for reading time, she was so excited about it.