What's on my Bedside Table -- Willa

Chari choosing C as her Book Letter of the month gives me a chance to share what's on my bedside table this month:

Life of Fred:  Calculus

Why am I reading a calculus book?  It goes back to my math dilemma with Kieron.    I was praying about what to do with him in math the next couple of years.   I think that is resolved now, but while I was hunting, I found the Life of Fred series mentioned several times on the Well Trained Mind board.  

For some reason I had the impression it was Math Lite, but the feedback on the board made me curious enough to go look at the website, and I read some of the samples, and got sort of pulled in.   I liked the style of the books and the variety of topics, and from all I read the math is sound.  

I went and checked our library system, and the only LOF books there were Statistics and Calculus.  Since my daughter is doing calculus in college next year, and I never took calculus in high school or college, I thought that if I checked out LOF Calculus I could get an idea of how the series worked AND a glimpse into the nature of calculus at the same time.  Two birds with one stone. 

The first chapter I tried to do all the study problems, but I think that I will have to keep the book checked out forever if I do that, so I'm just going to start reading it for fun/

As for the dilemma with Kieron, I think it came about because I just didn't want to deal with high school math this year.  I was trying to find a way to outsource it that wouldn't break the bank.   After I talked about it with him, though, I decided to just go ahead and continue with Jacob's Geometry which he started last year but laid aside when things got busy.     We are going to resume that in the fall. 

This summer he is using a college basic math type book called Mathematics Made Simple  that I had around the house from when his older brother used it.  It's not a good book to introduce concepts, and the answer key has lots of errors, but it gives me a way to go through basic topics with him and see if he has any major gaps.   

After poring through the LOF series for a long time and flinching at the price I decided that I would hold off on them for now.   I am seriously thinking of getting the Middle School set for Paddy once he gets his basic arithmetic down.   Not so much as his primary text, but as a supplement.    Downside is the price, upside is that the materials seem to maintain their price so I could probably resell after he is past that stage.

Now back to reading about calculus!  (Aren't you glad the CHEMISTRY book hasn't arrived yet?  That starts with C too)