Life of Fred Elementary Set # 3: Ice Cream, Jelly Beans (Life of Fred Elementary Series)

This is a great series. My son, who scores way, way up at the top of the country on the national exams for math, was getting really discouraged in his third and fourth grade math classes. He wasn't fast enough. He wasn't good enough. While his national exams put him up at the top, his report card put him at not even average. He went from loving math to dreading math. At ten years old, I had a kid who was pulling away from one of the most important topics he'll need even to pay his bills someday. I teach college biology to mostly first year college students, and one of my students mentioned the "Life of Fred" books. These books are engaging, and put math into context. Why should you care about math? Well, it let's you do this . . . My son devoured the first three books we bought him, and asked for the next ones! Thank you, Dr. Schmidt!!!! And, thank you, Amazon for carrying these books. They are not at our local library.

My daughter hated math until life of Fred!

Ice Cream and Jelly Beans pick up where the early elementary Fred books left off, and the sweetly naive little math genius is finding more ways to use math to get into and out of trouble. The stories are engaging--a favorite at bedtime for my kids--and the math is just part of the fun. We've slowed down a little as the kids are memorizing their multiplication facts, but they can't wait to see what Fred will get up to next.Life of Fred is a wonderful supplement to any math program, for kids in any school setting.

We've tried so many books. My son actually likes these and it makes teaching easier. Only dinged it a star because at times they could be a bit clearer and I wish they came in paperbacks for less cost. Still the best@

We took our son out of school because he completely bored. Life of Fred is about "learning goals" vs "performance goals". These books teach life math not simply book math. He started working on the book as soon as we received them. He went through 3 chapters! This is a young man who typically quits whenever he gets frustrated. The stories are so intriguing to him!

We homeschool and are using this set on our 9-year old. He loves the storybook way of instruction and I love that I don't have to nag him to get his math done!

Very well written. My boys are in elementary and middle school grades and they enjoy the lessons taught in these books. The great part is that they are constantly wanting to re-read these books which makes it very easy to go back over the lesson with added detail.

This is a great book for kids. Enjoyed reading it with my granddaughter. We have several of the Fred series books.