High School Language Arts: Life of Fred (not boring)
The Life of Fred (not boring) language arts series for high school students is just what you need for your teens. Enjoy this revolutionary approach to learning.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure here.
Life of Fred: Language Arts
Introducing one of the finest language arts programs available for high school students. The “Life of Fred” series, originally known for its innovative approach to teaching mathematics, has expanded into the realm of other subjects including financial literacy and language arts. The brainchild of Dr. Stanley F. Schmidt, “Life of Fred” has already captured the hearts and minds of countless students and educators with its unique storytelling method. The Life of Fred Language Arts series aims to bring the same enjoyment to the world of reading and writing. Let’s dive into what makes this series so special and why it could be the perfect addition to your educational resources toolkit.
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
12/14/2024 02:56 am GMT
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
12/14/2024 02:56 am GMT
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
12/14/2024 03:25 am GMT
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
12/14/2024 03:25 am GMT
What is Life of Fred?
For those unfamiliar with Life of Fred books, it is a collection focussing on multiple subject areas that use the adventures of a young math professor named Fred to teach complex subjects in a narrative format. Unlike traditional textbooks, “Life of Fred” tells a continuous story of six-year-old math professor Fred at Kittens University, integrating educational content seamlessly into the story line. This approach not only makes learning more engaging but also helps students see the practical applications of what they are learning.
“There is an essential body of knowledge that every well-educated person should have. English is important. Math is important. But so are so many other areas of learning. There is no reason why each subject should be kept in water-tight compartments. They flow naturally together.”
– Stanley F. Schmidt, Ph.D.
What is Life of Fred: Language Arts?
Expanding into language arts suited for age 13+, this Life of Fred hardcover textbook series continues to follow the adventures of Fred, but this time with a focus on reading, writing, grammar, and a whole lot more. The Language Arts series is designed to cover everything from basic grammar, parts of speech, sentence structure and rules of the English language, to advanced writing techniques and literary analysis. True to the “Life of Fred” style, these concepts are taught through entertaining stories and practical examples.
Each volume in the four-book series continues part of the life of Fred Gauss and contains 19 daily lessons. This means the whole series could easily be worked through in just one semester. Rather than endless drill exercises, there is a Your Turn to Play section at the end of each lesson, typically with just 3-4 questions which can be completed on separate paper. Answers are on the next page in the book.
Schmidt tends to use a different letter of the alphabet for the book title in each volume. For example, the four titles in the language arts series proceed in alphabetical order, making it easy to see at a glance which book comes next: Australia, Begin Teaching, Classes, Dreams.
Key Concepts Covered
- Story-Driven Learning: Each book is structured around a continuous, fun narrative that keeps students engaged. Fred’s adventures provide context and motivation for learning new concepts, making the educational journey much more enjoyable.
- Integrated Learning: The series integrates various aspects of language arts into the story. Students learn grammar, vocabulary, and writing skills in a way that emphasises how these elements work together in real-world communication. However, Schmidt’s integrative approach is not limited to just language arts. In this series, he covers a lot of relevant information that is central to a well-rounded education in the form of history geography, math, art, literature and other useful content.
- Humour and Relatability: Dr. Schmidt’s writing is known for its humour and relatability. The fun stories are filled with quirky characters and funny situations that make learning enjoyable and memorable.
- Critical Thinking: Beyond just teaching the mechanics of language, the series encourages critical thinking and problem-solving. Students are prompted to think deeply about language use, narrative structure, and stylistic choices.
- Flexibility for Different Learning Styles: The narrative approach caters to various learning styles helping students gain a solid understanding of concepts and the overall picture of foundational English skills. The engaging stories can also be read aloud, making them suitable for group learning environments.
The “Life of Fred” Language Arts series is versatile and can be used in multiple educational settings:
- Homeschooling: The series is perfect for homeschooling families looking for a comprehensive and engaging language arts curriculum.
- Supplemental Learning: It can be used as a supplement to traditional language arts curricula, providing an enjoyable way to reinforce key concepts.
- Classroom Use: Teachers can incorporate the books into their lesson plans, using the stories as a springboard for discussions and activities.
Conclusion
“The government schools and most textbooks practice a form of segregation. In the English class they study only English. In the math class they study only math. In history, only history. In geography, only geography.
I believe there is an inner coherence among all the subjects. I do not teach English. I teach kids. In this book I include the geography of the oceans, the capital of Kansas, the four ways to try to figure out what a continent is and what to do if you are lost in an airport.”
– Stanley F. Schmidt PhD, Life of Fred: Australia
The “Life of Fred” Language Arts series is more than just a set of textbooks. With quality hard book covers and smyth-sewn binding, it is an innovative approach to learning that makes language arts accessible, engaging, and fun. By blending storytelling with education, Dr. Stanley F. Schmidt has created a series that not only teaches essential skills but also inspires a love for learning. Whether you’re a parent, teacher or student, the Life of Fred Language Arts series is valuable for its unique and effective approach to mastering the whole point of English, the art of language.
I am a huge fan of not overburdening students with a schedule that includes every subject, scheduled for every week of every year of their schooling. Formal English grammar and language arts can be learned as a unit over the space of a semester or can be approached at half pace to make up a year of high school studies. The series could be read through once every year or two during the high school years for review of all the key language arts concepts.
Dive into the world of Fred and discover how learning can be an adventure!
The 4 books in the Life of Fred language arts series:
Topics covered in each of the 4 books:
Life of Fred: Australia (This book might be read by above average 8th graders)
- Seven billion = 7,000,000,000, Indentation to begin paragraphs, Three punctuation marks to end a sentence, Punctuation began common usage around 1450 (with the invention of the printing press), Two to the third power, Subjunctive mood used much more frequently in German, French, and Latin than in English, Postscripts, Picoseconds, Six question words (who, when, where, why, what, and how), State abbreviations, Correct way to hold a pencil, Plurals of words (two cases), Irregular plurals, Finding your calling in life, Opening and closing salutations, Only the first word in a closing salutation is capitalized, Australia is between the Indian and the Pacific oceans, Silent letters, Islands vs. continents—the four questions to ask, Homonyms, Topology, Daniel Boone, Is noon a.m. or p.m.?, Proofreading, A bus with no door, Exaggerating vs. lying, Hyperbole, That vs. which, Land of Nod, Using commas in lists, Five- and fifteen-year-olds think about clothing differently, When to omit the s after the apostrophe when forming a possessive, When to ask questions, Magnetic north pole is moving, Pole reversals, Continual vs. continuous, Less vs. fewer, Heteronyms, Two past tenses of kneel and of dream, Verbs defined, Winter in June, How to have two summers and no winters each year, Prefixes, Stich and hemistich, Alliteration, International Date Line, Five ways to make plurals, Two uses of an apostrophe, Autobiography, Vowels, Six ways to make plurals, Two past tenses of sneak, A seventh and eighth way to make plurals, Which countries use the metric system.
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
12/14/2024 02:56 am GMT
Life of Fred: Begin Teaching
- Ellipsis, Litotes, Meter = 39 inches, Ninth way to make plurals, Since can be ambiguous, The whole point of English, Green’s Theorem in Space, Consonants as defined by air flow, Location of a comma changes the meaning, 14ºC = 57ºF, What the United States, Liberia, and Myanmar have in common, Eleven ways to make plurals, 5 cm = 2 inches, Run-on sentences, Comma splices, Appositive phrase, Conjunctions, Lyrics, Iambic foot, Pentameter, Trochaic, anapestic, and dactylic feet, Scansion, Twelfth way to make plurals, Three ways to fix a comma splice, Eager vs. anxious, Not looking at the spelling of a word to decide whether to use a or an, Long vowels, Twenty-two words that don’t contain a, e, i, o, or u, Idioms, Affect and effect as verbs, Affect and effect as nouns, Nouns defined, Lie vs. lay, Transitive and intransitive verbs, The Australian Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act, Pronouns defined, What some people “know,” Making “happy as a clam” make sense, Scare quotes, Sixteen ways to make plurals, Cardinality of a set, Numbers—when to use words and when to use numerals, Subject-verb agreement when there is a compound subject, When to use du and when to use Sie in German, Literary symbolism, One hundred best first lines from novels, What is means to be a graduate student, Should the saying be, “The early worm gets eaten”? Dictionary vs. thesaurus, Conjugation of a verb in three tenses, Existentialism defined, The three cases in which a preposition is capitalized in a book title, The two numbers in English (singular and plural—I and we) and the three numbers in Russian, Six tenses in English, Correction: 12 tenses in English.
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
12/14/2024 02:56 am GMT
Life of Fred: Classes
- The overall picture in business, math, football, life, and English, Seven parts of speech, Tense is the Latin word for time, Prepositions explained in 30 seconds, A sentence with 16 prepositional phrases, Adjectives, Three kinds of adjectival errors, Four uses of italics, Simplifying the 12 tenses, Positive, comparative, and superlative forms of adjectives, Proper nouns used as adjectives, Suffix, Using the present tense to indicate things that are always true, Direct and indirect objects, Often the least effective way to teach is to lecture, Nominative, objective, and possessive cases, Simile, Schwa, Auxiliary verbs, Elliptical construction, Formal, informal, nonstandard, and general English, Two ways our brains work, The four emotions (glad, sad, mad, and afraid), Counter words, The three reasons to write, Adverbs, The three parts of mothering, The seven rules for when to double the final consonant when adding the suffix –ed (and simplified down to one rule), Intersection of sets, Less vs. fewer, Infinitive form of a verb as subject, object, adjective, and adverb, Holloware, flatware, and how to set a table, Prepositions at the end of sentences, Euphemisms and minced oaths, Subjunctive, imperative, and indicative moods, Antecedents of pronouns, Nauseous vs. nauseated, Stream of consciousness writing, Hyphens can change meaning, When to hyphenate compound adjectives (the six rules).
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
12/14/2024 03:25 am GMT
Life of Fred: Dreams
- Why kids don’t go to jail, Brackets, parentheses, and braces, Three ways to make a break in a sentence (commas, parentheses and dashes), How to type an em dash on a computer, Which words ending in –nger are pronounced with a hard g, Use of [sic], Where to put the question mark(s) in Did he ask, “What time is it”, What to use instead of parentheses inside of parentheses, Twenty-six research doctorates and two professional degree doctorates, Ruminants and why horses are unlucky, Three uses of a dash, When a question mark or an exclamation mark can touch a dash, What not to say to little children, Metaphors, The only time a period can touch a dash, When acronyms lose their periods or their capitalization, Analogy, Emphatic form of a verb, Compound subjects, Compound verbs, Simple, compound, and complex sentences, Coordinating and correlative conjunctions, When to express numbers as words or as numerals, Conjunctive adverbs, Figurative language (comparison, degree, and association), Two rules for making outlines, Parallel construction, Synecdoche, The difference between metaphor and metonymy, Allusions in writing, Good spelling implies high IQ, Inverse, converse, and contrapositive, Logical equivalence, The four times to use the passive voice, How to pronounce viz. e.g. and i.e., Three keys to good writing, Unnecessary prepositions, How to write an essay, Plagiarism, Etymology, Two times you can use sentence fragments, Three uses of the slash mark (/), Why we capitalize the pronoun I, Ellipsis.
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
12/14/2024 03:25 am GMT
