Life of Fred: Logic
Life of Fred: Logic uses witty narratives and puzzles that teens will find appealing to teach inductive reasoning, logic, fallacies, proofs, and more.
$49
Quantity:
Complete Course
In a Curriculum Kit
Multiple Grades
Nonreligious
2026 Twelfth-Grade Curriculum Kit
Life of Fred: Logic
Life of Fred: Logic teaches formal logic through the signature Fred approach: an ongoing story filled with quirky characters, unexpected situations, and surprisingly rigorous content. Designed for high school students, this course covers inductive reasoning, logical fallacies, syllogisms, predicate logic, set theory, direct and indirect proofs, axiomatic systems, and even Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem.
Unlike many logic courses, Life of Fred presents these concepts through narrative rather than traditional textbook explanations. As students follow Fred's adventures, they encounter increasingly sophisticated ideas and learn how to evaluate arguments, identify faulty reasoning, and construct sound proofs.
The book includes 99 puzzles and exercises spread across 16 chapters. Students record their answers in a separate notebook, making the book completely non-consumable. While the presentation is unconventional, the content is substantial enough that the publisher notes it has been used as a college-level text.
Parents should know that the humor is frequent, the storyline is intentionally absurd, and the teaching style assumes students are willing to learn through reading rather than worksheets. For students who appreciate Fred's offbeat approach, that combination can make a challenging subject easier to understand and more engaging.
Completing the course earns ¼ high school credit in thinking skills.
How to Use Life of Fred: Logic
- Plan for 30–40 minutes of focused work several times each week. Logic rewards careful thinking, and students will get more from the course when they have time to wrestle with the ideas.
- A pace of about half a chapter per week works well for most students. The concepts build on one another, so there is no advantage to rushing through them.
- Have your teen solve the puzzles and exercises on notebook paper. The book is completely non-consumable, making it easy to reuse with younger siblings.
- Encourage your student to read the entire lesson, including the unusual stories and humor. Fred's adventures may seem unrelated at first, but they help students remember concepts that can otherwise feel abstract.
- If your teen gets stuck on a proof or logic puzzle, resist the urge to supply the answer immediately. Part of learning logic is developing the persistence to think through a problem from multiple angles.
By the end of the course, students will have explored formal logic, practiced identifying faulty reasoning, and earned ¼ high school credit in thinking skills.
In the 2026 kits this course earns high school credit:
0.25 credits of Logic
Thinking Skills · 12th grade · Classic and Non-Religious kits
Publisher: Polka Dot Publishing
Author: Stanley F. Schmidt, Ph.D.
Age Recommendation: 14+
Grade Recommendation: 9th+
Faith-Based: No
Consumable: No
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9781937032555
Format: Hardcover
Copyright: 1/1/2016
Edition: 1st
Language: English
Lessons/Projects: 16
Find answers to the most frequently asked questions about this product below:
Life of Fred: Logic counts as a quarter credit of Logic on a high school transcript. To turn its grade into a GPA, use our free homeschool GPA calculator: it works out each letter grade from your student's scores, figures the GPA by year and for all of high school, and prints a grade record for the transcript.
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- September 6, 2024
Funny way to think logically
Dan A.
So far this book has been silly and a great read. Very enjoyable and gets you thinking too!
