Five in a Row

This premise is really so simple! Read a book 5 days in a row, and do various activities related to the book each day. I added FIAR into our homeschool curriculum as a literature appreciation component, it is NOT the entire focus of our day. Nevertheless, the kids really LOVE it. The first story we read was "The Story of Ping", and we choose 10 of the activities to do. I bound all of their work into a "Story About Ping" book, and they enjoy looking at their art, etc... I have found the FIAR concept to be incredibly flexible and have since then applied it to other books I love. We read "One Morning In Maine" and built a week's worth of activities around that book while we were IN Maine, and we actually went to THE Buck's Harbor and met another homeschooling family in the shop where Sal got her ice-cream!! We also used "Diary of a Spider" (I wrote a separate review on it and listed some of the activities we did, if you are interested) and THAT was a huge success. And we used "Weslandia" as well, and my children just LOVED the "FIAR" type activities we did there. Reading all of the books and the sample activites in FIAR was EXTREMELY HELPFUL, because it gave me many ideas about how to approach a book - for example, while I was very familiar with using books to talk about character development, plot structure, and language, I had never used picture books to teach art or geography before. FIAR tremendously improved my ability to mine children's literature as a teaching tool. For us, FIAR is a homeschool teaching tool. If I ever choose a book that for some reason does not gel with my kids after the second day of reading it, then I plan to choose the most interesting activities for that day and just wrap up the unit. I'm not going to plod along doing 5 days if it just isn't working for us. However, to date, this hasn't happened yet!! Even if you think you can do this approach yourself, I still recommend you either check FIAR out of the library or buy it. I even bought FIAR 2 - you can't have too many good ideas. Well okay, maybe you can, but the FIAR ideas are cream of the crop!!!

I do not homeschool my children exclusively, but I like to supplement their schoolwork with our own studies. I have found the Five In A Row books to be excellent aids to our literature study. My 6 year old and 4 year old love the selected titles and love reading them over and over. I do not read one title strictly every day for 5 days. But I do read each title multiple times, each time emphasizing a little "lesson" from the FIAR book with the kids. Mostly we just talk about the books and review the details we have learned from past readings. We learn new vocabulary, talk about different countries and cultures, and explore relationships, to name a few of our studies. My children enjoy finding the countries and states they are learning about on our large world and U.S. maps. These titles have become my children's favorite books and they ask for certain ones repeatedly, even long after I've returned them to the library! My 4 year old also loves the selections from Before Five In A Row.

We really love Five in Row and find it to be the highlight of our homeschooling day. It is true that you must use the program with additional phonics and math to make it a complete program. We use it like a supplement to the daily math, spelling, and grammar of 'regular' school. The lessons are quick and easy to prepare and makes the day end on a high note. Some use the curriculum alone, but I prefer to use as a fun extra. My kids have learned so much. Each lesson ties into the book of the week that is read, five times in a row. Each day a different aspect of the book is is focused on. The kids really cement in this new knowledge when it is tied in with a great children's book. They also make connections between the activiteis in the books and thier other lessons. We've made a lot of great memories with FIAR, and look forward to more to come!

For a homeschooler, this wonderful curriculum is exceptionally well-written and organized so that anyone can pick it up and teach from it at a moment's notice. Jane Lambert has included all information necessary to teach geography, social studies, language arts, art, applied math and science for each unit so that if library materials or other research materials were currently unavailable, the teaching could still continue. There are nineteen picture book titles (ex: Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say) with extensive lesson plans for each title. Units can be repeated easily without repeating the same information each time. My children have been using Five in a Row for three years and the knowledge they have gained is incredible! This is a fun and enjoyable curriculum that teaches a love for learning and I highly recommend it!