You've peaked my interest> FIAR...

[mamamoogs]

so tell me more mamas, I had a few of you post a reply to my thread about this, so I looked into it,and looks prefect for my DD, so how well does it work?

I would love to try it out and see how it goes, my DD is 5 now and will be six this august, so I would order volume 1, yes , and when finished you fo onto volume 2?

I would love to hear some success stories from you mamas out there that use this curriculum. We love to read at our house and i am thinking this could work.

tell me how it works for a child that is the age of mine.
thanks

[annethcz]

I used FIAR when my oldest was about that age. I was really motivated at first, and then it slowly petered out My kids enjoyed listening to the stories, but unless they LOVED the story, they didn't want to listen to the same story every day for a week. So we'd skip days or just read it a few times instead. But I think it's a fabulous idea for a curriculum, and it doesn't hurt to try and see how it works for your family. The guide book isn't terribly expensive (especially if you buy it used), and you can check out the books from the library (you don't have to read the books in any particular order).

I think the biggest advantage to FIAR is it's flexiblity. You can use it in the way that works best for your family.

[mamamoogs]

so basically you purchase one book (which is the guide book) and then in that book it tells you what books to chose from to read, and then you either purchase those books or check them out of the library, so the guide book is $40 new and the others free if checked out of library.
correct?

[shoefairy3]

yep

[yllek]

I've used FIAR I and II extensively this past year, mostly because it is assigned work for us from our homeschool/private school program. I would caution that it is not a complete curriculum, by any means. It is a whole lot of literature extension activities (many cross-curricular). For me the best way to describe it is that there are a ton of activities and discussion points that may help a parent highlight interesting aspects of the stories that may not have otherwise occurred to them.

You asked for success stories so I won't share the particulars of our experience with FIAR. I just want to caution that this is a dandy literature program and a really nice art appreciation program, but find other curricula to provide a more organized framework for history, science and math.

[Rivka5]

Originally Posted by yllek

You asked for success stories so I won't share the particulars of our experience with FIAR. I just want to caution that this is a dandy literature program and a really nice art appreciation program, but find other curricula to provide a more organized framework for history, science and math.

The math component of FIAR is definitely not sufficient to be a kid's only math, and isn't designed to be. I'd suggest that the OP could do kindy math informally (shapes, counting, sorting, patterns), given the present workbook allergy.

WRT history and science, this is probably a matter of opinion. Not everyone would agree that an "organized framework" is necessary to teach history and science to a five- or six-year-old; many people prefer to just introduce some cool topics to expand their children's horizons and spark interest and curiosity in the world.

But yeah, if you follow a classical "begin with prehistory and proceed to the present day in an orderly fashion, leaving nothing out" model, FIAR would drive you crazy.

[KathleenSLP]

We've done FIAR (vol 1-2) this last year for my 4 year old (blog link in my profile.) I have not supplemented at this age but if I planned to continue in the Fall for Kinder I would definitely supplement for the 3 Rs (which FIAR says is needed anyway.)

It is a sweet program that covers a lot of interesting topics. I personally focused on the social studies, language arts and science topics much more than art or math. That was just my preference.

[momtokea]

I haven't used FIAR so I can't comment on that, but I have used Sonlight Curriculum. Have you had a look at that? www.sonlight.com
Lots of wonderful literature, and it isn't difficult to make it secular if that is a concern. Just another suggestion.

[yllek]

Originally Posted by Rivka5

The math component of FIAR is definitely not sufficient to be a kid's only math, and isn't designed to be. I'd suggest that the OP could do kindy math informally (shapes, counting, sorting, patterns), given the present workbook allergy.

WRT history and science, this is probably a matter of opinion. Not everyone would agree that an "organized framework" is necessary to teach history and science to a five- or six-year-old; many people prefer to just introduce some cool topics to expand their children's horizons and spark interest and curiosity in the world.

But yeah, if you follow a classical "begin with prehistory and proceed to the present day in an orderly fashion, leaving nothing out" model, FIAR would drive you crazy.

We're not really classical here (although the program we attend certainly is). I tried to post briefly, and I also just assumed that the OP might want something easy and packaged for the kindy year. My own experience with FIAR was a bummer, mostly because our program wants FIAR to be the organizing framework for kindergarten, but it's not working out to be a good fit for ds. It would have been more clear had I said to find other resources to round out science, history and math.

FIAR drove my science-loving ds up the wall batty. The topics for science, geography and history skipped around with little relevance to anything except the books. Because of the five-day structure of FIAR, cool topics that came up (shadow play, for instance) were presented superficially then dropped. Something entirely different (maybe floating? maybe plants?) would come up the next week. Some science would have such a tenuous connection to the book, my ds would be like, why are we talking about this at all? Can't we do more of the magnet play that we did last week?

The skipping around in history is also pretty confusing and tiresome for ds. One night he wanted me to tell him the whole history of the United States ("Start at the beginning, Mom."), because he couldn't get a handle on when in history Who Owns the Sun took place. I think we were reading about Canada the week before, then read Make Way for Ducklings the week after. This seriously upset ds. Why were there slaves? What happened to them? Why did the government allow that? After the Civil War, were there other wars? Why do we have to read about ducks now?

We've loved most of the literature in the FIAR booklist, but I've dropped the FIAR stuff almost entirely unless there is something assigned by ds' classroom teacher. Science is mostly child-led in this house, with a few GEM investigations if kiddo wants it. Right now ds wants to learn to scuba dive so he watches Blue Planet, finds ocean books at the library, creates these "ocean worlds" with our collection of sea life toys, draws pictures of the ocean zones and its inhabitants, tells me stories about ocean food webs and underwater volcanoes. He begs me to read some pretty heavy non-fiction for him, and he carries around a TopReader ocean book that is just past his reading level. He's trying to read that one on his own though and won't let me near it. He's five and seriously knows more about coral reefs than I ever learned in my whole life. This has gone on for over a month, maybe two. You just can't do this sort of thing in five days and one picture book.

Ds wants to study geography in a more systematic way (inspired by Uri Shulevitz), so we're ditching the FIAR story circles to do our own world travels. I'm trying to figure out how to get a handle on history, given that some of the heavy topics that have come up has been upsetting, but ds wants the whole big picture now.

I guess my main objection to FIAR is that its structure makes it really hard for kids to dive deep into a cool topic. Every child is different, but my ds was really, really frustrated by that. He does not want to skip around. He does not want be introduced to something that he can't explore fully. Of course, ymmv.

[Rivka5]

Ah! That makes things much more clear. So you're doing FIAR by someone else's assignment, and they have the order of the books and which activities to do and how long you spend on things already planned? That does sound really frustrating.

From what I gather from the FIAR forums, most people who are using it independently go with the flow of what their kids find interesting. So if a book about the ocean sparks an interest in coral reefs, they'd spend another week or two doing more and more coral reef stuff - just like your son has been doing. Or if "Who Owns the Sun" brings up a big interest in slavery and the Civil War they might reorganize the book schedule they had in mind and do "Follow the Drinking Gourd" and "They Were Strong and Good" next.

But yeah, if you're not free to do that, I'd think the program would be really constraining and annoying.

[KathleenSLP]

Originally Posted by Rivka5

From what I gather from the FIAR forums, most people who are using it independently go with the flow of what their kids find interesting. So if a book about the ocean sparks an interest in coral reefs, they'd spend another week or two doing more and more coral reef stuff - just like your son has been doing.

Yes, you can definitely be as flexible as you want with FIAR and go off on "bunny trails", etc... We personally tweaked it by ROWing a book over 2 weeks (and how many days we did this varied book to book) and concentrating more on the subjects I posted earlier. FIAR can definitely be individualized per family/child.

[elizawill]

i like FIAR a lot. it's gentle, fun, and hands-on. we have volumes 1 & 2, and i own all fo the books for volume 1. imho, you only need to add math & phonics for a 5 or 6 year old. the FIAR boards are wonderful & i especially love all of the blogs by FIAR users.

hth

[yllek]

Awww, well, now I feel like I've been totally jipped. It sounds like you all have had a wonderful time with FIAR. Rivka5, your approach to FIAR is exactly what I wish we could have done, but the pace and structure set by our program has it so that we just can't feel the love. Well, perhaps that isn't even entirely the case. The literature has been wonderful. I'm a sucker for good books, and FIAR has selected some amazing ones.

I guess to the OP, just chalk up my example as a lesson learned. Go at your kiddo's pace and follow her interests while using FIAR. Trying to do things strictly by the five-days-in-a-row structure with a preset idea of how things will go doesn't make for the best FIAR experience.

[meetoo]

Originally Posted by Rivka5

Ah! That makes things much more clear. So you're doing FIAR by someone else's assignment, and they have the order of the books and which activities to do and how long you spend on things already planned? That does sound really frustrating.

I agree! How annoying!!

We use FIAR. I love how flexible it is. I do not have any of the issue the above poster has. When my kids are really into a topic we keep it up until they are done with it. We get extra books, use HSS,com, and research relevant web sites. We often spend two weeks on a subject. We will generally read the book everyday the first five days, then use lots of supplemental books the second week. We use the book as a guide and add our own flavor to it. .
I also love the fact that we can put FIAR down whenever we want and not "fall behind" We have done several unit studies this year on random topics I thought would interest the kids or were relevant to the season.

FIAR is not meant to cover the 3 rs! You are suppose to add those. The math is only in there to show why we need math. You need a minimum of phonics and math, added to it. Handwriting or a complete LA program would be at your discretion, but you at least need reading and math.
We generally beef up the S.S. and Science(1st grader). I use 2 days a week for S.S. and 3 days a week for science most weeks. So we do most of the activities for those subjects and add in our own. I find FIAR to be an awesome jumping point. We have had a ton of fun with it this year.

[magnolia_mama]

We used the first 2 volumes of FIAR in first and second grade. The book selections were terrific and generally well liked by my children. A couple were difficult to find, but we were able to get them through interlibrary loan. Most are on the shelves of our local library.

My favorite aspects of the curriculum were geography, art, science and history. We did not find ourselves using the language arts and math portions. I prefer more of a structured, textbook approach to those subjects. Math in FIAR is not intended to be a stand alone subject; I believe it is called "applied math" and is meant to be supplemental.

Each story takes place in various places around the globe. We used the story disks to mark the world map and also tried to learn more about each geographical location. The art portion really taught me and my children to study and appreciate the illustrations in each book. It also inspired many great art projects. My art loving daughter especially enjoyed this area of FIAR. We would often check out related science and history materials to go along with each book.

We never actually read any of the books for the recommend 5 days. Our FIAR days were usually MWF. We typically read the book through 1-2 times. I would highly recommend FIAR. It is a very flexible curriculum and was thoroughly enjoyed by our family.