Who has used "Five in a Row" ?

[LizaBear]

Who here has used the "Five in a Row" curriculum ?
Did you like it ?
Did your kids ?
How old were they when you started ?
What additional materials did you use ?

Please do not suggest unschooling - it's not something that will work for us.

[natashaccat]

Can you get the book through your local library? I was able to sample it via our inter library loan program.

I worked through a few of the chapters with my 4 yo and I think it was a nice starting point for rainy day activities when dd was bouncing off the walls but I didn't think it really was robust enough to be a complete curriculum and I think that dd really got more out of just reading the stories than she did out of the activities themselves. Maybe she's just too young for it?

So basically I would say that it's a good addition for your HS library and maybe it'll be better for an older child, but I think that for a preschooler you'd get more age appropriate ideas from a generic preschool activity book. Our library has lots of books on preschool activity ideas and I find that creating my own "curriculum" for those books actually works out better than the FIR curriculum. We actually do mostly unschool in the summer but cold winters here require that I have plenty of activities ready for the dd's.

[AuntLavender]

I used "Before Five in a Row" with my now 9 1/2 yo when he was 5-6 ish. (Before that none of my children wanted to do anything school-ish.)

I used "Five in a Row" after that.

We never followed it to the letter or even finished a book (meaning a FIAR unit study not the books to read!) but it was fun and imaginative!

I really like the story books. Our local library has most of them but I have bought several throughout the years.

I just bought the July 2006 of "Literary Child" and it's similar but you buy the issues monthly and it's for one book only. My girls like that sort of thing sometimes! "It has a Sudoku which is new to us and un coloring pages and craft ideas (make a flower garland) and other fun activities that spark your child's imagination into creating their own things.

*My local library doesn't have anything! I donated my copies!

[OTMomma]

I started using FIAR just recently, we've only done 2-3 books. My dd is just barely 4, but she loves to be read to and do story extender type of stuff. (I used to make up my own, but they were far more simple) For us it has really been about 3 in a row, I skip a lot of the art lessons, as my dd isn't interested in that, and some days we do more than one of the other activities. I sort of think we could almost do the stories, and then do them all again in a few years, doing the more advanced activities- but we'll see.

I do think this book was a great buy, and after we work through vol. 1, I plan to get the next one. Some of the books are classics, and I had copies that belonged to dh as a child, others I've bought used or new - here at the TP, and from Amazon. We have also taken weeks off lately when we had a lot of other things going on, so just buying 1-2 at a time as we need them seems to make the most sense, and is easiest on our budget.

At this age the only other supplimental thing I'm doing, is I have some Handwriting without tears wooden pieces and access to more of their program which we are doing. I think for children over 5 suppliments in handwriting, reading and math may be called for. There are some math activities that I think would be fine for a Kindergartner, but an older child might need more.

My child and I have both enjoyed it a lot.

[GoodEats]

We tried it when Bailey was 4 and despite her loving to read, she (and I) found it tedious. Ironically, though, during that period, she had my MIL read her the complete Madeline stories ad nauseum. It wasn't the books - those we enjoyed, the ones we could get - it was the activities. I'm not sure if they were young for her or I wasn't pulling them off well (it could happen, I'll admit it) or what.

We're following TWTM for first grade and she's thriving and loving lessons and projects related to them, so I have to think FIAR just wasn't a good match for us.

[Bestbirths]

My cousin uses five in a row, and she and her kids love it. They have access to a great library. She organizes field trips for their FIAR group, and has the field trip person read the story to the children. For ex: the one on Italy, they had a field trip to the olive garden and the mgr. read the book to the group. For another one, the group went to CI CI's pizza and the mgr there read the group the book. They have a lot of fun with it. At CI CI's, each one of the children got to make their own pizzas. We don't do FIAR, but we sometimes go to their cool field trips.

[mandib50]

i do use it on occasion. the stories are awesome and there are some really good ideas in the curriculum. i have used it for 5 year olds to 9 year olds (beyond five in a row). i didn't use any additional materials except maybe some craft stuff or other books from the library. i would recommend trying it. i believe their website has a sample for you to look at.

[True Blue]

I was really excited to get it, but now that I have it, I don't know. The activities that go along with the stories are really too far ahead of my 4 y/o, I think. It's recommended for 4-8 but it talks about discussing the geometry of Mike and the Steam Engine, and I find very few activities relevant to my DS. But that's just my opinion. Maybe I'll feel differently in a few months, but for now, it sits on the shelf.

[Mamax3]

I have Five in a Row and tried it with my kids. They hated me reading the same book five days in a row. We read tons of books every day, and sometimes the same ones over and over, but they didn't like reading a book that was chosen for them to read over and over and were bored with the activity.

I looked to the FIAR message board for guidance and while there are WONDERFUL resources there, that message board is wwwwaaaaayyyyy to religious for me.

I enjoyed the FIAR books more than my kids. :

[joandsarah77]

I have volume one and all the books because the books are not available in libarys over here in Oz. If I had had access to all the books from the libary there are a few I would not have bought. Some of the topics are rather deep such as black slavery, so I guess though I will just put those aside until she is older. Origanly I though all of the volume one books would be easier then those in volume 2 and so on but I don't think that is true. I looked through the volume 2 list and noticed a book we already own that she has liked for some time. So I think each volume apart from volume 4 contains both easeir and harder books. Some of the stories are quite long. 'Papa Piccolo' is 30 pages long and probably averages over 100 words per page. So while there picture books there not little little kid books kwim?
When we row a book I look on the net for crafts and other ideas as well, as at least half of the activities are above dd's head.
So far we have only done 'Ping' and 'Madeline' and where about to do "How to make an Apple Pie' as we only do a book every so often. DD enjoyed both but particuly madeline. We made Madeline's hat off a craft on the net and DD enjoyed playing her for some time. In fact again yesterday she said she was madeline. She also remembers that Madeline lives in France and can name the Eifle tower from a picture so what we have done has stuck with her. DD is 4 1/2 now, but I think to use the manual as is, 6 would be a better age.

[slightly crunchy]

I have a 4 yo and I have BFIAR and FIAR Vol. 1.

The best thing about this program is the book lists. Most of the books are wonderful and there are some that we probably would not have discovered on our own.

I got BFIAR when he was 2.5-ish. I got it because it was recommended to me by a friend of a friend and it sounded neat. But, I never used it; I figured out as soon as I read through it that it is mostly things I do naturally when reading to my kids (I wonder how many trees are on this page, let's count them, and so on).

I think FIAR is much better and brings in more ideas that I might not think about. For example, there are "story disks" (basically little circles of paper with a picture that represents each book) and you put them onto your own world map. We have started to do this with other books we read as well, and it is a lot of fun and a great intro to geography. I like how there are some "international" stories and how it opens up discussion into different cultures, which is ideal for ds right now.

Of course, some books are ones we already were familiar with. And like someone else said, many of the activities are too far ahead of my 4 yo's interest. And the thing is, I have this feeling that when he is ready for those things, he will be wanting more involved, longer books as well. Maybe I bring the ideas out again when he can read books of this level on his own?

We definitely have never actually read the book five days in a row, at a planned time, and planned a specific activity ahead of time. That doesn't seem necessary to me at this age (and I am not an unschooler at heart, either). I use it more as a reseource.

So I guess I am on the fence about it. For $25 or less, it is not a bad deal, and my library has had most of the books.

[slightly crunchy]

Originally Posted by Mamax3

I looked to the FIAR message board for guidance and while there are WONDERFUL resources there, that message board

Maybe it would be fun to start a FIAR thread here on this board?

As I said we use it only (very) loosely, but the books are great and maybe we could share ideas spurred by the books.

[joandsarah77]

Great idea slightly crunchy. I have links I used for both 'Ping' and 'Madeline' as well as heaps at the ready for 'Apple pie' if any one wants them.

For example, there are "story disks" (basically little circles of paper with a picture that represents each book) and you put them onto your own world map.

I havn't used those. As we own a leap pad globe what I did was draw and cut out a miniture airplane. I put a blob of masking tape on the back and we fly it around the globe to the story location and stick it on. We can then with our globe pen have the globe tell us the country, the capital and play some music from the country. My dd really likes that. With Apple Pie coming up I though I would make all the diffrent means of transportation the girl baker uses to get around the world.

[Bestbirths]

Maybe a FIAR tribe could go in finding your tribe?

[HRC121799]

I've had "Before Five in a Row" for almost a year now, and I opened it like 3 times. I checked out a bunch of the books once and we didn't do any of them, I think we read a couple of them, but we did none of the suggested activities. Just didn't catch our interest.

[NoHiddenFees]

DD1 looked at me like I had three heads when I tried FIAR. She thought it was contrived and hated the idea of doing the SAME book every day. I don't think it's a good program for children who devour books.

That said, it was a good read for me and gave me a few new ideas about how to talk about books we were reading.

[Brisen]

I have FIAR. I think it's great for times when I'm stuck for ideas; however, my kids also tired of the same story every day for five days. My library had most of the books, though, so I was only investing in the actual FIAR book, so I could afford to just get it as an extra, if that makes sense.

A homeschooling friend told me about her homeschooling friend who has a large family of kids who are mostly grown now, I think. She used FIAR for as long as they have books for. (I don't know if I worded that correctly... they used the books up to the oldest year they have FIAR for.) My friend says the kids really thrived on it and it worked wonderfully for them.