I have a 7 year old girl. Wondering if 5 in a Row would be good. I have used Prarie Primer in past with other girls. It is just a little bit too old for her still. Any opinions on unit studies?
Wow...cna't believe there are no answers!!! I used the first volume with my oldest when she was 4 going on 5....but this was before I knew there was "Before Five In a Row". But we loved it. I was able to get MOST of the books from our library, there were 1 or 2 that were hard to get so we ended up having to skip them. One of them was Who Owns the Sun, and when I was finally able to read that one I was blown away. Loved it. I loved the time to read with my daughter and then doing an activity or two with her each day to read the book. Shortly after I was feeling the "not doing enough" bug and switched to a boxed curricula. We are definitely back to a more classical approach like the Five in a Row books....even though now she's older. If you do decide to go with FIAR, check out www.homeschoolshare.com for lapbooks and other ideas to go along with each volume, TONS of free stuff on there to enhance the learning!!!!
Thanks so much for the help. I will check out the site you gave me. I really am a more unschooling type mom with a little abeka thrown in because I feel the pressure to. I love the Prarie Primer but its for 3rd grade and up I think. I love to hear others opinions on things they have used. Right now our world is turned upside down and homeschooling has taken a back seat to life. My 5 year old grandaughter was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma cancer and our life has been learning the harsh reality of cancer. Spending countless hours at hospital and also helping out with the other grandkids has put our schooling on back burner but I have to get us back on track and atleast do more reading. I need something easy though. Does FIAR take a lot of time to prepare?
Oh my! So sorry to hear about your grandchild! Praying for you, and for them! I did not find FIAR hard to plan. I would get the book from the library, and make sure I had the materials to do the projects listed in the book (at the time I had no clue about lapbooks!) and it would take maybe an hour a week to prepare, and maybe an hour a day to do with her and that was it. HTH.
I am looking into five in a row right now too. Can someone give me more info? Is it really just reading a book to get lessons in all the subjects?
I like FIAR. I love literature based units. I think it's pretty simple to open and plan out of without a ton of prep work. Ikkin510 - it has actual activities to tie the various subjects to the book. For example let's look at Madeline. My kids loved this one. For social studies it has a geography lesson - find France on the map, talk about France, the language there etc. Also for social studies you could talk about human relationships or history - talk about when the book was written and look at things in the book that help tell the date of writing. For language you could discuss literary devices of poetry and repetition and discuss a few vocabulary words that might be new to your student - appendix, solemn, and disaster. For ART you could discuss the architecture of the buildings shown in the illistration or discuss the variety of drawings used - some large, some small, some monochromatic, some full color. Math - look at the groupings of the girls, look at the various examples of symmetry used in the illustrations. And for Science discuss health - you could discuss the importance of washing hands and such to stay healthy. So all of that draws from the book. Now you wouldn't do all of that in one day and you wouldn't necessarily do all of that at all. You read the book on Monday and choose one or two of those to talk about after the reading. You read the book on Tuesday and choose one or two new ones to talk about. Etc. For five days in a row you read the book and draw out one of the other subjects from the book in discussion after ward. We took things a little bit further and I found printable to use with my kids to make a little notebooking project out of this particular book. I took four years of french in high school and was able to teach the kids a few french words etc. You can make it as simple or as drawn out and in depth as you want it to be and that is to me the beauty of literature based units.
Well, I'll be the dissenting opinion, lol! I DID NOT like FIAR!!! NOT AT ALL!!! But I'm the exception, so don't base what you do on me! However, my library had the book. If you can get your hands on a book without buying it to just try it out, it would be a good thing. I can't begin to tell you how many things everyone else felt was SO WONDERFUL that I tried and (while they were fine curriculum), they were NOT a good fit for me! I was so glad I hadn't wasted money on them. And other things I used from the library and went right out and bought my own copy, so it works both ways!
We loved FIAR! I did use a separate math curriculum, though there is math included in the curriculum. It is very easy to use. My kids still love the books that FIAR uses. Krista gave you a link to Homeschool Share, and it is a fabulous site to use along with the curriculum.
Think I will check out library and see if they have it. I have not been to the new one since we moved in july. Terrible isn't it? lol I do love unit studies though. Any other unit study suggestions?
I looked at our public library and its not there. this is the first time I have gone to it since we moved here this summer. It is really lacking in the curriculum department for sure. I guess it is just not what I am use to. Maybe I will just do my own unit study. It really just depends on how much time I have to put it together.
LOL I think FIAR is like Sonlight & Math U See, you either love it or you hate it, no in between! LOL You know, quite honestly, with the www.homeschoolshare.com stuff, you could really not need the book and just have fun with it doing the lapbook and exploring on your own!!!!
I'm in central Ohio, which includes the Columbus Library System (and others). As much as I'm not happy with Columbus for several reasons, it's very large and has an excellent selection, including curriculum. I have cards for four seperate library systems!
Kbabe I am going to look into that site..it really sounds like what I need to do. Jackie I am jealous! Living in hickville has its advantages but a good library is not one of them.
Teacher guide. Maybe they will have the books to go along at library lol maybe. Well give me a price for with and without books
I used FAIR when my daughter was in K and 1st and also used BFAIR with the younger two. Thankfully the library where we lived had all the FAIR guides and 95% of the books. Also used the homeschoolshare site too along with the guides.
