FIVE IN ROW

FIVE IN ROW

Mini Review

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Five in a row (FIAR) was created many years ago by a Mum who was home-schooling her own children.

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What is Five in Row 

Five in Row is a language art curriculum based on one storybook being read 5 days in a row  (hence the name) and every-time you read it to the child they learn/hear something new. It’s very flexible and suitable for all families. You can do a book over the 5 days or over two weeks. I also know some just who use it for a fun a day once a week. In the manual each book has topics you cover, social studies, geography, history, language arts, art, science and math (a little).

One of the reasons I love it so much is I never seem to have time to cover social studies, geography or science much as my main focus is always literacy, language and math. This curriculum allows me cover more topics within a lesson.

There is normally 2-3 activities in each subject you can choose from, normally there is an easy activity and more challenging one to cover the age group 5-9 years. Most of the books are award winners of the Caldecott award in the US. The stories are rich and full of great vocabulary with lots of discussion points and life lessons.

There is an optional cookbook you can buy that has recipe for each book. I didn’t feel I had the time to incorporate cooking plus my boy isn’t in to it, but many Mums enjoy cooking with their kids and this can bring the story book to a nice end.

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Where can buy Five in a Row ?

You can many the Manuals from Amazon Australia ( Free Delivery) or US based Rainbow Resources  who also  sell packages including the storybooks. FIAR don’t post internationally. I chose to buy the manuals separately and buy a few books from each manual and just add to my collection as we go.

The Five in a Row book is out of print, but there is a few second-hand books stores in the US like Thrifty books that sell them and their postage is really reasonable. Book Depository, Booktopia and The Nile stock many of the books if you want to buy then one at a time. I would also check your local library depending on where you are in the country they may have the manuals and the book.

If you live in Canterbury, homeschool and you are a member of the Canterbury Home Educators group (CHE), then you are in luck – you can access the full Five in Row curriculum free. They have all the first editions manuals and storybooks available through the CHE Library.

There is five brackets in FIAR family.

• Before Five
• More Before Five
• Five in Row
• Beyond Five

Mini Units – ($10.00 USD) These books are normally new releases and very easy to find.

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How often should I use it?

Although they state 5 days in one week there is no rules, you can do it any way you like. I use Five in Row 3-4 times a week and do a book over 2 weeks and sometimes more if Ben love the topics or rabbit holes we go down. I find on the tough days when learning is hard and it needs to be adjusted to a more light and fun day this curriculum is perfect.

NOTE **FIAR curriculum states you need to supplement for math and phonics/literacy as it’s not a full curriculum.** I agree with this 100% , this curriculum covers lots of areas including language but our dyslexic learners especially need to be explicitly taught using a systematic synthetic phonics approach/programme. You will also need a full math curriculum and depending on the child’s age I would also add in grammar.

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Tips

I also discovered once you sign up to their blog you get access to great list of lap books. Not all books have lap books but I also found Homeschool share and they also have great selection of lap books.

There is two editions out for all volumes except 4 and beyond. Book 4 is being split into two books, book 4 and book 5 and other books will be added and these should be released by Christmas. No date for beyond 5 yet but I’m guessing sometime next year.

I chose to buy the new editions as they have added a little more content and some activity sheets. The only downside of the new editions are, they not spiral bound like the first editions and can be hard to photocopy the activity sheets.

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Can I try before I buy? YES  there is a FREE SAMPLE, YES FREE SAMPLE!!!! –

The Story about PING is available  Free Sample  and you can get the book at your local library or you can buy here  

The Story about PING. Which I have to say is one of my favourite books so far. We rowed the book in spring  so we could go feed the ducks and go exploring to find our very own Ping at the local wildlife park. We found China on the map and spoke lot about living on the Yangtze River then and now. We spoke about the Chinese flag and we discussed if we wanted to try duck for dinner but he said “no”.

This is great way to trial the curriculum and see if it works for you and your child.

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What could 5 Days of learning look like ?

Here is an idea of what a weeks worth of lessons could look like. I created this list using the teachers guide and I also added a few language activities myself  (**highlights what I added) for the storybook Cranberry Thanksgiving.