Five in a Row Curriculum

We have used Five in a Row from the beginning of our homeschooling journey. I thought I would take a moment to review what we have done for these many, many years. If you are looking for a curriculum that will inspire your kids to love learning then check it out!

There are four different levels of Five in a Row: Before Five in a Row, Five in a Row, Beyond Five in a Row, and Above and Beyond Five in a Row. We have used Before, Five in a Row, and I just recently bought a volume of Beyond.

For Before FIAR (Five in a Row) there is a selection of great preschool picture books that the author of Before, Jane Claire Lambert, uses as a jumping off point for different activities. We enjoyed Goodnight Moon, Runaway Bunny, The Carrot Seed, If Jesus Came to my House, and many other great books during those early years.

For Five in a Row, you use one picture book for the week and read it for five days and do the activities for the book. Each day a different subject is covered. On Mondays, we do social studies. Tuesdays is Language Arts day. On Wednesdays, we do an art related activity to the book we are using. On Thursdays, it is science we delve into, and on Fridays we do applied math.

We haven't used Beyond yet as I am waiting for it to come in the mail. I bought Volume 2 and we will start with Helen Keller (the boys' choice). Can't wait to get started! Beyond and Above and Beyond are set up differently. They use chapter books and you don't do a certain subject each day. You pick the subjects or activities for each chapter that you are interested in.

Using FIAR has greatly expanded my boys' horizons. We have covered so many subjects that we wouldn't have normally covered in a regular curriculum. Just to give you an idea here are some of the topics we have covered over the years...

Social Studies Various states and countries, history (Civil War, WWII, Immigration, Native Americans)

Language Arts alliteration, foreshadowing, interjections, story within a story, vocabulary

Art color theory, foreshortening, media, vanishing point, music

Science food chains, ears, eyes, different animals, animal classification, water cycle, pollution

Applied Math Ordinal numbers, fortnight, time, geometric figures, skip counting, calendar

Here are some photos of activities we have done over the years in relation to FIAR.Reading one of our favorite FIAR books...Hanna's Cold Winter. It's about the people of Budapest, Hungary, saving the hippos at their zoo during WWII.

Making paper pizzas during the week we rowed Little Nino's Pizzeria.Discovering some of the concepts behind buoyancy with different sized pumpkins. This activity was for the book, The Pumpkin Runner.Building a model of an ear with everyday objects around the house. We did this activity when we rowed Babar, To Duet or Not To Duet.