Read it again Mom! A review of FIAR

(This is a repost from my old blog. Originally posted July 24, 2008)

As promised, here is the first in a series of posts about the curriculum we use. This week I've chosen to talk about our main curriculum, Five In A Row.

Five In A Row is a unit study center around wonderful children's books. A unit study is where all your studies (history, science, literature, art and even some math) center around a particular theme for a prescribed amount of time. In Five In A Row (FIAR), we read a children's book each day of the week and then discuss and find out more about a different subject relating to the book each day of the week. For example, if the book we read is about cowboys, we could learn about the American West one day (history), the desert habitat another day (science), tall tales of the American West another day (literature), study the pictures in the book another day and compare it to other works of art and prehaps try to create our own works another day (FIAR picture book selections are known for their beautiful pictures) and measure our rainfall for a week and see how it compares to the average rainfall in the desert (math and science).

There are 4 FIAR manuals aimed at elementary school aged children containing a total of 70 children's book selections. The book selections are classics and twaddle-free. Many of them have become my children's favorite stories. The manuals contain many ideas for topics of study while reading each book. Some are obvious, like studying the Old West while reading about cowboys, others are more subtle and obscure like figuring years between events in the book and events in the child's life. You could probably come up with many of the ideas yourself but I really appreciate having all the ideas ready and waiting for me to use when we choose a book or subject to study. It saves me time and energy I can use to teach and play with my children rather than having to think up lessons all the time. There is also Before Five In A Row which is aimed at preschool children or very early elementary (K-1) and has 24 book selections plus a myriad of just plain fun learning ideas. And for older children there are 3 Beyond Five In A Row manuals which are aimed at upper elementary and middle school aged children. Beyond Five In A Row uses chapter books rather than picture books and there are 4 book selections per manual, 2 fiction and 2 non-fiction biographies.

Before FIAR is simple a collection of ideas for adding little bits of learning to your young child's day. It's not a structured preschool program or a means of accelerating your child's education. Just fun ideas to show your child the wonders of the world in a sweet and gentle way. My 2yo dd loves many of the Before FIAR books and I have put some of the lessons associated with the books on index cards so my older children can read the book with her and choose an activity to do with her. They get to "play school" with her and actual learning takes place for both children, how can you beat that?

FIAR is more structured in that there is a subject assigned to each day of the week. Mondays are history and geography, the lessons include map work, country studies, culture studies, relationship and character studies and of course history studies. Tuesday is Language Arts, the lessons include analyzing literature, vocabulary, author's techniques, types of writing and genre. Wednesday is Art, the lessons include picture study, artist technique and style and applying those things to the child's own artwork. Thursday is Applied Math and includes lessons on math in real world situations. It may be as simple as counting and grouping things in the book or it may be measurement or geometry all related to something with in the book. Friday is Science and FIAR runs the gamut from nature study to chemistry to physics and everything in between. You read the book each day before doing the activities. That may sound redundant but each day the child is assimilating the lessons he learned the day before each time it is read. It's like built in daily review. Plus, as I said before these books usually become fast favorites, what child doesn't want a favorite story read over and over again?

Beyond Five In A Row recognizes that older children tend to out grow the desire to read the same story over and over again. Chapter books are used instead of picture books and instead of assigning a subject to each day, each chapter has a list of study suggestions. Not every chapter has every subject, some weeks will be heavier with science topics to study, others will be heavier on history and some will have a good mix of all subjects. It's up to you and your child how many days you spend on a subject or chapter. The lessons in Beyond FIAR ask more of the child than the FIAR lessons. They do more research and dig deeper into subjects. These studies can be almost completely self directed if your child is a motivated learner.

We started using FIAR when my oldest son was in K. Since then we've strayed in different directions but we always seem to return to FIAR. Most recently, our return to FIAR was at my children's request. To me, that really says something about this curriculum. FIAR can be a structured or relaxed as you want and it is easy to add other studies as you desire but it's not necessary to do so. While FIAR was originally designed to spend a week on a book, nothing says you have to spend only a week. You can spend as much time as you want if a subject interests your children. I think one of the biggest advantages of this curriculum is that it's extremely flexible.

I'm so glad we found FIAR early in our homeschool journey. My children love the short, gentle lessons and with the frame work already laid out for me, implementing FIAR is very simple for me. "Deceptively simple" is the best way I like to describe FIAR. Learning hardly feels like work at all with FIAR which is the way it ought to be. ;)