Five in a Row

I think that, today, we will get back into doing Five in a Row, mostly for the sake of Sweetheart, who will be six years old in less than two months. She really enjoys doing projects and reading together, so I think this will be good for her. I also think it will be good for Bard, who can help me choose the books and activities. If you haven't checked out Five in a Row, you should. Especially for younger children. It's a very fun literature-based curriculum that takes hardly any time to use. There's wonderful support on their message boards, too, with further ideas should you want to take the studies deeper. I've found that the Five in a Row books provide excellent jumping off points for learning all kinds of things. While the units are designed to be used for one week, we have studied certain books for up to a month or more.

The basic concept of the Five in a Row curriculum is to choose a book from the Five in a Row volume you're using (they don't have to be done in order) and read it every day for five days. Sounds tedious, right? Well, you'd be surprised! The idea is to introduce a new subject every day as it relates to the book you're reading. The first day, you read the book, and then you do an activity that focuses on, for example, the artwork in the book. The next day, as you read the book, you reinforce the ideas you discussed the day before while pointing them out in the book. After the second reading, you introduce a new subject or idea. For example, if you were reading Wee Gillis every day, you might discuss the subject of Scotland, or clothing, or Scottish foods. Every day that you read, you're giving the child a chance to reflect on the things you discussed the day before. And what better way to start the day than by cuddling up and reading a good book?

This concept is tailored to younger children. Five in a Row has volumes for ages 2-4, Before Five in a Row; Five in a Row (four separate volumes!), for ages 5-11 (I think); Beyond Five in a Row for ages 8 to 12; and Above and Beyond Five in a Row for ages 12 and up. (NOTE: We did try Above and Beyond for Bard a few years ago and weren't as pleased with it as we were with the younger grades. There are full descriptions of Above and Beyond on the FIAR Webpage, but there isn't really any support for it on the message boards and it's more a list of suggestions than an in-depth study with meat for older students).

Some of our favorite lessons have come from Five in a Row. We began with Volume One, which covered the following books:

The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese
Lentil by Robert McCloskey
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno
The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills
Who Owns the Sun? by Stacy Chbosky
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
The Glorious Flight by Alice and Martin Provensen
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman
Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say
Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin
Another Celebrated Dancing Bear by Gladys Scheffrin-Falk
Papa Piccolo by Carol Talley
Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews
The Clown of God by Tomie DePaola
Storm in the Night by Mary Stoltz
Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton
Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Shasha
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (with illustrations by Susan Jeffers)

You can find the booklists for the other volumes here. We've found most of the books at our local public library, but have purchased many of them because they became so dear to us. The Five in a Row company also makes some of the volumes available for purchase through their website.

I think the optimum Five in a Row setup would be to have three or so large Rubbermaid-type boxes and fill each with what would be needed for the upcoming books you plan to study--activities, related workbooks or coloring books and library books that are of the same theme or topic as the book you're "rowing" (the term used for the book you are currently reading five days in a row). Then, when it's time to study that book, you could pull out the box and dig right in. With a teacher's library card, this would be easier because you could keep the materials for a month or more.

The best part, to me, about Five in a Row is that it's so inexpensive compared to other curricula. You can purchase the volumes new on the Five in a Row website for around $20 and can find it at places like Vegsource or eBay for even less. Once you have those volumes, almost everything else can be found at the library, making a curriculum that's virtually free. Of couse, they do say that you should have a separate math and phonics/reading curriculum, but if you're a parent who takes advantage of learning opportunities, most of this will come naturally anyway.

So, today I believe we will pull out our Five in a Row volumes and decide for which ones we'll begin building study boxes and then maybe hit the library.