Five in a Row

by Carletta
(McKinney, Texas)

Product: Five in a Row
Levels Used: Volume 1
Dates Used: 2005-2006

Likes: Five in a Row is a literature-based, unit study program centered around well-chosen, timeless, picture books. It is geared toward children ages 4-8.

Parents read a selected book to their children every day for 5 days, exploring a different aspect of the story each day. In this manner, they study social studies, geography, language arts, art, math and science.

The FIAR lesson manual is well organized, and has an appendix that contains sample planning pages and story discs that represent each book that will be studied. Lessons can be completed in 30 minutes or last several hours, depending on how deeply a family delves into the subject.

The program is inexpensive as books can be studied in any order and are often found at local libraries.

Dislikes: When I used this program with my 4 year old, he did not like re-reading the books every day, and was not interested in the study topics. However, we enjoyed reading the Five in a Row books on our own.