Why not FIAR along with HOD's Little Hands to Heaven?

I have the supplement, and it is great, but I just rarely use it. I wish I used it more, but we're already into our own routine of reading through the Bible, and I just forget to consult that supplement before we row a title.

One thing I love about FIAR (besides the booklists, which are wonderful), is the enthusiasm that comes across in the manual. As Jane Lambert is offering suggestions about possible activities/ topics to explore, I can sense her joy and excitement about introducing children to these things. It makes me excited to read through the possibilities, and I always add our own style to them. Sometimes I DO wish there was a checklist of daily activities so that I knew exactly what to do every day, but mostly I enjoy the freedom to be creative and do the lessons our own way. Personally, I can see us continuing to use FIAR along with whatever else we use. We will be doing HOD this year, but I'll keep adding FIAR titles to our weeks whenever I can!

Has anyone begun MM in K? We will have finished MEP Reception year before we officially begin K5, and I really like MM. I don't know if we should do MEP year 1 and then do MM, or if it is okay to use MM with a 5 year old.

Me too!!! I'm reading this thinking I have to send a detailed shopping list to my mom for the next time she sends us a package! We DO have glue sticks available here, but no pretty colored pocket folders! Well, it probably helps my pocketbook in the long run that I don't have those options nearby, since I can't resist anything colorful and so practical :tongue_smilie:.

I read through this WHOLE thread in one sitting and felt a little dizzy. I wasn't really contemplating actually doing it, but then yesterday I saw a pretty box at a store that would work perfectly for holding the files, and all of a sudden I'm sold :001_smile:. Does anyone else secretly like being organized just because of the pretty folders/ boxes, etc.? Especially if something is colorful, I'm hooked!:001_smile: Seriously, this thread has given me LOTS of great ideas and I'm excited to feel more on top of things as we start K soon. Thank you all for sharing your creativity!

So, this year are you not continuing with HOD? I'm assuming so, since you just listed the US history book and not the HOD guide. Can I ask why you made that decision? (I just ordered LHFHG for K next year and am curious).

Slightly off topic, but I just wanted to add another positive aspect (and I don't mean for my last post to be all negative, as I said I do love FIAR). Today my ds 2.5 was looking out our back window (we're on the 11th floor in a huge Asian city with tons of tall buildings all around), and he said so excitedly "MOM- it's the Eiffel Tower!!!" over and over again. Of course, it was just another type of a tower (I think telephone), but the shape was similar, and I was very impressed by how much he picked up from rowing Madeline last month with his older sister.

I love FIAR. The books are wonderful and I've bought almost every title. The suggestions for activities are really fun and my dd picks up on a lot. I also love the "idea" of FIAR as a way to enjoy literature. Having said all that, I just can't do it by itself. I know everyone adds math and LA, but I also just wanted more of a planned order for the other subjects, too. It's just my own teaching style, I don't do well with unit studies :glare:. If you have the time/ creativity for it, I think FIAR can be a complete education in the early years, it just doesn't mesh with my personal methods. I always feel like something is missing or I'm not doing enough...

Sometimes I think it would be fun to have several "waves" of kids, and do all of HOD with one wave, then all of MFW, then TOG, etc. They all sound so great and offer different things! I guess even if I did have that many children, it wouldn't really be financially responsible to teach them that way:001_smile:.

My dd is also 4 and we're enjoying MEP Reception year. We started Saxon K, and while I did find lots of helpful suggestions for using our manipulatives, it just wasn't the greatest fit for us. My dd tired quickly of the Meeting part of the lesson, and I just don't prefer how scripted it is. We're having fun with MEP. I also like to just be creative and think of fun ways to use toys and manips we already have to practice counting and basic addition, etc. We do math for about 10-15 a day.

Yet another vote for HOD! Perfect (IMO) mix of open and go, and letting you use your own math and phonics.

I bought the flash cards and already had a magnet board/ ABCs to use. Although the flash cards were only a few $ (from RR), I was a little disappointed that I still had to cut them out myself. I think I could have just as easily written them as I went on pre-cut index cards, and have spent the same amount of time. I was super excited about the magnet board optional parts, thinking it would add a fun hands on element. It may just be my dd, but she never wants to do that part! Maybe because she has been playing with those same letters since she was 2, so there is nothing new there. She actually WANTS to try to write the words instead (which I know kind of flies in the face of the whole philosophy: read first, write later). I guess there's no way to know if your dc will like it unless you try it :001_smile:.

We are loving MEP reception year! I follow the lesson plans really closely, but I didn't actually print anything out. Instead of observing their pics, I just set up a few toy animals or counters or other objects for us to look at. I sketched some of the worksheet type things myself, and I figure out where we can do it orally if possible. For us, that makes it especially conducive to a wiggly little girl! She loves counting real objects (especially if they are her toy horses, etc), and thinks the games are super fun. MEP has also been really good for me to learn how to teach math. I have spent a lot of time with the lesson plans, and now I feel creative and confident to add "mathy" talk into our regular activities. I like its emphasis on discussion for learning. I have noticed a huge jump in her abilities and observation skills since using it.

We'll also be using HOD for the first time! I just ordered LHTH and LHFHG, and am very excited. Looking ahead (I guess we all do this!), I'm especially excited about Bigger and the guides following it. I guess I personally wouldn't want to miss Bigger because it looks so appealing to me, but since we're starting at the beginning, that wouldn't be an option for us anyway. I wonder if after you've gotten a little ways into Beyond you'll have a feel for what your dc could handle next as far as what the guides demand.

We use many of these suggestions. I have put together several activities like ones mentioned. I find that it REALLY helps if I take the time to sit down with my ds first, and work on the activity with him for a few minutes. Then, I leave him with it and he happily plays, explores with it while I work with my dd. I found that just handing it to him with quick instructions didn't last for keeping his attention for long.

I have this book. It is nice, but not exactly what I had been hoping for to be honest (and I LOVE FIAR!). It is more of how to create special family memories by doing a craft, listening to music, etc. for each day than a unit study of the holiday. Their Fold N Learns on holidays look pretty great, though.

So cute! Great ideas!!! I'm inspired to set something like that up for my ds2! Thanks for linking your blog.

I would also use SL 4/5 for K and LHFHG for 1st. I didn't buy the whole SL core, but did buy almost every book and the 4 DEL workbooks, all of which we've used this past year for preschool. We are going to use LHFHG for K, which I think demands much more than SL 4/5. The Burgess books are more challenging than the SL books, and the IMO so are the history and science. I think Milly Molly Mandy is a great bridge for introducing chapter books with fewer pics!

Does MEP teach topics such as telling time, measuring, etc? I read that SM Earlybird does, so maybe it would be good to use those parts of SM? We were using Saxon K alongside MEP Reception year, but I finally dropped Saxon completely because my dd and I love doing the MEP so much that we want to use it everyday. One more Q, is SM Earlybird the equivalent of preK, or K? Thanks!

I'm liking MEP more and more. Is there a good reason to use Singapore in addition to it? I was already planning on buying Earlybird, but I want my dd to love math (as much as she can, anyway :001_smile:), so I don't want to throw tons of worksheets at her. I do really like the idea of using different programs to add different ways of solving problems, and to really cement concepts. I'm thinking it can't hurt to have both on hand, but maybe don't do both everyday...? How do other people do it?

For the Ordinary Guide to Teaching Reading, you don't really need the accompanying products. The audio is just in case you aren't confident pronouncing the words (which might be helpful if English is your second language, etc.). The flashcards are nice to have on hand, but it's just as easy make them yourself as you need them. The magnetic board is fun if you don't already have one. We have a chalkboard/ whiteboard that also happens to be magnetic, so we use that (although not as often as I had imagined we would). If you are trying to economize, you can CERTAINLY just go with the teaching book and do great!

We've also been doing quite a bit at 4. Similar to others, we use OPG, HWT, FIAR and some ETC primers (although I'm phasing those out since she is fine with the letter sounds). For math, we're doing Saxon k 3 days a week and MEP reception the other two days. I tweak the math quite a lot to make it more fun for us. We skip the Meeting part of Saxon, and I add a lot of homemade games. I think my favorite part about doing pre K (and K, too, I'm guessing) is all the fun, creative things we can do. I love using lots of manipulatives and making up my own games to reinforce our phonics and math. I havn't decided how much I like Saxon K yet. I know we won't continue with it next year, but the games with shapes and teddy bear counters are pretty fun. I think with my ds I'll start with Miquon and MEP Reception at 4 (at least playing with rods, maybe not doing Miquon workbook), and then SM Earlybird at 5.

Well, I (op-er) went ahead and bought GTG and I have to say for our ages (K and pre K), it is not that helpful. Actually, it had nothing that we are going to use! But, I already had the books it suggests (like Children Just Like Me, Stories Around the World, etc) and Around the World coloring book. I bought and love Wee Sing Around the World. GTG is mostly lists of library books and websites. So, I think doing FIAR as is is great, and beefing up the geography is EASILY done without GTG. You may be able to look at it from a library or somewhere just to see if it fits your needs.

I'm kind of in the same boat now (but with a girl) and we've had to cut back our lapbooks to the occasional one. However, we do still keep a notebook of all the work, which I find more freeing. For example, if we do a lb, I really want to finish the components and make it nice (otherwise it looks funny, right:001_smile:), but with a nb, I can make some mini books and staple them onto cardstock and put them in the nb, without worrying if we only got to 2-3 of them. I also find it fun to make our country flag (GTG) from construction paper, which fits nicely into a notebook. We glue the country's coloring page from Around the World coloring book onto the back. I just write the FIAR title on the page, too, to jog our memory of what book that country was from. My dd was super excited about lapbooks in the beginning, just kind of waned eventually and it became "one more" handwriting type thing. So, just doing a mini book or two a week works better for us.