Questions for those using Five in a Row (FIAR)

[Melissa B]

Are there story discs for all four volumes of Five in a Row?

 

Would you consider the curriculum worthwhile if it were only being used for K-2 geography? We would do FIAR once or twice a week - reading the story and doing the activities under the social studies lessons (and placing the discs on the world map.)

 

It seems like a nice lower elementary introduction to geography, but I haven't seen the activities in the social studies section of each book to know if there is enough there to make it a reasonable geography option.

 

Thanks!

[chiguirre]

Take a look at homeschoolshare here:

 

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/

 

There are so many books listed by location that it would be very easy to put something together yourself. Honestly, we never stuck the story disks to a map, we just found the place on the globe and called it good. I usually pick up a non-fiction book and video on the place we're studying to round out the geography lesson.

[The Governess]

Yes, each volume comes with story discs.

 

We're still covering volume 1 but I own volumes 1-3. I think it could be used as a geography curriculum, as long as you supplement with other materials like the previous poster suggested. And there are some books that don't really have a setting (it is an imaginary setting or the location is in the U.S. but not specified otherwise) that you would probably want to skip over. And some countries will be repeated. We have the cookbook and I try to do a recipe each week. It's fun for dd4 to see what kinds of foods the people in our story may have prepared and she loves helping me cook.

 

On the other hand, I'm not sure if I would purchase the curriculum just for the geography lessons. You could probably do just as well with a child's atlas and some information found online, basing your questions/activities on the suggestions that are presented in volume 1 and using the applicable titles from the book lists.

[Diana B]

Take a look at homeschoolshare here:

 

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/

 

There are so many books listed by location that it would be very easy to put something together yourself. Honestly, we never stuck the story disks to a map, we just found the place on the globe and called it good. I usually pick up a non-fiction book and video on the place we're studying to round out the geography lesson.

 

:iagree: Not all the FIAR titles have a geography lesson with them, but you can go around the world very easily using HSS. I've got a K'er that I'm using HSS/FIAR to do geopraphy and animal studies with. We do use the rest of the lessons here and there - having discussions on history, Language Arts, Art/Music, etc.. but focussing more on the geography and animals. At HSS they also have the FIAR titles included in their geography index, so you can figure out which of those to use. And if you really want to do a certain country that isn't included in FIAR or HSS, join the Yahoo! group or forum at HSS and the ladies are AWESOME and will totally help you out. I love love love HSS and I'm trying to figure out how I'll continue to do HSS as well as evertyhing else next year :)

[Jenn Robinson]

I agree with the above posts about HSS. I just wanted to add that we have 2 giant maps (one US one World) covered in FIAR story disks and we have LOVED doing geography this way! It has been fun for my girls to stick them on and take them off for review. Now we just leave them up all the time and remember how much fun we had learning the different places!

[Melissa B]

Thanks for the link to homeschool share. I'll have to think more about using FIAR for geography. I'm not looking for anything elaborate or time consuming, just a gentle intro to geography. And I really don't want to pull something together myself. :)

[Jenn Robinson]

One more thought is "Galloping The Globe". It is Geography based on Childrens' lit like FIAR and even has many of the same stories as FIAR but more activities.