Revised Curriculum: Part Two

If you missed Part One you can find it here

Months, weeks, hours, and I must admit even a year or two went into planning our first year of homeschooling using Five in a Row. I read the manuals cover to cover and researched each book to choose THE PERFECT schedule for kindergarten. Well, a week before school started, what I thought was THE PERFECT schedule was tossed out the window. After talking with my husband and spending time in prayer, within minutes, our school year was completely rescheduled and I couldn't be more pleased.



In my original curriculum plan, I chose books based on geographical location. While there isn't anything wrong with that, I would have needed to buy/borrow over 20 books. Again, there is nothing wrong with needing books for school, after all our homeschool method is based on rich living literature :).
On my book shelf sat 20 or more FIAR books that I wasn't using this year and that my friends is where I went wrong.



With a cup of peppermint tea in hand, I pulled out all the Before Five in a Row and Five in a Row books we own and got to work. I looked through each lesson and made a tentative plan as to what we will do, hi-lighting and jotting down notes in the margin. I planned a few books based on the calendar year like, Cranberry Thanksgiving in November and The Snowy Day in January. I am not worrying about not rowing The Story About Ping during Chinese New Year or The Little Bunny in the springtime. I read a blog post recently by Heather at Blog, She Wrote:

Resist the Urge to Teach FIAR Books in Large Themes– Oh it is so tempting! It makes so much sense in our brains to teach all the seasonal books at once or to follow a travel itinerary. However, it diminishes the value of variety with which the curriculum was written. You’ll have more than one summer season to enjoy FIAR, don’t use all the books up at once! This approach allows you to lay down one layer of knowledge at at time getting deeper as you go.

Oh, how deeply this resinated within me. It was just what I needed to hear (or read!) and helped me to make the decision to change our FIAR plans for this year.

Note: titles with an * are not a FIAR book

1st Term:

Harold and the Purple Crayon
Katy No-Pocket
Mirette on the High Wire
The Story About Ping
The Story of Ferdinand
The Red Carpet
Corduroy
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World
Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel
Beatrice's Goat*(A living book about a girl who lives in Uganda whose family received a goat as a gift and how it helped provide for them. This will be around the time we pack shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child and begin looking through our Gift Catalogs from Compassion International, Samaritan's Purse, etc.)



2nd Term:

Pilgrims' First Thanksgiving*
The First Thanksgiving*
Cranberry Thanksgiving
Truth in the Tinsel, Unwrapping the Greatest Gift*
The Snowy Day
Angus Lost
Ask Mr. Bear
The Glorious Flight
When I Was Young in the Mountains



3rd Term:

Stranger in the Woods*
Goodnight Moon
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Make Way for Ducklings
If Jesus Came to My house
Play With Me
The Little Bunny
Corduroy
Caps for Sale
Jessie Bear What Will You Wear?

I never intended to 'row' Before Five in a Row books this year and I am so grateful my eyes were re-opened to these wonderful books. There are some books that I am anticipating taking us longer than a week based on the the subtopics of the story, I am thoroughly looking forward to those! We just finished out first week of school and had lots of fun learning new drawing techniques with Harold and the Purple Crayon.