I had heard of Five in a Row in the past 5 years or so, but never explored it until now.  I wish, wish, wish these books would have come into my hands years ago.  They were first published in 1995-the year my oldest was born.  I heartily recommend this company and their products to all homeschoolers who are interested in doing more than just a package curriculum with textbooks, workbooks, CDs, and DVDs.  This is how homeschool should be done as it is much more likely to create a love of learning than just doing "school at home".  Indeed, the goal of FIVE IN A ROW "is to lead children to fall in love with good books and to embrace the joy of learning".  Okay, off my soapbox now and on to telling you about FIVE IN A ROW, vol. 3.

FIVE IN A ROW -Volume  3 consists of 15 unit studies based on 15 books, usually found in your local library.  Out of the 15 listed in volume 3, my library had 10.  You can also use the Inter-library loan to get titles from other libraries.  This may or may not be free.  In our county, it is.  Our county also allows you to look at their catalog online and then request online.  All that is left is to pick your choices up at the closest branch library.  Easy, huh?!  Buying a book pack from FIAR (abbreviation for FIVE IN A ROW) is an option as is checking used book sites for those out of print books.  With all three volumes it is expected that you will not find every book, which is why they gave so many choices.  Even if you do school year round, you will only need approximately 43 books as the FIVE IN A ROW 3 volume set is considered a year's curriculum.  (It can be stretched further for those who wish!)

FIAR does not intend for you to rigidly follow their program to the letter.  YOU choose which of the  Social Studies, Language Arts, Art, Math, and Science activities you wish to do.   You can add on or do less.  You can google away and expand to a longer unit.   Jane Claire Lambert, the author does want you to read each book for each of the five days in a week of schooling.  Five-in-a-Row, get it?!  This is imperative as the student hears more than a superficial reading of  each book.  As I planned the unit-"The Bee Tree" I used a pencil and read through all of the activities, choosing what I wanted to do AND adding some other ideas, as well as writing down items needed.

The Math section taught hexagons as the shape of the honeycomb cells.  My youngest, "Jack-Jack", drew some hexagons.   We also examined a honeycomb and ate the honey.  He DID NOT like the wax.   His Daddy had gotten a Michigan state rock-Petosky-which has beautiful hexagonal markings.   We watched a well-done Bee documentary from the library and watched "Bee Movie" looking for discrepancies in bee facts.  (There were many!! )   I added in a lapbook on bees also.  We talked about analogy, learned vocabulary from the book, played with onomatopoeia (what a great word for kids!), practiced hospitality, and much more.  Check out samples of the curriculum here:  http://www.fiveinarow.com/FIAR/SAMPLES/FIARLA.html

The reasonables prices are:  Five in a Row volumes  1-3  $35 each or 99.95 for all three.  Look at http://www.fiarhq.com/fiarold/catalog/online.html  for all the print books they have to offer.  A newer site http://www.fiardigital.com/ has more products like audio downloads for parents and lapbooks ready for downloading.

Not only was FIAR fun to teach, but "Jack-Jack" loved it.  Even his older siblings kept coming over quietly to see what we were doing.  FIAR ranks in the top 3 of my favorite review products.   FIVE IN A ROW has other series for various age levels.  Though I have not seen any of these, based on what I have seen, they definitely deserve a look.

www.fiveinarow.com