Name: Spreading the Feast Gathering
Start: 2025-07-11T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-07-12T23:59:59-05:00
Location: LaGrange, KY

Tagged: Fiar, Five in a Row

This topic has 8 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 11 months ago by Julie.

Viewing 9 posts - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

Author
Posts
January 29, 2016 at 2:32 pm
2Corin57
Participant
I realize this isn’t exactly Charlotte Mason, but has anyone used FIAR? With what ages? What was your experience with it?
January 29, 2016 at 4:47 pm
Monica
Participant
I used it with my two youngest girls when they were 5 and 6. We really enjoyed it. So much that this year, when I moved into more academic things, I missed FIAR and ordered Volume 2.
We had so much fun. In fact, we were at the library last week and they saw “Ping” on display and just had to borrow it from the library. They remember the books so well.
January 29, 2016 at 7:28 pm
HollyS
Participant
I used it as well when my oldest DC where younger (preK through 3rd grade for the oldest). I would love to use it again with my younger ones, but I just can’t seem to fit in into our day on top of everything else, at least not very consistently 🙁 We also had a great time with it.
I do plan on using BFIAR with DS next year (he’ll be 2.5 at the beginning of the year). I also plan on fitting in some FIAR books with SCM’s Visits To… series as the countries or states come up.
January 30, 2016 at 3:37 pm
Julie
Participant
I’ve used Five In A Row for the past 4 years as our main curriculum. My oldest dd is in 4th this year and my youngest is in 1st. We love Five In A Row. It is so easy to incorporate CM methods. We do oral narration,(this year my oldest is doing written narration), copywork, artist study. For the history and science portion, it’s easy to add in living books.
There are plenty of things to peak the child’s interest and chase a rabbit trail or two!
My oldest dd LOVES history and I give Five In A Row credit for that. This year she is reading about people and things that interest her with living books.
I could go on and on about Five In A Row, but I’ll stop here. :))
January 30, 2016 at 5:59 pm
2Corin57
Participant
Actually, please feel free to go on! lol. I’m very interested to hear all the ins and outs of what people do, especially since if we use it, we’ll be using it as our main curriculum, especially for history/science/geography etc… I’d like to start a world map so we can “pin” where the stories happen. I plan on having them narrate the stories etc… How do you incorporate picture/music study? I’m assuming for copywork you just choose a passage from the book?
January 31, 2016 at 8:29 pm
Julie
Participant
Yes for copywork I just chose a passage from the book. This year I’m also using dictation from the Five In A Row book that we are doing. I will say that I did add in Using Language Well for my oldest dd this year, BUT for the first three years all I used was Five In A Row. The language arts in Five In A Row is very very gentle and definitely enough.
As for picture/artist study, this is what we have done…..For the book, The Duchess Bakes A Cake (vol 2 book) takes place during the time of kings, queens, dukes, duchesses, knights and castles. We learned about the Feudal Society. The artist we studied during this time was De Vinci. You could also do Michelangelo. We’ve studied Michelangelo just not with this book.
Another example is, Poetry….My youngest dd just finished Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (vol 1 book) I got a couple of Robert Frost books from the library and we read some of his poems.
I hope this helps! If you have anymore questions, just let me know. 🙂
July 2, 2016 at 7:07 pm
Wings2fly
Participant
Julie, I am planning to use FIAR with my dd for grade 4 next year and am planning it out. Are there any support groups or discussion boards active for FIAR now? Could we email? Mine is a yahoo, wherelearningabounds. How did you plan out the copywork and the weeks? I am planning 2 weeks per unit so we can add in the science, geography, and history books and do all the writing and art projects. I am hoping my ds12 might join in for the art lessons. But I am not sure how to schedule it for each week. Do you just plan a week at a time in detail as you go?
I must say that this is what I had been looking for to teach language arts concepts. I bought a classroom type book on teaching writing through picture books, but it was not as user-friendly and I did not care for all of the book selections. So I never did use it. My dd wants to be an author and I think this is a great way to teach her writing – studying the works of successful writers and then trying it out. And the art lessons are similar in concept. I never would have guessed FIAR could offer so much. Thanks for sharing Julie.
July 3, 2016 at 9:20 am
HollyS
Participant
The FIAR Facebook group is pretty active.
July 3, 2016 at 11:15 am
Julie
Participant
Wingz2fly. The FIAR forum is great! I never go on the fb page. I’ll email you. 🙂
http://www.fiveinarowforums.com
Here’s the link to the forum
Julie