Five in a Row is a company that I have heard of many times through friends, but never spent the time to look more in depth into their products. They sent me one of their books to review (Five in a Row Volume 2) and last week the girls and I sat down to use it as part of our study of England.

A Little More about Five in a Row

Five in a Row (FIAR) was created by Jane Claire Lambert, a home-school teacher with more than 17 years experience. It provides step-by-step lesson plans for in-depth literature study on wonderful children’s books (complete list here). FIAR includes plans and suggestions for studies relating to stories in the areas of math, science, social studies, language arts, and art. The plans are extremely flexible. You can pick and choose which areas relating to the story that you would like to study since there are numerous plans given for each area. Many of the books can be borrowed from your local library, which helps cut costs for homeschoolers (always a plus!).

• Before Five in a Row (ages 2-4) includes 23 mini-units of study on simple children’s books
• Five in a Row (ages 4-8) has four different volumes and covers 70 different books
• Beyond Five in a Row (ages 8-12) is similar to Five in a Row but uses chapter books rather than ‘picture books’
• Above & Beyond Five in a Row (ages 12 and up) is focused more on the student and teacher participation is not necessary – 6 to 8 week unit studies

How We Used It

The girls and I have been studying England over the last few weeks and we decided The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter would be our “go-along” book with our geography study. I was able to plan out our week of FIAR studies in under half an hour, mainly in an effort to ‘grasp’ the concepts/ideas in the book. During the week we read the story each day and also completed one activity in social studies, language arts, art, science and math.

We also chose to create a lapbook along with our book study, so we completed the different lapbook components to go along with the areas we studied during the week. Some of the things we learned this week: onomatopoeia, animal fantasy, naturalism, noticing the details in text/illustration, figuring and grouping, and planning a garden. The girls really enjoyed working through the study and we had a lot of fun digging “deeper” into the story each day and breaking the story up into different pieces. And I can’t tell you how much fun our kids had saying the word “onomatopoeia” this week…even Zachary was trying to come up with some of his own!

Through using FIAR I discovered that I have done unit/book studies in the past, however I was the one doing all the legwork and study! This format is definitely more convenient and already completed, so it saves an incredible amount of time on my part. The lessons are extremely thorough and offer more than enough information to use in learning with your children.

I’m already planning on using Beyond Five in a Row this summer with the girls as we read Sarah Plain and Tall together. Because we’re sitting down and reading together it almost seems as if you are ‘sneaking’ in learning and it makes it all so much fun!

Where to Purchase

Five in a Row books are available directly from the FIAR website. They offer different versions of the book, including digital format. FIAR also offers book packages that include all the books that relate to the different volumes and also FIAR volume packages.

If you would like more information on their products, their website has some great resources as well as message forums to talk to other moms about the products. You can also visit the Homeschool Crew blog site for more on some of the other products and levels.

Sonlight Curriculum sent me the first MathTacular™ DVD (PreK – 2) to review…well, technically I suppose I should say my kids were the real reviewers. Our oldest three (ages 4, 6, and 7) took great joy in being able to “watch” math lessons. I was able to enjoy the rewards of the time they spent reviewing and learning! Despite my best efforts, there are times when seeing someone else talk about a concept or have it approached in a new way makes all the difference.

MathTacular™ was created by Sonlight to help explain math concepts from a variety of math curriculums: Singapore, Horizons and Saxon. Justin (who produces and *stars*) shows real-life applications to math concepts: running a track to show the different laps, having a money count-off, or using many other manipulatives to get the ideas across to the kids. Our 4 year old started pointing out 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc… places to me one day and when I asked him where he had learned it he said, “The Math movie, Mom!”

MathTacular™ has helped put a new twist on our math creativity at home too. The kids are noticing math in things around the house which shows that they are applying the skills they are learning!! We’ve been using it as an add-on to our school time, picking one of the clips (usually under 5 minutes each) to build on a concept that we are talking about or need a little added help on.

The DVDs feature over 4 hours of fun ‘teaching’ time for kids and almost 100 different real-life applications so that kids gain a more hand-on approach to math concepts. Areas covered include skip counting, color sorting, patterns, calendar, measurement, fractions and more. There are also printables in pdf format on the DVD to use as tools along with the DVD. This is the first in a series that Sonlight has available for purchase on their website and also on Amazon.

And since I’m a visual person and love to see exactly what is being talked about, here’s a little clip to give you an idea of what the video includes.

Be sure to visit the Homeschool Crew blog to read reviews of some other Sonlight products!

Heads Up! is a company designed to provide expert information and products for special needs children. Their items have been selected to accommodate various learning styles and strengths, regardless of curriculum used. These special needs products have been found to be especially helpful for children who are distractible or hyperactive.

As part of the Homeschool Crew I received a variety of frames and readers from Heads Up! to use and review. Although none of our children have special needs these products have been helping us out too. For distractible or easily frustrated students, the frames and readers can be a helpful tool to focus a child’s attention on the material that he is working on. McKenna has difficulty tracking the lines she is reading now that she is reading chapter books, and we keep one of the Heads Up! reader in her book so she can easily focus on one line at a time.

The Heads Up! frames work great in helping a child stay focus on a specific section of his work, breaking it down into manageable areas so it does not seem overwhelming. There are two different sizes of frames and they come in a variety of colors. The smaller ones are great for drawing attention to just one problem at a time. The color contrast of the frame versus the text helps provide a contrast between the two areas. It’s also much easier for a child to find his place if he looks away from the text.

The Top of the Line reader and Heads Up! reader are my favorite items. The Top of the Line has a highlighted strip along the top while the rest of the reader is opaque so that the child can not see through and be distracted by the rest of the text. The Heads Up! reader has a thin highlighted strip between two solid strips of grey. Both work great to use as a bookmark and also double as a straight edge if text needs to be underlined.

Best of all, the readers and frames have a great price tag making them very affordable. They are $1 each and available in your color choice. Heads Up! offers many other great products including books, games, and other educational helps – be sure to visit and see!