TOS Review: Before Five in a Row

After having taught four kids preschool at home, I was facing a new situation: homeschooling a preschool child who is not with me 24 hours a day and who will be going to public school for kindergarten. I felt the need to have a little more structure to his schooling, and yet, I also have four other kids to teach. When I taught the older kids, I put a lot of work into themes: fun, creative ideas with a mix of skills and topics of discussion. I had to pull from a lot of different places to get such a curriculum, and that took up a lot of planning time. I enjoy planning, but with five kids (plus a toddler) and four different classes, time is at a premium this year!
So I was thrilled to find out that I was on the list to receive Before Five in a Row to review for the TOS Crew! Although I had heard a lot about this curriculum, I had never actually looked at it. It consists of a Teacher's Guide: a slim, blue, paperback book, with the list of 24 story books and ideas to explore them with your child.

Before Five in a Row is aimed at children ages 2 to 4 years old. Therefore, it is not a strict, rigid, formulaic curriculum. There are no hard and fast rules of what to do when. It is a gentle curriculum, full of ideas for fun crafts, simple projects, and, mostly, topics to discuss with your child that flow directly out of the book that you read. The premise is simple: choose a book from the list, read it every day five days in a row (hence, the name of the curriculum) and then each day do whatever activities/ discuss whatever topics are given in the Teacher's Guide. You can do as much or as little as you and your child desire.
This is how it worked for us:
I used BFIAR with four kids: a 2 year old, two 4 year olds (one fairly new and one nearly five), and a 5 year old.
I knew at once that we would be using this all year long, so I choose books in a particular order for reasons of my own. The first step was to see which books I already owned (a couple) or could get for free from the library. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the library could get me almost all of the books on the list! I then looked online for extras, again, for reasons of my own. BFIAR is totally and completely self contained, and there is no need for anything extra. I happened to want extra, and found a lot of ideas.
We started with Angus Lost and read it every morning. I only have the younger kids four days a week, so we tweeked this into a four day thing. (Good thing four and five both start with "f", huh? lol) I was quite surprised and pleased at how much they liked reading the same book over and over. By the end of the week, they loved Angus and were cheering for him and sympathizing him as they eagerly helped me read the book. It was fun. :)
Each day, I chose an idea from the Teacher's Guide to do. Angus ideas were mostly topics of discussion: for example, their favorite was when we talked about how Angus follows the milk man. We talked about where milk comes from (not just cows, but goats as well) and how these days, we buy it from the store instead of having it delivered.
Another day, we talked about what to do if they ever get lost... practical ideas of finding a safe adult to tell (don't just blurt out to perfect strangers that you are lost!) as well as a reminder that God is always with us and our first step should be a prayer to calm ourselves down and help us to think clearly.
We also talked about day and night: the differences; how they could tell which was which in the pictures; what made day and night, and so forth.
The topics are labeled: science, language arts, literature, art, emotions, music, etc. and vary depending on the topics that flow naturally from each book. However, each book has a short summary (providing a quick idea of what the book is about if you don't yet have the book! This helped me choose which books to do first.) a Bible section, and at least five other ideas so you can do something new every day. Most of the ideas are simple and easy enough that you could do more than one (IF you want to do them all) without overwhelming you or your child. A lot of them are topics that you can later point out as you go through the day.

"Remember when we talked about silhouettes? See your shadow on the wall? Does your shadow look like Angus' shadow? How is it different?" 
"Here is your glass of milk. Do you remember where milk comes from?"

Before Five in a Row is an awesome curriculum for a young child because it is really just about gently, easily, training them in habits of attention and love of learning.
In addition to the book guides, there is a second section of the book called Parent's Treasure of Creative Ideas for Learning Readiness. This is a cool resource of ideas of fun things to do with your small child to develop large motor skills, small motor skills, reading readiness, and art.
After using BFIAR for a few weeks, I can confidently say that we love this curriculum and only wish I had "found" it sooner! If that is not enough for you, you can read other TOS Crew Member Reviews here.

I received this product free of charge in exchange for this review. All opinions are honest and are my own.

Our Curriculum Series: Math

Something that I never get tired of talking about or hearing about is curriculum. I love to hear what other families use and how they make it work for them. So I thought I would do a series of posts about the curriculum that we use and how we tweak it. Because tweaking is our favorite thing!
So, to start with math:
We use Math U See. Kaytie and Nate work at the same level in math, which sometimes makes it easier for me, and sometimes harder. Currently, they are half way through Gamma. Math U See is a DVD/ Manipulative/ Worksheet curriculum that pushes concepts first, then memorization of facts. Neither of my kids like math, but they both pick Math U See hands down over any other math we have done. The idea is that Steve Demme, the creator of Math U See, teaches the concept on the DVD. The teacher is supposed to watch it, then teach the concept to the kids, using the manipulatives. Each lesson has six worksheets that go with it. Three focus on the new concept and three mix review in with the new concept. You are not expected to have the child do all six sheets. The first three are only to make sure the concept is understood. Once you know the child is at that point, move on to the review sheets. If the child is NOT getting the concept, repeat the material in different ways until it is understood, and then move on. The child is free to use the manipulatives until they feel comfortable without them.

The manipulatives are blocks (like Cuisinare Rods) that fit together (like Lego)  and illustrate how numbers work together. There are blocks for every number (the two is twice as long as the one; the three is three times as long) from one to ten. Then there are 100 blocks (100 times as large as a one). My kids love the blocks and use them for free play as well as for math.

We do it a little bit differently. The kids watch the video themselves. They prefer it that way because they think Mr. Demme is funny. They also like to answer the questions before the kids on the video can. And they watch for "patterns" and tips and tricks. In addition, it helps with difficult concepts because they have his method of explaining it, and if they don't understand that, then I can try another way.
The workbooks are bulky, difficult, and expensive, so I hand write the problems into spiral notebooks for the kids and they work in the spirals. This is helpful when they need a problem broken down a little more. Also, since we only "do math" four days a week, I can switch some problems around to get in more review when they catch onto the concept quickly. I can also add in extra review for the concepts that were a little more difficult and that they need to go over more often than it comes up in the book. It does take up some time, but I do it once a week and it really isn't that big of a deal.

Daniel is also doing Math U See. He is doing Alpha. I won't bore you with the whole long story, but somehow I don't have a DVD for Alpha. Since it is basic addition, we are trying to wing it without it. So I just go over the lesson with him and then he works in his spiral, using the blocks as desired. So far, he is finding it boring, but he is my math fanatic, so I am picking up the pace a little in order to make it more challenging for him.
Abbie's math is Shiller. She is working through the ages 4-5 book. This book was given to us, just the book. So I have no idea how the program is supposed to work, or how many bits and pieces we are missing. Therefor, you can take it for granted that we do our own thing with this curriculum. The manipulatives that are called for in the lessons are easily substituted with one of the hordes of different manipulatives we already owned. Abbie does a lesson a day and it takes us about five minutes. She loves it and Daniel misses it. Sometimes we come across a lesson that tackles a subject that I know she isn't ready for, or one that she already knows, so we just skip it.
Kevin's math is all made up from ideas I find on the internet or games I used with my four kids. Right now he is learning the basics: shapes, colors, patterns, numbers, counting, etc. So he does the Montessori method "Penguin-Style" and has a lot of fun.

So that's our math! Next up: Grammar

Week One Term One Year 2011

Our first week back at school was awesome. The kids had a blast and learned a lot. I am exhausted. Which is why this post is so incredibly late. I have so many things to do that I feel like I am getting nothing done!
The younger crowd, Daniel, Abbie, Kevin, and Gracie are doing Before Five in a Row this year. I will be posting a review of this soon... This week, we "rowed" Angus Lost. I think my BFIAR lessons deserve a post of their own, but really quickly, the highlights: Kevin loves dogs, so he enjoyed this "week of the dog". He worked on positional words, counting, 1 to 1 correspondence, the letter "L", colors and sizes. He got to color, use bingo markers, do puzzles, play games, and use scissors. They made dog headbands, and I fed them a special snack of "dog food" (coco puff cereal) and "chew bones" (fruit roll ups).

Daniel and Abbie worked with pattern blocks, puzzles, and graphs, and cutting out squares, circles, rectangles and triangles.
Abbie is doing Shiller math, and she worked on directions, opposites, and the values of pennies, dimes, and nickels. She knows the names of these coins and can ID them quite well. She is also pretty good at remembering how much they are worth. This is the fun part of having several kids. I remember how agonizing it was to teach Kaytie and Nate about money and how they actually still struggle a bit. I used to think it was my fault, but since Daniel and Abbie seemingly picked it up through osmosis (they didn't learn from Kaytie and Nate because THEY still don't "get" it!) I am beginning to see that it is just one of those things that are easier for some people than for others.
Daniel started Math U See Alpha and he is less than impressed. He wants to go back to doing "real", "fun" math aka: Shiller. I'm hoping he will be more interested as the lessons get a little bit harder for him.
They also started grammar using First Language Lessons. I find myself being just as annoyed and the kids being just as bored as when I did this with Kaytie and Nate. By the third day I was already forcing myself to pick up the book. I don't know how long it will last...
Kaytie and Nate are learning how to multiply two and three digit numbers. They did a little review in perimeter and area. They learned about all sorts of different adjectives, reviewed some spelling words, discussed homophones, synonyms and antonyms, added to their Latin vocabulary, and started memorizing Psalm One.
But the fun that we had was in Science, History, and Geography.
In Science, we started our study of Human Anatomy by a quick review of the history of science. We laughed, we gave narrations, and we tried to change hard to pronounce names... it was great! We also mummified an apple.

In History, we started the Middle Ages off with the Celts and the Fall of the Roman Empire. This necessitated a brief transformation into Celtic Warriors.

We made our own battle axes, then were ready to fight.

In Geography, we "traveled" to Egypt, and had a BLAST. The highlight of the "trip", of course, was cooking an Egyptian meal on Friday night. We had shish kabobs and biram ruz. Everybody liked it, even the pickiest eater in the house said it would be a good thing to have again sometime. :)
For extra-curricular activities, the girls started Keepers of the Faith, and the boys joined a Lego Club. Great big plus for Mom is that both groups are at the same time in the same place!

TOS Review: Flea Circus

My kids LOVE playing games. So when we found out that we would be reviewing Reiner Knizia's Amazing FLEA CIRCUS game for the TOS Review Crew, they were excited.
Put out by R&R Games, this is a fun game involving cards and tiny rubber animals (blue dogs and white cats). The instructions say it is for 2 to 6 players aged 6 and up. The goal of the game to to collect the most "spectators" (the dogs and cats) To do this, the players take turns playing cards that earn various numbers of animals that they receive either from another player or from the pile in the middle.

What we thought:
The game played fast. Initially, the rules for the different cards seemed complicated and we kept the instructions handy. However, it only took us a game and a half to get the hang of it and honestly, even the learning curve was fun. We played with five players with the age range of 4 and up. The four and five year olds were able to play and enjoy themselves with only a teensy bit of strategy help from Mom. Everyone enjoyed the game. There were many pleas to play again and again.
Not only was it fun, this homeschool mama discovered educational value as well: the dogs are worth 2 points and the cats are worth 1. So when a player earns 4 points (for example) for a play, I would have them choose which they wanted, dogs or cats or both, so they had to do math to see which they could get and how many! I would even let them "make change" with the animals so that they were doing subtraction as well as addition. Also, at the end, when counting up points, we skip counted by twos when we counted the dogs.
After I was played out, the kids also had fun just playing with the animals, because they are stackable and made great towers! So they could work on those fine motor skills and hand/eye co-ordination!

Kaytie's opinion: I like it because it is a very fun game. It is easy and all four of us can play! Sometimes Mom lets us play around and I can make good things out of the dogs and cats, like pictures of fireworks, really good towers. It's a funny game because I like to see the pictures on the cards, like the one in the cannon and the one who eats a lot!
Nate's opinion: I like it very very very much! I like to figure out how to win. It is hard, but I love it because it is a challenge.
Daniel's opinion: It was fun. I liked the pictures on the cards. I really really liked the dogs. Yeah, the dogs.
Abbie's opinion: I like it. I built towers. The game was hard, but I liked it.

This game costs $15.95, but you awesome people who are reading this review can use the coupon code CREW20 and get 20% until the end of the year.

Read other Crew Member's opinions of this game here.

This game was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review. All opinions expressed are my own and my kids'.