When we started our homeschooling journey, we fell in love with the idea of learning through literature. We narrowed our choices between FIAR (Five in a Row) and Sonlight. We started our homeschooling journey with Sonlight core A for Kindergarten, but FIAR never quite left our minds. Sonlight was the perfect fit for our daughter Haley. She instantly fell in love with the emphasis on world history, missionary stories, and their selection of read-aloud chapter books. We continued the following year with the core B package (first grade) while homeschooling our preschooler, Jordan.
For Jordan’s preschool years, we selected various themes and incorporated picture books and printables we found online. The addition of picture books engaged both Haley and Jordan and enriched our homeschool. There’s something wonderful about thumbing through a wonderfully illustrated children’s book. In my opinion, a great story isn’t limited to a certain age category. The combination of the Sonlight curriculum package plus the incorporated picture books seemed to be the perfect mix in our homeschool.
Going into our third year of homeschooling, Haley was in second grade, Jordan was in Kindergarten, and Parker was starting preschool. Haley and Jordan worked really well together so we chose to teach them both with the Sonlight core C program. Our themes would continue to work during Parker’s preschool years and allow us to incorporate picture books into our homeschool routine. There was a nagging feeling that we needed a plan for Parker once he entered Kindergarten. Would we teach two Sonlight packages in tandem? How could we incorporate our picture books?
Then a thought hit…what if we continued with Sonlight for our older kids and added FIAR with our youngest? The FIAR homeschooling approach incorporates a wonderful selection of picture books in their curriculum. This idea was Brilliant! We wanted to make sure it was a good fit, so we decided to start during Parker’s preschool years. We chose the BFIAR (Before Five in a Row) preschool curriculum alongside our Sonlight package. This was the perfect homeschool curriculum fit for our family! A perfect marriage between our two favorite curriculum choices, Sonlight and FIAR. We’re a VERY happy homeschooling family!
Just found your blog today, and I am amazed! You have done/do an incredible job documenting how you do things. I have a kindergartener this year; we did Sonlight Pre-K last year, and we are doing Sonlight Core A this year along with FIAR! Just wondering how long you typically spend rowing a book? We have done two so far, and have spent a week or two max depending on his interest. Our next book is How to Make an Apple Pie…I love all your activities; I’m assuming you spent a good amount of time on that one? When you spend 2-3 weeks on a book do you still “row” the original book every day, or just reference things from it when you read the supplementary books you use? Thanks for all the hard work you’ve done to make it easier for other! God bless!
Hi Scarlett! Thank you for your kind words. As a rule, we take our time rowing each book as we “glean” each topic we’re covering. On average, we typically row each book for two to three weeks, but other rows are even longer. Our “How to Make an Apple Pie…” lasted about 4 weeks. The first year, I felt a natural urgency to “wrap it up past week two”, but I realized that was counterproductive. I decided that we should continue rowing a book if there are more topics to explore, if everyone is still learning and the book isn’t becoming stagnant. We usually read the book daily the first week then only when needed for reference in the subsequent weeks (maybe 2 times weekly thereafter). I hope you find this information helpf! May God bless you on your learning adventure!