TINDERBOX

Yesterday I got my grant application in to NIH, so now I have time to post a wrap-up of our Five in a Row practice week with Madeline and my impressions of the curriculum now that I’ve tried it out.

I enjoyed the experience of immersing our family in one book and one set of topics for a week. It would probably drive a more linear thinker crazy, but I loved the way we were able to construct a web of facts, ideas, experiences, connections, and relationships spreading out from Madeline at the center. Serving a baguette with dinner led to discussions of the practice of daily marketing (rather than our once-a-week supermarket trip and our factory-packaged bread), Belinda in Paris (in which the large-footed ballerina uses two baguettes as toe shoe forms), and Disney’s movie Beauty and the Beast, with side excursions into the subject of French pastries and Three Kings’ Day. We also found ourselves spontaneously linking in things we’ve discussed before: Remember the book we read about how the Statue of Liberty was built? M. Eiffel designed its metal skeleton as well as the Eiffel Tower. Alex has always enjoyed putting pieces together and finding connections, so this has been a perfect fit for her.

I’m surprised at how deep and rich some of her learning has been. Much of what we talked about we only touched on lightly, as is appropriate for age four-and-a-half. But she was captivated by the idea of the appendix and its connection to human evolution; she went back to our evolution picture book again and again and several times I heard her explain its concepts to other people. She may forget the Obelisk of Luxor in the Place de la Concorde, but I don’t think she’ll forget why she has an appendix and a tailbone.

Reading the book five times in a row really does make a difference. A couple of times Alex balked at re-reading Madeline and was more interested in going straight on to the supplemental library books. But I noticed that with all the re-reading she entered very deeply into the world of the story, finding small details in the pictures, speculating about the characters, using her imagination to fill in unsupplied background and contextual material. I think that as she learns to write, repeated re-reading will also help her begin to notice and appreciate matters of technique.

Using Five in a Row did take research work, finding appropriate supplemental materials and planning out which lessons and activities to use. I didn’t mind, though, because it was totally fun. The FIAR forum archives were a lot of help, as were FIAR blogs and homeschoolshare.com. And I think it was beneficial to model some of my research for Alex, so that in addition to learning new factual information she also absorbed some lessons about finding out what you want to know.

We are going to need to figure out how to incorporate math and reading on a regular basis. We only did math activities twice in the week, and reading practice perhaps three times. I think that once we get started “for real” (rather than squeezing FIAR into a holiday week) it will be easier to set up those habits.

All three of us are feeling enthusiastic about Five in a Row now. Alex was reluctant to return to nursery school at the end of her “kindergarten week,” and I am feeling a similar urge to open up my big box of FIAR books (my collection currently stands at 46) and dive right in. She’s already thinking ahead about what she wants to learn: “When we read The Story about Ping (a book about a runaway duck) we can learn how ducks swim, and how they lay eggs.”

This curriculum is going to be such a great way of feeding her exploratory spirit and opening up her world.