Why I love 5 in a Row

First, I have to tell you that I am blogging at 6:20 pm.  This is a very odd time for me to write.  Hannah & Chloe are at ballet and pilates, Todd is still working, dinner is cooking, the other kids are all playing downstairs, and Samuel is on my lap.  All of that was leading up to this picture that I just took…

surprise!

Can you blame me? I was sitting at Hannah’s laptop (thanks, Banana), and I decided to use her webcam. Now, realize this might not be a big deal to most computer people, but my home desktop is so old. I literally almost have to crank it to work, and the if a big file comes up it runs so loud and the fan kicks dust (yes, dust) up in the air. So really, there’s no room for a fancy webcam. 🙂

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Yesterday, when I blogged about the noise I mentioned a book that I was going to use to help save my day.  I wish I could tell you that after I followed my plan that my day was a perfect success…but it wasn’t.  By the end I still wanted to start pulling that hair out of my head…but I didn’t.  It was just one of those high-anxiety days.  You know the days.  Where almost everyone woke up on the wrong side of bed, and if they didn’t by the end of the day they felt like they did.  Despite that, we all went to bed tired, and still loving each other.  So I give that day a pass as a grade.

However, I was thinking about the book Five in a Row (by Jane Claire Lambert), and how I had mentioned it in my blog post.  Many of you know that we homeschool….and that I love it.  This is our ninth year of homeschooling, and I’ve gone through lots of curriculum.  Tons. (side note: no one ever wants to see us move due to the large number of books that we own.) Anyways, way back when we started, when I was a complete rookie, one of the books that caught my eye was this Five in a Row.  I bought it, and used if with Hannah and Chloe.  And they loved it.

reading The Story of Ping

I’m telling you about this book, because whether you homeschool or not, if you have young kids this book is worth the $20.  Why? For days like yesterday.  The book works this way –there are around 20 different books listed in the table of contents.  Choose a book (like I did The Story of Ping).  Turn to the section in Five in a Row.  Then you read the book, and then use the pages (and I mean pages) of suggestions in the Five in a Row book on how to utilize that book.  Geography, Math, Literature, Art, Science…you name it…it’s there.  For Ping we talked about China, about the Yangtze River, about why the boy wore a barrel on his back, why they eat ducks, and about the different ways the artist illustrated water.  The author intends it to be a week long study, where you read the book daily, and choose activities.  I use it much more loosely (imagine that? me?) and keep it in my emergency box.  Again:

finally some calm

intrigued

it led to finding China

learning about Chinese culture

savoring a moment of stillness