what about it didn't work for you and your family?

We'll be starting Kindergarten with Ethan next year, and at the moment I'm leaning towards using FIAR. In my ideal world, we'd be mostly, if not entirely child led and way laid back. But, Ethan really thrives on structure (and this is *hard* for me, b/c I'm not a very structured person in general), so I'm trying to find a balance to meet both of our needs. I don't want to do anything overly academic in the next year (or two even!), so it seems like FIAR would be a happy medium. It looks like it will give us some framework to our days and Ethan will know what to expect, which is important to him.

Anyway, I just noticed that several people mentioned in other threads that they had used it in the past, and I was curious for more input. I've skimmed through the boards at the FIAR site, but of course over there all I hear are raves :) So, just looking for some more well-rounded perspective.

Thanks :)

My DS didn't like hearing the books more than once. I liked everything else.

yep, we got bored with the books and wanted to do a whole weeks worth of stuff in one day and I had a hard time finding some of the books

I think you can adjust it to suit your needs. My kids didn't like the same story read over and over everyday, they wanted to move on to the next book. I am thinking that DS (who just turned 4) may like it, he is into reading the same story until he has it memorized so I am dragging it back out to try with him. My older DS and DD were bored with it after the first 2 days of the same book.

Good luck!

I have heard great things about Peak with Books, which is a similar program.

My son didn't mind hearing the books each day for 5 days. But the activities that were included seemed kind of trite and didn't really fill up any time. We might go back to it in the future...right now though, some of it was over his head. He just turned 4 in January, btw, your son is older, so maybe it will work out better for him. :)

I'm not good at doing things unless they're fairly structured. If I have to think or prepare much I've found it just won't get done. I love the idea of FIAR, unit studies, etc., but I'm just not good with prep work. 100 Easy Lessons is just my type of thing as everything is plotted out for me. However, that's just me! I'm trying to get more structured myself, so I can plan unit studies, etc. but we'll see how that goes this summer.

As Michelle said, the activities seemed trite and didn't fill up the time. My kids didn't see the point of a lot of the activities. They didn't see the point of spreading it over several days.

For instance, when we read Another Celebrated Dancing Bear they wanted to do about 3 of the acitvities in the same day, read the book 2 or 3 times that day, then put the book away and have nothing more to do with it.

Our public library has tons of books that have activities tied in to children's lit -- and they're all available for FREE! Why did I spend all the money for the FIAR vol.1 when I can get something as good or better for FREE?

my son is a fiar dropout :lol:
he didn't care for the entire concept. i, however loved it ;) after the second or third day he didn't really want to hear the story again, and we did a lot of the activities in one day, without him really seeming to care about them.
i tried to keep him at it, but it was just not his cup of tea. we're doing sonlight now and he's in his element.
(i even had the fiar cookbook and made a big deal about us cooking something related to the story. he loves to cook and i thought that would be a big hit --- but instead, he wanted to create his own kitchen masterpieces that were totally unrelated ;) ahhh......gotta love 'em!!!!

Jen, could you tell me more about the early grades with Sonlight? I've heard input from moms using it w/ older kids, but not younger ones. What about Sonlight does he seem to be thriving on?

Thanks :)

Jen, could you tell me more about the early grades with Sonlight? I've heard input from moms using it w/ older kids, but not younger ones. What about Sonlight does he seem to be thriving on?

Thanks :)

Christine - We are using Sonlight and I have the PreK and Cores K and 1 here. The next meeting of Roots and Shoots is at my house and you're welcome to look at any of it while you're here.

Lisa, that would be fantastic! Thank you so much :) I'm really looking forward to seeing you and your family again, and hopefully getting more of an opportunity to chat :) I'll PM you towards the middle of next week and check to see if you need help with anything (snacks, etc.)

I'm also using Sonlight PreK. I thought about using FIAR, but the unstructured part was hard for me--I admit that I get lazy, and I'm far from good at things when I don't have some kind of structured plan.

It will really help to look at PreK, so it's cool that you get a chance. We're loving it. I find the workload for each day rather light. We either reread more stories, or most often combine 2-3 days in one day, and then repeat favorite stories too. Erik loves the 20th Century Treasury book, and we've read almost every story in there at least 5 times, some of them waaaaaaaay more than that.

Lisa, that would be fantastic! Thank you so much :) I'm really looking forward to seeing you and your family again, and hopefully getting more of an opportunity to chat :) I'll PM you towards the middle of next week and check to see if you need help with anything (snacks, etc.)

Sure! I think one of the hardest aspects of homeschooling is having to decide on curriculum without being able to see it. Take all the time you need to look it over, you're welcome to take the PreK IG home with you to see if it looks like something you'd like.

I'm looking forward to talking with you more, too! The Earth Day meeting was a little crazy, with all the activities. I felt that I spent most of my time making sure I knew where all my children were! Wasn't that a beautiful place? I had no idea they lived right on the water.

You're right Lisa, it was fun but chaotic ;) Yes, the Brome Howard is lovely. That's actually where DH and I had our wedding reception :heart: Lisa (the one who lives there) has become a dear friend of mine.

Thanks again for the offer to peruse the curriculum. I think it will be a big help to see it in person!

We recently started FIAR. What I like best about it: It's introducing us to books that we would have never checked out. DS has absolutely LOVED the books so far.

DS, however, has not enjoyed the "school aspect" of when I pull out the teacher"s guide and discuss w/him issues or do any projects. :rolleyes: