I’m thankful so many of you are enjoying the Five in a Row FoldNLearns! Thank you for sharing your feedback! I know we have enjoyed being able to freely enhance your Five in a Row experience. However, there’s one risk we took in sharing those with everyone. That risk is that someone would jump in with the FoldNLearns thinking that she was really doing Before or Five in a Row. It’s a dangerous risk, because stated plainly, without the manuals, one can not possibly be doing Five in a Row. You could be reading great literature, you could be doing fun lapbook style activities, you can certainly be learning, and you can be making great memories. But you can’t be doing Before or Five in a Row.
Each Five in a Row manual was systematically written based on an elementary level scope and sequence and is full of rich ideas that explore all sorts of topics in the necessary subject areas. The FoldNLearns, however, were not designed this way at all. They were designed to enhance your Five in a Row experience. Believing we’re doing Five in a Row without the manuals is like consuming a plate full of marinade without the meat!
Is it wise to offer a plate full of marinade to our children?
This isn’t some ploy to get people to purchase the manuals, as that’s truly not our heart at all. We love something free just as much as the next guy! Our desire is that your children love learning based on literature, and we know that can be done in many ways. But priced at an average of just about $2/unit (when the printed manuals are purchased) our desire is also that your child graduate from elementary school with a thorough academic foundation. “Doing” Before or Five in a Row being led by the lessons highlighted in only the FoldnLearns sets a family up to do only a fraction of the lessons included in the manuals, and therefore completing a less than comprehensive elementary education. For the sake of your children, make sure you’re serving them the meat of the curriculum!
You’re the Curator of Your Family’s Museum
I totally agree! Thank you for the article, the awesome curriculum manuals and for the enhancements. We are loving our learning journey!!!!
Great point! As a non-crafty mom, I find the FNLs are the perfect accompaniment to FIAR and B4. Definitely not a replacement.
Yup. I agree. Never even thought of it , but I guess one could slip into a bad habit, so thanks for that. So blessed to be doing this wih my kids.
Is there any way for me to purchase the lesson for Homer Price from BeyondFIAR? We have all the other instructor manuals and have moved into some other things but we are currently reading Homer Price and my boys asked if there was any FIAR to go along. Thank you for your time, this blog and your knowledge and wonderful words of wisdom!
Yes! The units and FoldNLearns are both available digitally in our Store!
I can’t imagine trying to use the FnL without the manuals! We love FIAR and are so grateful for everything concerning the curriculum! It’s so rich!
Any chance FIAR Volumes 1-3 will be available digitally? The reason I ask is two-fold: we live in Africa and as far as I could tell you only ship manuals within North America. Secondly, I want to add an African flavour to our reading adventures and so I would not want to use all the books recommended – as much as I would love them all!
RainbowResource.com (our exclusive seller) ships internationally, so you’ll have no trouble getting them. Likely they will not be available digitally anytime soon. You could just buy the volumes you know you’ll use. 🙂
Ditto to the article and to the above comments … Thank you for being willing to take the chance… those of us who have been using FIAR sincerely appriciate your trust … I’m a loyal rower of 5 years