Trying Five in a Row

I have been researching many programs for next year.  One of the ones top on my list is Before Five in a Row for Megan and Beyond Five in a Row for Laura.  I have read page after page of reviews on the curriculum.  I have been surprised that I can't find much in the way of negative reviews.  The only negative reviews are from people that don't like unit studies.  Finding reviews where the reviewer just didn't like Five in a Row is difficult to find.

Not wanting to invest money in a program that isn't going to work for us, I decided to use one of their online digital downloads.  While it isn't Beyond or Before, I picked up the book Snowflake Bentley from the library.  This book is from Five in a Row Volume 4 for 7-8 year olds.  I paid the nine dollars and downloaded the unit study for this book.  This should give me and Laura a taste of Five in a Row so I can see if this is a program to keep considering for next year.

I know that Beyond Five in a Row is different, since it uses chapter books.  The books are read a chapter at a time with studies branching off from the chapters.  With Five in a Row, the book is read for five days in a row with a different subject studies each day.  I am hoping it will be a nice balance for Laura and still give me a taste of the program for Megan.

I have always been curious about unit studies.  We tried Konos last year, but we didn't stick with it.  I was very new to homeschooling and was kind of afraid that it wasn't going to cover enough.  All my research on unit studies, however, shows that they can actually provide quite an extensive education.  I bought a used version of Weaver off ebay only to discover that most of it was missing.

With the end of the year creeping up upon us, something different is just what we need.  We'll try this and see how it goes.  I will say that, when I bought the study I didn't expect much.  I haven't looked through the pages yet, but when I opened the download and found out that it was 65 pages long, I was shocked.  Wow!  I expected maybe 20 pages.  Plus, if I like this program, all I will need to add is math, grammar, and spelling.