Learning the ABC’s through Literature – the 1st year – A FIAR (Five in a Row) Based Kindergarten Co-op Class
This curriculum was written for a kindergarten/1st grade class … if you are looking for homeschool co-op curriculum or Five in a Row go-along curriculum for an older class, check out: Three years of Homeschool Co-op Curriculum – in one place, for more classes. 
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For the last year I have taught and scheduled lesson plans for a homeschool kindergarten / 1st grade co-op class. The co-op ran 26 weeks, which gave us the perfect opportunity to spend one day on each letter of the alphabet.
Each lesson plan was designed for 4-7 year olds, and was planned to fit within 45-60 minutes of instruction time. If you are working with 45 minutes, I would cut and pre-prep a lot of the kid projects. If you have an hour or more – this is more ideal for the kiddos to be more hands-on and do their own cutting. If you are looking for something for kids just a little bit older (ages 6-8), check out another curriclum I wrote, Learning through Literature for Homeschool Co-ops.
I always wanted more time when I was teaching. If you have more time, this type of curriculum would lend itself beautifully to having three 45 minutes blocks (one to read the story and go over the geography or in-story lessons, one for handwriting and arts and crafts, and one for science.) Someday, I may write such a schedule.
But for starters, if you only have 1 hour and 1 class, but you want to cover the basics, this is a great starter curriculum. You can do it at home, to add on to the material in Jane Lambert’s, Five in a Row curriclum, or if you just want to have something to do once a week, but don’t have the time to do it every day. Or you can use it with a weekly Homeschool Co-op, which is the reason I wrote out these lesson plans.
All handouts are my own, and can be used freely. Some materials have been gathered from other wonderful websites, and are credited throughout.
Goal: 45-60 Minutes of Instruction, One day a week.
Level: 4.5-7 years old
Objective: Use classic children’s literature to teach:
- The Alphabet
- Simple Geography
- Simple Science
- Handwriting
- Educational Art and Crafts
If you like this idea, but would like to see something for slightly older children, you may appreciate the Learning Snippets of History through Literature for Homeschool Co-ops , geared towards lower elementary, or 1-3rd grade; or Learning the USA through Literature for Homeschool Co-ops, for 2-5th grade.
Enjoy!
A: How To Make an Apple Pie and See the World
B: Blueberries for Sal
C: The Rag Coat
D: Make Way for Ducklings
E: William Tyndale and the English Bible
F: Ferdinand
G: Galimoto
H: Hedge of Thorns
I: Immi’s Gift
J: Squanto’s Journey / Three Young Pilgrims
K: Katy and the Big Snow
L: Lentil
M: Mirette on the High Wire
N: A New Coat for Anna
O: Owl Moon
P: The Story about Ping
Q: The Quiltmaker’s Gift
R: Miss Rumphius
S: Sanji’s Seed
T: Three Names
U: Ungava Bay / My Very Last First Time
V: My Very Last First Time
W: Time of Wonder
X: Extra Yarn
Y: Extra Yarn
Z: The Z was Zapped
Hi there! I am starting a co-op this year and we would love to use your curriculum for several classes. Is there a place to find all the printables for ABCs class and the History Snippets class in one location? That would be a huge time-saver!
Hey Kali! So glad you’re using it! So, for the 1st two classes, I don’t have that yet… (for the 3rd I have it, but haven’t uploaded it yet) but I have it in mind to create at some point… check back in a couple weeks and I’ll see if I get to it! No guarantees, but it is something I’ve wanted to do for awhile.
Do you have this curriculum for sale for K/1st grade?
Not yet—someday I hope to combine the whole thing and post it together for sale. But you can find everything listed for free by clicking through the individual posts. Hope that’s helpful for now
Thanks so much for sharing these resources! I’m considering starting a kindergarten co-op through our church for my daughter who will be in kindergarten. Can you let me know if you know of a place where I could purchase the books for these lessons at a reasonable price? I’ve looked on ebay but I’m not sure what the book set would be called. Thank you!
Kelly! So glad you may be able to use them. Many of these books you can likely get from the library. You may be able to find some of them together on eBay bundled under “FIAR” or Five in a Row books… but because I created this specific series, it will likely be impossible to find all of them together. I’d recommend searching eBay and you’re local library, and perhaps checking abeBooks.com for ones you can’t find there. Hope that helps!
Hey Kelly! I’m so glad your enjoying this curriculum! So… because I created the curriculum, you’re not going to find anywhere that sells *all* of these books together—however, many of these lesson plans use books from the FIAR or “five in a row” curriculum—and you may be able to find smaller sets or lots of books by searching for those terms on eBay. Abe books.com is also a good place to find some of the other non-fiar used books. Some you should be able to find in the library too. Hope that’s helpful!
Hi, again! i started using your ABC’s unit studies with my daughter last school year, and am continuing in it this school year, since we didn’t fully complete it. There are a few of the books that I would like to swap out for some of the letters (to be able to utilize books we already own), but I am wondering if you can direct me to a place where I can make handwriting pages for those books, like you did for your book choices. Is there a free software you used that easily does that? Thanks!
Hi Joanna– glad you’re enjoying the curriculum. I actually made all my stuff from scratch in word–so I don’t have any recommendations for a template. You should be able to download free or low-cost fonts from the internet and use them to customize something similar
Thank you so much for your reply! I will see what I can figure out.
Hello
How do I print the map and the worksheet for How to see the world and make an apple pie?
Hi Lauri, you should be able to click on it directly and then print, but check back in 24 hours and i’ll try to add a link to the top to click on.
I can’t open the map link for A. Is there somewhere else I need to go?
Hi Joye- it looks like that link no longer exists! I’m going to be using this curriculum in the fall again with another class, and will try to create and share my own map before then! Thanks for pointing this out
Did you get another map for letter A created yet? I am hoping to use this with my daughter, and I really like the map and resources that go along with the book.
Hi Joanna-thanks for stopping by, if you scroll down the site, there is an updated map and a printable with the apple pie ingredients. You should be able to print out both, and then cut out the ingredients and glue them into the countries they came from. Hope this works! Let me know if you have any trouble accessing them. Contact me on insta or FB if you have trouble finding them or need help
I am looking how too.. I cant figure it out.. thanks.. no link to them.. thank you..its amazing
Did you find it? There is a link at the top of the page in the list of things needed for class. Hope that helps
I can’t open the links up. Is there something I need to be able to do that?
Sorry about that! I kept running into troubles with my webhost, but I switched and it should be all fixed now.