Learning the USA through Literature – the 3rd year
A Homeschool Co-op Curriculum, based around Volume 4 of Jane Lambert,’s, Five in a Row Curriculum.
Hey friends – if you’ve been following along my site for the last few years, you know I teach at a homeschool co-op and I absolutely LOVE the Five in a Row Curriculum, by Jane Lambert. There are a million reasons why I love using it at home, but even more, Five in a Row’s flexibility and abundance of hands-on activities make it a perfect fit for a co-op setting.
But often times, when you’re teaching in a class, you want discussion questions; you want printables for illustrations; you want tracing sheets and copywork other things that are helpful in a classroom setting. And if you are a busy mom, already trying to teach your own kiddos, it would be helpful if all that stuff was free, and if you could find it all quickly, in the same place.
Yup. That’s what I wanted too … and I couldn’t find it anywhere. There were lots of printables at TpT (teachers pay teachers), but they all cost money. And I wanted things specified to Five in a Row, which was slightly harder to find, especially because I wanted to cover all the books the same way, so that I could have a fun binder to hand the kiddos at the end of the year.
If you are a co-op teacher or coordinator, welcome. If this is your first time here, I invite you to check out the Learning the ABC’s through Literature, The First Year, perfect for 4-6 year olds. Learning through Literature, The Second Year, is recommended for 1st-3rd graders.
This year, I have been given the challenge to teach 1st-4th. I will be using books from the Five in a Row Volume 4 Curriculum and using them to travel around the United States.
The objectives are:
- To expose children to classic children’s literature and a small language arts lesson through a bi-weekly read-aloud time.
- To give children the opportunity to practice public speaking in a bi-weekly show and tell time (on weeks when the book is not read aloud)
- To learn the 5 main regions of the United States and their cultures, using literature. (The literature has been ordered to cover the 5 regions while trying to match the appropriate books with their seasons.)
- To learn the 50 states and their capitals, using songs, weekly review, and classroom games
- To complete a printable Geography Journal, reviewing states, reviewing the book they just read, and including maps, state flags, and a literature copy work to go along with each book.
There will be a separate class to cover art and science. There are many, many options listed within the Volume 4 FIAR book, as well as an abundance of material on Pinterest. For those interested in joining the FIAR FB group, there are also Art and Science suggestions within the Files of the Group. So I will not cover those here.
What you will get is an outline of each class, discussion questions, printable worksheets, links to videos we found useful, homework we thought could practically benefit the class (and that was flexible enough to be modified for 1st-4th), etc. There will also be a number of free printables, copywork sheets, geography journals, and suggested go-along games and classroom activities.
If you’d like to follow along through the year, we will be going through the books in the following order. We will spend two weeks on each book. I hope to update the website each week with our classroom activities.
As always, since this is a work in progress, feel free to send comments, suggestions, or questions as we go through the year. I love feedback – and am always open to switching things up.
Thanks for stopping by,
Katherine
The Midwest
The Raft by Jim LaMarche – Week 1 & 2
Wagon Wheels by Barbara Brenner – Week 1 & 2
The Southwest
The Gullywasher by Joyce Rossi – Week 1 & 2
Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran – Week & 2
World Continents Review
Pumpkin Runner by Marsha Diane Arnold – Week 1
The Northwest
Cowboy Charlie by Jeanette Winter – Week 1 & 2
Mailing May by Michael O. Tunnell – Week 1 & 2
* * * Winter Break * * *
World Continents Review
Hanna’s Cold Winter by Trish Marx
The Northeast
Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin – Week 1 and 2
The Hatmaker’s Sign by Benjamin Franklin / Candace Fleming – Week 1 and 2
Albert by Donna Jo Napoli – Week 1 & 2
The Southeast
The Hickory Chair – Week 1 & 2
The Blue Hill Meadows – Week 1 & 2
Resources are listed throughout the curriculum, but several that we continue to come back to are:
APPs:
United States Map Quiz -this is a PERFECT app for this curriculum because it sorts and tests the states by region! It also includes capitals. It is a simple, no-frills app – but works perfect as a go-along for this curriculum
YOUTUBE Videos (to learn states / capitals):
There are many, but these are ones that I come back to again and again, for both the class and use with my own kiddos. The last one (with Mrs. Alexander) may give you some ideas for teaching the states as well.
Game Buzzer’s/Laser Pointers: (for questions and state trivia games)
I purchased these super fun buzzers and these laser pointers from Amazon. I was very impressed with the quality of the laser pointers for the price, and they worked perfectly for pointing to states from across the room, and for having races to point at the state with the kids.
Hi! Where are the weeks for the west coast (California, Oregon, Washington)? Also, is there a download for everything all in one place or is it best to go to each link separately?
If you scroll down this page, you will see the books divided by region (Midwest/Northeast/Northwest/Southwest/Southeast). Not every state is covered, but all the regions have two or three books and all the states in that region are covered through the worksheets/class discussions. You can print out the sheets each week for free. But you can also purchase the full packet all in one place (it’s That looks right did you find out that legislative is coins and money 80+ pages), here: https://www.chroniclesofmomia.com/product/learning-the-usa-through-literature-journal/
Hello, I am wanting to buy the digital download of Year 3 for my co-op, but I cannot find how to get into my Cart. It just takes me back to the main page.
Kali—I’m sorry about this! I will try to figure this out and get back to you soon!
Kali, it should be fixed now! Thanks for letting me know!
Hi Katherine, can you give me any insight or an overview as to what the separate art and science classes covered? I do have the manual as well.
Hi Robyn. Are you on Pinterest? For art, sometimes there are suggestions in the manual and we would do one of those projects. But often we would go on Pinterest and search “art project to go with _____” (whatever book we were doing). It was too long ago to remember every project we did, but if you find my Pinterest account (chronicles of Momia) —I used to pin crafts to go with each book. For science, we’d look through the manual. If something wasn’t particularly interesting, the science teacher would search to find something that was close. I know if you go onto the Five in. A Row Facebook group someone made a shared document where they posted a science project that went along with every book. If you can’t find it quickly in the group, you can ask and someone should be able to direct you to it. I may be able to look it up later and find it… But someone went through and matched a science project (all out of the same book) to every FIAR book. No, not all of these are five in a row books… but most are, so that would be a great place to start.
Hi! This is so wonderful! Do you have a document with all the weeks together so I can send it to a printer in one file? Thanks! ~Julie
Hi Julie! So glad you’re able to use this! You can find it as one document located here: https://www.chroniclesofmomia.com/shop/
Is this study meant for a bi-weekly co-op? Our co-op is bi-weekly and I am interested in giving this a try. Thanks!
Hi Lisa! I did this as a weekly co-op (25weeks) but used two classes for each book. If you click on each book, you will see class one and class two. This could likely be modified to only cover some of the things, or use some of the worksheets as homework, or left off. Look through it, and let me know what you think. If you end up using it, come back and let us know how it worked.
If my eyes aren’t deceiving me…the Southeast States Geography journal page for The Hickory Chair has “Southwest” written multiple times in the instructions.
Looking forward to using your wonderful resources next year! Now I just have to decide whether to hunt down an old volume 4 manual or buy the new vol 4&5 manuals… 😉
Ooh Meagan—thanks, good catch! Thanks for stopping by to let me know, I will try to update that page soon and post the new one here. Glad you and your family are able to use this!
I am using the Learning the USA plans for my co-op class and we are loving it. We are up to the Gullywasher next week. The link for pages is not there, and I am only seeing one week of lesson plans. It shows it as two weeks, so I am not sure if I am missing something, or if it is only a one week lesson.
Krista—yay! I’m so glad you’re using this and finding it helpful! We did do a 1st class and I have notebook pages, they must have just never gotten uploaded. Let me look through my notes from last year and see what I can find. If you don’t see any updates on the site on the next day, check in with me on social media— FB or Insta and we can connect that way to see if I can get you notebook pages.
Krista — I just finished updating the Gullywasher page. Everything should be there now. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I am so glad you guys are using this. If you need anything in the future, or have any feedback at all about the curriculum, find me at chroniclesofmoma@gmail.com, or on FB and Insta @homeschoolcoopcurriculum or @chronicles_of_momia. Thanks for letting me know!