Five in a Row is an easy-to-follow, highly effective instructional guide for teaching social studies to young children.

The topics include Geography, Language Arts, History, Art, Applied Math, Relationships, and Science. They are designed for children ages 4-8 and up. The lessons are taken directly from children’s books.

For more than 25 years, Five in a Row has created a unique way to give children opportunities to learn about others, cultivate empathy, and learn about hard things—in a safe way. All of this is done through shared stories.⁠

Created by a homeschooling mother, Jane began developing her own unique teaching style centered around great children’s books and a highly interactive approach to learning. Today, Jane continues to encourage homeschoolers worldwide through her multiple award-winning Five in a Row curriculum while enjoying her five grandchildren, who all live less than ten minutes from her home. Our Director, Donna Jones, used this curriculum with her own children.

Reading stories about people who are different from us or face different challenges than we do encourages intellectual empathy (a way to imaginatively put ourselves in someone else’s place).

Some units will include a recipe or food suggestions to enjoy together that ties into the story!

Visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners and teachers will all benefit from Five in a Row’s variety of lessons and activities.

Story disks are included with each unit for some geography lessons and placed on a world or U.S. map.

For instance, while studying the Madeline unit, students discuss the geography lesson about how

Madeline lived in Paris, which is in a country named France. Students will go to the world map and find France, then Paris, and place the (Eiffel Tower) Madeline disk on that location.