Before Five in a Row Planning Resources

Last year I started using Before Five in a Row with Rachel.  It is a wonderful curriculum that brings real books to life through activities involving math, science, crafts, music, and more.  Plus it is just a fun way to spend some special time with your little one while reading some wonderful books!

Essentially, you read the selected book once a day for 5 days in a row.  After each reading, you do a couple of activities that somehow relate to the story.  The Before Five in a Row book lists many great activities for each book but I've also collected many more on my Before Five in a Row Pinterest board.

To plan, I start with locating the books that we will read. Many of them can be found at our local libraries. Others I buy used at library book sales or from friends whose kiddos have outgrown them.  All of the suggested books are really great pieces of children's literature so I do try to buy them when I can so that we can read them over and over at anytime.  

I then look through the books and decide on the best time of the year to read them based on things like if the story takes place during a particular season or if there is a theme to the story that ties in with something else we will be doing later in the year.

Here is a Before Five in a Row Book List (PDF) that I made to help me keep track of all of this:


To help me plan the activities we do each day, I created this weekly planning page that I fill out for each book. It lets me keep track of which activities we will do on which day, the subjects covered, and which supplies I need to have on hand. 

Here is a PDF version if you'd like to download it:


I hope these forms will help you with planning Before Five in a Row activities for your child.
Although we started this curriculum last year, we still have some books that we didn't get around to reading.  We will continue to work through the books at the beginning of this year and then we will move on the next level which is Five in a Row, Volume 1.