Friday, February 13, 2009

Further Up and Further In

Available from Cadron Creek Christian Curriculum

The 5 Chronicles of Narnia books have always fascinated me. I can clearly remember my 3rd grade teacher reading The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe to our class at the end of each day. I was an adult before I knew that there were more! What a tragedy! I bought the 5 book set for our family as soon as we decided to homeschool. My older boys were 2 and 5 at the time!

Further Up and Further In was written by Diane Pendergraft (edited by Margie Gray) to facilitate using the Chronicles of Narnia books as a unit study. This was a tremendous blessing to my family as I am terrible at putting together unit studies!

The guides for all 5 books are in one volume. The introduction lays out different ways to use the resources. FUFI covers Bible (very thoroughly), Bible Memorization, Writing, Science, Hands-on Activities and Art. History topics are referred too and can be covered in more depth if the instructor wishes. We mainly used the Bible, Memory and Writing activities.

Vocabulary words are introduced for each chapter of each book. Students are encouraged to look the words up and keep a vocabulary section in their notebook. One chapter is read each day and then the teacher can choose which assignments to use for that chapter. FUFI is suggestion for grades 3-8 but could easily be adapted either way. I am working with a 3rd and 6th grader and the assignments were very grade-appropriate.

Some chapters have a lot of activities to choose from. The author encourages you to pick and choose what will best benefit your family.

We loved reading The Magician's Nephew and using FUFI to make our studies more meaningful. Each book takes about a month to get through. We used this to take a break from our regular studies as we came back from Christmas break. The study would also be wonderful used over a summer break.

Further Up and Further In is available from the Cadron Creek website for $56. They also offer many of the suggested resources.....although they are also available from your local library in many cases. Cadron Creek also offers studies that correspond with The Little House on the Prairie books and Anne of Green Gables books. Maybe one day I will have a daughter to share those studies with !

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