How long does it take

[Bethany]

to go through the B4 manual once. I have read many threads that say they want supplemental books to read after finishing the manual. But I was looking at my manual and the between the many suggestions for the stories and the activities in part two, it would take aleast two years to go through everything once! Am I just not understanding how to use the manual or am I missing something that people are able to finish it sooner?:unsure:

I thought it recommends doing one suggestion with the book per day. That would mean that the first title, Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? would take a month to complete and that would be doing it everyday. Maybe people read and do a suggestion from more than one book each day.

I was planning to read and do one suggestion from one book as well as one activity from part two (at a different time in the same day) each day. Then read only other books throughout the day. Am I setting a way too slow pace?

[CJ]

B4FAIR is so Flexible!! Some families are doing all the activities for a book. Some are doing just a few. Some spend 2 weeks with a book. Some spend 3 days.

There's no right or wrong. Just what works best for you and your child. Recommendations are just that - it doesn't mean there isn't another way to use the material.

In our home we work with a book for a week and use B4FIAR for about 9 months with breaks here and there.

[Candace C]

Bethany,

I rarely "row" a book (before or vol.1-3) longer than 1 week. I go through the manuals and see which lessons would best fit my children at this moment. I know that we will read the books and possibly re-row in the future...so I dont' worry about getting every single activity done the first time around. :) Plus, I can't drag out 1 title that long! Too long for us! :)

[Di in NJ]

What I love about B4 is its flexibility. There are some activities that may not work for our family. For instance, Jimmy would look at me funny if I tried to explain primary colors (he's already mastered secondary ones), or, in the winter, we may not be able to go on a nature walk. I may have an idea for my own activity with a book (applying his Sunday school lesson to that week's book, for example). I definitely use the manual as more of a suggestion, LOL!

For my family, I made the purpose of this year to be learning to love learning. I chose activities that would be exciting to my ds, and mostly kept the books to 1 week to avoid burnout. Occasionally, a book would spark more ideas so we would continue that for another week.

If you have the same purpose for your B4 time, it will give you a lot of flexibility to do what is best for your child & your family. Also remember that Mommy's calmness & contentment have a big impact on your child learning to love learning.

[Jocelyne]

i did 'row' the books with my son - one book/week. we did a lot more than the manual with them because of his interest and attention. i really needed to kick it up a notch. but we kept it at one week so he (and me!) wouldn't get bored. it worked great for both of us and we always looked forward to our new book on monday after our busy weekends.

we did all but two books and it took us 18 weeks. the structure of doing units makes us both so much happier. so unless we are traveling or it is christmas we usually have a unit going. some weeks we get really into it and do a ton of hands-on and crafts and things like that. others are light and very conversational.

i didn't use the ideas in the back when we rowed the books. those i used whenever we got bored or i just felt like it. and many we had already done long before i had even discovered b4fiar.

this is just to give you an idea of what worked for us. like the others said before me - it is a very flexible program.

[Holly S]

We read a different B4 book every time, and do maybe 2-3 books with activities a week. I usually just do one activity per book. When he gets a little older, we may do a book with two activities in one sitting, but this is plenty for now. For the activities in the back, I read through these occasionally to get more ideas for DS and add them to our day.