1st Grade is such a great year! They learn so much and it is a year where you can look back and see the huge growth that occurs in just one year of school.
In my last post about Kindergarten, I mentioned that if it is your first year homeschooling, you may want to check out these super helpful resources before you get started.
- Five Homeschooling Styles – article and video that will introduce you to styles frequently mentioned when describing homeschool curriculum.
- Super Helpful Curriculum Reviews by Cathy Duffy – she also has a book and the first 50 or so pages really help you to identify how and why you want to educate your kids. There are some helpful quizzes and questionnaires. 102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum. I noticed there are no more physical copies available (crazy!) but there are digital versions.
- Homeschool Laws in your State – check out the Home School Legal Defense Association to find out what you need to do to legally home school your child.
Reading, Phonics, Handwriting and Math
(these are the subjects where each student or child moves at their own pace)
We started with Abeka Language Arts in Kindergarten so we just continued with them in 1st grade. However if you start in 1st Grade, they do enough review of the concepts learned in Kindergarten that you will be fine. I’ve been asked by friends what I would choose that aligns with common core – especially if they are planning on homeschooling for a short time then sending their kids back in a year or so. Abeka is strong academically and although it may teach concepts at a slightly different pace or a different way than public schools, I’m confident that I could send my kids to public school at any given time and they wouldn’t be “behind”. Here’s an article about Abeka and Common Core.
Abeka builds on the concepts of sounding out words using long and short vowels and special sounds (sh, tch, st, etc.) Abeka is a traditional form of home school curriculum so it is designed for a classroom. With this in mind, you can pick and choose what to do from the teacher guide. On the plus side, you are never at a loss with how to teach a concept, but if you did do everything in the teacher guide it would take too long. My girls picked up reading really quickly with Abeka and continue to love reading. The readers (books designed for kids to learn reading with…) included in their program feature a lot of character qualities and biblical teaching – which for me was a plus. They also have poetry in the readers. I wanted my kids to be reading stories that would simultaneously be teaching our family’s values.
- Abeka – 1st Grade Student Kit – just Language Arts (Reading/Phonics/Handwriting)
- Abeka – Parent Kit – just Language Arts (Reading/Phonics/Handwriting)
- If you get a kit that doesn’t include “Basic Phonic Flashcards” – make sure you buy those separately
As I mentioned in the Kindergarten post there are a few other home school curriculums for Language Arts that I would consider using based on the feedback I’ve heard from other homeschool families:
- NOTE – I haven’t used The Good and the Beautiful – but I’ve heard good things about it and its a FREE downloadable PDF for grades 1 – 6!!!!! – I think you have to purchase the Kindergarten version but it’s still a lot cheaper than other options – it is a Mormon company so you may want to do some research before purchasing.
- I’ve also heard good things about but haven’t personally used…. https://www.allaboutlearningpress.com/all-about-reading for reaching and phonics. I’ve also heard good things about but haven’t personally used… https://www.lwtears.com/hwt for handwriting.
Math
I will admit I had a LOT of trial and error when it came to Math. My poor oldest child used THREE different Math curriculums before I found one that worked well for our family. We started with Saxon Math 1 in Kindergarten. Saxon is a very strong program, but I would recommend it starting in 4th grade and not sooner. The K-3 programs are very time and teacher intensive. Saxon 1 did excel in a few areas though. It had almost daily math facts drill and there were periodic tests, but I decided to look elsewhere. I tried Singapore Math. Singapore was great at teaching math concepts in a variety of ways so they really understood them well, but it didn’t include very much math drill or tests and didn’t review old concepts in a way that made sense to me so again I looked elsewhere and stumbled upon a curriculum I love!
Math Mammoth is an easy to use yet rigorous math program that is also affordable! There is just one book for the parent/teacher and student. The program created has free Youtube videos that cover most concepts. Math Mammoth – Level 1
Math Resources you will want to have….
Bible (daily)
Note: it is normally recommended that for family subjects (the ones you can all do together – that you choose curriculum based on your oldest child and the younger ones can glean from what they hear – so far this has worked for us)
When Lucy was in 1st we used the Abeka 1st Grade Bible program. It covers Bible stories with more depth than the Bible storybooks I’ve used before. It also has beautiful realistic art work that you hold up while you read the story, songs to sing together, and suggests Bible verses to memorize. I love the application that was added to the end of each story and then I would just pray my own prayer with them. We learned so much and I continued with their 2nd grade program the next year. Abeka is currently offering the online streaming version of their Bible curriculum for a fraction of its normal cost – only $25! I just bought it for next year, because I thought taking one thing off my plate for next year would be good. Even though it doesn’t require any prep I could play with my 1 year old while the online teacher does her thing and $25 is far cheaper than the cost of buying the materials. Even though Lucy was my only kid in 1st grade, Bridget and Josiah both listened in on this curriculum.
Science (2 days a week)
When Lucy was 1st grade I chose a Masterbooks Science program called “God’s Design for Life” It is designed for K-2nd and it covers Plants, the Human Body, and Animals – each for 1/3 of the year. It was a perfect fit for us because it was easy and open-and-go which is what I was looking for since I was pregnant with Hannah that year. Per usual, we often looked up Youtube videos after our science reading and they loved it.
The Good and the Beautiful Science Units is another curriculum I have considered and they have a free download of their Marine Biology unit. After flipping through it I think it would be perfect for this age group.
History (2 days a week)
For History we started the Story of the World series in 1st grade. The Story of the World is a classical curriculum that exposes children of all ages to the world history in a cycle. There are 4 volumes designed to be used 1 per year then repeated. I was really impressed with this curriculum and learned a lot myself. I recommend getting the book, the audiobook, and the activity pages. I didn’t use the tests. We would all sit at the table, turn the audiobook on and listen to a chapter while the kids all colored. I also bought the Usborne History Encyclopedia and displayed that on a book stand so we would have some visuals while we listened. Occasionally we would do one of the extra projects or get one of the recommended books from the library to supplement what we were learning. This book is not designed to have a Christian world view, but I would normally just pause and explain different things to my kids as they came up – for example, when we learned about Greek and Roman gods we talked about how they were different than the God we worship. You can easily find Story of the World used on Ebay or on Homeschool buy and sell groups on Facebook.
The Extras
The Extras
Art, Poetry, Morning Time, and Spanish remained very similar to what we did in Kindergarten – so you can check out my Kindergarten post for that info.
For read-alouds I purchased Sonlight Core A (I saved some $ buying it used) to give me a batch of books with a schedule so I would be more diligent reading aloud to my kids. This worked out well, we read a whole lot more, and the kids loved it! I will say that I mainly used Audible because for me it was so much easier to just press play and for all of us to listen while we ate lunch, or drove around town, or even as I cleaned up the lunch mess. There were a few books that weren’t on Audible, and those I almost always found for free on Youtube!
Here’s our list of read alouds:
- My Father’s Dragon
- Hank the Cowdog #1
- The Happy Hollisters #1
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
- The Boxcar Children #1
- Here’s a Penny
- Charlotte’s Web
- Dolphin Adventure #1
- The Trumpet of the Swan
- Mary on Horseback
- Mr. Popper’s Penguins
- In Grandma’s Attic #1
- James Herriot’s Treasury for Children
- Little House in the Big Woods
- No Children, No Pets
- A Grain of Rice
- Twenty and Ten
- The Light at Tern Rock
- The Penderwicks
- Five True Dog Stories
This was also the year we got more diligent about our memory work for our co-op, Classical Conversations. I’ll write another post about that in the near future!
That’s about it for now! I hope to post soon about 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, Preschool, and my favorite Homeschool Mom resources! Please comment if you have any questions about any of this!
