First Grade Curriculum for Home Schooling

Today, I am joining in on the Curriculum Fair hosted by Simple Home School. 

 

My Children's Ages: 6 and 3.

Educational Influences: Classical, Montessori, and the British Infant System.

This was our first home schooling year with our family. Being Catholic, we went with Seton Home Study for Kindergartner, however much of the material was review for my daughter.    By the time Christmas rolled around, I was shopped for a new reading program.  I found it in the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading and have never looked back.  I then read the Well Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and her daughter, Susan Wise Bauer and decided on much of our curriculum on their recommendations.

Educational Background:

When I was working full-time, my oldest daughter attended a locally owned school that has a reputuation for advanced childhood education.  The school had developed a relaxed approach which allow educational play for the majority of students while teachers met individually with each child.  The atmosphere was non-competitive with every child learning at her own pace.   

I have tried to use this approach at home too. We three particpate in circle time, math games, science experiments, and storytime together. However,  I do take turns with my children, allowing one  to play independently as I work with my other daughter: reading, phonics, and addition for my oldest child, recognition of letters and numbers for my youngest child.

Here's our plan for next year:

FIRST GRADE

LANGUAGE ARTS

Monday through  Friday

Continue with The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise and Sara Buffington

Continue with Spelling Workout Level A by Modern Curriculum Press

First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind Level 1 by Jessie Wise

Writing With Ease: Strong Fundamentals by Susan Wise Bauer

My Printing Book from Handwriting without Tears

MATH

MATH-U-SEE

Monday through Wednesday, and  Friday, Thursday is project and field trip day

Currently, we are on lesson 24 of Saxon First Grade Math and have two weeks to go before our summer break .  We will complete Saxon 1 in the fall, and then switch over to Math-U-See.   I feel Saxon goes at too slow, is too structured, and is not the most effective way of teaching the basics. I have heard many good things about Math-U-See, and am looking forward to using that. 

SCIENCE

For first grade we will be focusing on Life Science and use the following materials:

On Tuesdays, we will be studying:

Animals: Kingfisher First Encyclopedia of Animals

Human Body: The Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia

Plants: Green Thumbs: A Kid's Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening

On Thursdays, we will be conducting experiments from:

Magnets to Mudpies

Everybody Has A Body

or working in Daddy's vegetable garden

On Thursday, we will also be taking field trips to the local aquarium or zoo.  We are fortunate we recieved annual family memberships for both places.

We will be keeping a science journal through the year to document our reading, experiments, and garden results.

HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY

Monday, Wednesday Friday

Story of the World: Ancient Times by Susan Bauer.  I really like the activity book, and recommended additional history reading list.

The Usborne Book of World History

Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World

Daily Geography

FAITH FORMATION

Monday through Friday

Saints for Young Readers for Every Day 

Religion 1 for Young Catholics

The Catholic Children's Bible

CHINESE LANGUAGE

Once a Week

I am debating on enrolling my oldest daughter in the local Chinese school that meets on every Saturday

OR buying Rosetta Stone for Chinese. 

Your thoughts?

 

 

Comments

[Carmen]

I obviously have zero experience with chinese, but I'd lean towards the school. We live in a neighborhood that is half Chinese/half Jewish - I know, we are the token Catholic family, even more out of place with the big family - and every Saturday, they all carpool to Chinese school. I think it would be good for your daughters to be exposed to all the elements that come with Chinese school, as opposed to just the language part of Rosetta Stone.

I have heard that the library has Rosetta Stone, though...

[Mary @ A Simple Twist of Faith]

Thanks Carmen, I was thinking about that too. I wish the Chinese school was on a weekday after school. The commitment on a Saturday is a challenge.

[Paula @Motherhood Outloud]

LOVE Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. I seriously believe anyone can teach their kids to read using this book : )

[Jordana]

We're big Well Trained Mind fans here too. Have you ever been on the WTM forum? Any question you've ever had can be helpfully answered. The parents over there know a lot.

The Saturday commitment would be a lot, but I suspect the knowledge gained from a Chinese school would be much greater than from Rosetta Stone. Chinese is such a hard language. My husband lived 10 years of his childhood in Taiwan (granted he went to American schools there) but still he has only a tiny grasp of Mandarin. Only a little speaking ability and almost no reading any more.