Choosing and planning homeschool curriculum can be fun and challenging. There are so many choices it’s hard to know where to start or what will be a good fit. I love taking a peak at what other homeschool families are using to help me decide what to do for our own learning plan each year. I’m sharing our first grade curriculum picks and how we’re implementing them in our real life homeschool routine.
If you’re new here we take an eclectic approach to homeschool with a mix between Charlotte Mason and unschooling. Our biggest focus during formal instruction is reading and math. For other subjects I love using interest based learning and lots and lots of books. We keep lessons short and do lots of learning through play.
If you want to see what curriculum we used for kindergarten, check out this post here.
Unschoolingish | Homeschool as a Lifestyle
My husband and I both spent our careers as public school teachers. Breaking my ideas of school and education away from the 8:00- 3:00 Monday through Friday schedule with each subject allotted it’s own time has been a learning journey! It’s taken us way out of our comfort zone!
Who else feels super uncomfortable letting go of this idea?!
They say the best things come when we step out of our comfort zones and that’s totally been the case here. A big part of my why for homeschooling is to reclaim childhood and give my children time to just be kids. Filling there day with worksheets, textbooks, and a strict schedule doesn’t fit the goal at all.
We focus on connection and making learning part of our everyday life and family rhythm. I love finding a balance between using some curriculum as a guide but not allowing it to rule your homeschool. We use our curriculum as a spring board but always feel free to switch things up, skip things that we already know, dive deeper where we find interest, and take breaks when its not working.
The best part of homeschooling is that you get to create your own individualized education that works perfectly for your child and your family.
First Grade Language Arts Curriculum
All About Reading
We’ll be continuing to use All About Reading for our reading and language arts this year. We started Level 1 in Kindergarten and Arabella is reading so well. If something is working in your homeschool I highly recommend sticking with it. We’ll finish up what’s left of level 1 and move onto level 2.
All About Reading is a phonics based program. It includes a multisensory approach to teaching phonics and reading comprehension. Arabella loves the interactive lessons and the beautiful, fun stories in the decodable readers.
We spend 20 minutes a day working on our All About Reading lesson. When the timer goes off we wrap up what we’re doing, put a post it note in where we left off and pick it back up the next day. We usually pick up our All About Reading work about three days a week.
I love the slow and stead approach. You don’t need to finish a particular lesson or even level during a specific period of time. You just follow the pace of your child and give them the time they need to master the material.
I’ve never heard of anyone not having success with this program. They even offer a money back guarantee so you really can’t go wrong giving it a try.
Explode the Code
We added Explode the Code to our language arts options this summer. They are simple, easy to understand and make great independent work. It has been great for some extra phonics review and spelling practice. We’ll finish up level 1 and move on to level 2. She usually completes one to page a day.
Dash Into Reading
We’ll continue using these beautiful decodable readers for independent time and reading practice. Arabella is becoming such a strong reader. These books give her the confidence to keep learning and improving her skills. I love seeing her sit during quiet time and read to her stuffed animals.
We purchased Set 1, 2, and 3 and the activity books. I love having these as another options for practicing phonics and reading when we need to change things up. The activities are amazingfor play based learning.
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Read Aloud Books
Reading aloud together is the ultimate learning tool. We read aloud daily from a variety of picture books, poetry and chapter books. The best part is this is a great way to double up and cover language arts and other topics like history and science. So much is learned through books. We check out books through the library which is a great way to save a lot of money on homeschooling.
We pull picture book lists from Playful Pioneers and Pinterest Book lists to cover topics that we’re studying. My kids also love browsing the library and picking their own books right off the shelf. Sometimes the unplanned topics are the best ones!
We’re reading through the Little House Series this year. We planned to read a chapter a day but sometimes we get into a groove and don’t want to stop. We do some of the copywork and coloring pages from the Playful Pioneers and complete illustrated narrations as we work through the books.
1st Grade Math Curriculum
If you followed along with our homeschool journey you know it took me while to find a math curriculum we loved. This year we’re using 1st Grade Math with Confidence by Kate Snow. Arabella and I both seriously love it!
Math with Confidence is open and go with short parent led lessons. Each lesson is clearly laid out with instructions for what you need and how to teach it. The lessons usually take about 15 minutes and include lots of games, pretend play, and real life activities.
After the parent led lesson your child has a one page (front and back) worksheet. The worksheet is based on the lesson and is easy to do independently. The curriculum is designed as a four day schedule with a fifth day enrichment lesson that included a math picture book and fun activity.
These lessons are optional but we always do them. They add a lot of fun to a subject that kids (and parents) often dread.
We love adding games and hands on learning to our math practice. These are some of our favorites!
Handwriting
Arabella is still working on proper letter and number formation so we added Handwriting Without Tears into our rotation. It’s a great way for her to practice making her letters the correct way and includes fun coloring pictures too. We mix this in with some copywork from the Playful Pioneers and the Draw Write Now Books that she really loves.
Nature Study and Science
I tried a curriculum for science and social studies in the beginning of the year and it just wasn’t our thing. It felt too scripted and controlled and took away from our ability to learn on the go as we experience life and science in the world around us.
We spend a lot of time outside exploring nature so it will naturally be a big part of our science studies. I pull science topics from a variety of resources including Playful Pioneers to go along with our read aloud, my kids interests, real life experiences, and a variety of STEM and Kids Science resources.
We use books and library databases daily, go on family hike and explore nature throughout the seasons, and do a lot of hands on learning through stem projects and experiments. I also plan to pull some topic ideas and inspiration from Exploring Nature With Children if we run out of ideas on of our own.
Social Studies
I planned on using Playful Pioneers for History. It was a lot for us to keep up with and I didn’t love feeling like I couldn’t keep up. Since it’s designed as a family style curriculum it’s made for students in kindergarten through 8th grade and we’re on the lowest end of the spectrum. We decided to pick and choose topics and activities from the curriculum and combine that with other history topics and geography skills that we are naturally drawn to.
We chose several important people to study through literature and are studying holidays and cultures. We’ll continue to plan topics month to month and pull things from a variety of resources.
I get ideas for topics and skills to teach in social studies and other subjects from the IXL Skill Recommendation pages. It’s a great resource for gaging what to teach.
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