First Grade Curriculum

“Curriculum.”  The word that triggers overwhelm in any homeschool mamas’ heart!  With all of the choices it can feel nearly impossible to choose.  How do we know which will be a good fit?  Which one aligns with my beliefs?  What will my child enjoy?  How much does it cost?  And the questions go on..

My intention for this post is to simply share what we used this year.  It may or may not be a good fit for your family, but maybe it will be a good jumping off point as you’re considering different options!

CLASSICAL CONVERSATIONS

Many of you know that we are involved in Classical Conversations and attend a weekly CC co-op.  There is a curriculum that is followed but it isn’t a comprehensive curriculum, you still have to supplement math and phonics specifically.  You can read more about Classical Conversations in this blog post!  We use our CC curriculum to memorize facts in many subjects including math, science, history, timeline, latin, and english.  We spend about 20 minutes, 4 days a week, on this.  We then expand our learning using Master Books..

MASTER BOOKS

This year we switched almost exclusively to Master Books.  I purchased the older version of this bundle.   Last year we used a wide variety of resources for phonics (never really finding a good fit) and The Good and The Beautiful Math K.  We enjoyed kindergarten year but I knew we needed to make some changes.  What we had been using felt overwhelming and too fast paced.  Overwhelming for my son because of the amount of fast moving information, and overwhelming for mommy because of prep.

I spent a lot of time researching curriculum options and kept coming back to the gentle, Biblical worldview, approach of Master Books.  In this video I show the differences between The Good and The Beautiful Math K and Master Books Math Lessons for a Living Education Level 1.  So I suppose that brings us to math..

MATH

This year we started out using Math Lessons for a Living Education Level 1 and right off the bat my son was so pleased with it!  The lessons are gentle and quick.  Master Books is a Biblically sound curriculum that is focused on Mastery.  It uses various techniques to help the student take in the concept and master it before moving forward.  We completed this math book within 6 months.  My son does have a knack for math and found some of the lessons quite simple, but that was no problem, we simply did more than one day of lessons at a time!  I often get asked if its ok for our children to do work that is “beneath” them and my thought is that it benefits the young child because it boosts confidence!  And truly, thats what we want in these early years!

My son thoroughly enjoyed this book and we excitedly moved onto Math Lessons For a Living Education Level 2 in March!  We are now about half way through at the beginning of June.

Thats the beauty of homeschool – you can stop and start as needed!  You can move to the next book when your student completes their current one!  Flexibility!  We will be continuing on with Master Books math this upcoming year.

PHONICS

I was pretty unsure going into the school year regarding phonics because this is an area that my son thoroughly dislikes.  He would basically shut down with all phonics curriculum prior.  The one thing he loved, and still loves, is ABC See Hear Do.  We used Book 1 to learn letter sounds and basic blending.  We ended up using it exclusively until this past fall (2019).  It is SO fun!  We are continuing to use it as a fun supplemental activity for phonics.

This new school year I hesitantly started him on Foundation Phonics by Master Books.  I was shocked at how well received this curriculum was with my son.  He enjoyed the lessons – each lessons incorporates a Bible story – and had fun with the student worksheet that accompanies each lesson.  It was a gentle approach and not overwhelming to him.  It was the perfect next step from ABC See Hear Do.  We did one lesson, 4 days a week, and finished up in 6 months.  He began the book with very limited ability to blend words and by the end of the book he was able to blend large words with confidence.  He is still NOT a fluent reader but has made incredible progress.

For Foundation Phonics I simply tore out the student worksheets and put them in a folder for my son and then I used the book as my teachers manual.  It worked out great.

After we finished FP we started Basic Language Skills, which has been reformatted and is now called Language Lessons for a Living Education Level 1.  This is a completely different format than Foundation Phonics and uses story books (that come in the pack) as the spine of the curriculum.  We are a few months in and so far we are really enjoying!  The BLS was not a bound book like the new LLFLE1, so I simply put everything into a binder.  I will be looking forward to getting back to a bound book when we move onto Level 2.

Lastly, in addition to these resources, we have been absolutely loving our Dash Into Learning readers!  These little readers are beautiful and so engaging.  I love that the adorable illustrations don’t give away what the sentence is saying!  My son reads me one reader almost daily just as a way to practice.  BUT Dash Into Learning can be used as an exclusive reading program.  There is parent handbook for each set AND a lesson at the beginning of each reader!  Please feel free to take advantage of my discount code that will save you 25% – use code ALLISON25!

SCIENCE AND SOCIAL STUDIES

Even though our first grade bundle from Master Books came with a science and history curriculum, it proved to be a bit too much for my son.  He simply wasn’t ready to focus for that long on so many subjects this year, so we didn’t push it. PLUS children should be playing most of the day and they are inadvertently learning SO much just by being outdoors!  I count that as science!  Boom, done!  We will be trying to ease into these two additional curriculum this coming year!

As far as actual curriculum, that about sums it up for our First Grade Year!  We really loved how smoothly this year went and I wholeheartedly believe that had to do with the open and go, simple, and gentle approach of Master Books.  I have no plans at this time to switch curriculum companies – but again, thats the beauty of homeschool, nothing is written in stone!  If it’s not working, change it!

I hope this was helpful for you!  Please keep an eye out as I share what I’m planning to use for my rising Kindergartener and my son who will be moving up to “second grade” curriculum!  I’ll also be sharing our daily rhythm and what homeschooling looks like for us day to day!

Xo, Allison