I can’t believe we are getting ready to jump into 1st grade! I feel like it was yesterday that we just started our Kindergarten year! Today I’m sharing all our curriculum picks for our 1st grade year and we are so excited to get started! If you would like to see what we used for Kindergarten, check out that post HERE. Or for Preschool, check that out HERE.
Last year I learned a lot about what works in our homeschool for our family and what flexibility/schedule we need. I learned that although I want to do all the fun and amazing things, it just isn’t possible. Last year I felt like we ended up letting go of a lot that we had planned because it was just too much. We ended up only focusing on the basics, and that worked great for us.
This year I want to keep things as simple as possible again, as well as fulfilling the desires of things my children want to learn about. We will be adding a new baby at the end of September, so I did not want to have too much on our plate.
For our 1st grade year we will be doing Language Arts, Math, Handwriting, and Bible studies, as well as having a loop schedule of Science, History, and Spanish. I am also creating my own type of character building lessons we will be doing together that will be very simple. (I will share more about it later.)
Language Arts: Level 1- The Good and the Beautiful
My daughter has become such an amazing reader, so we will continue using The Good and the Beautiful for Language Arts. The lessons are short, simple, and so beautiful! I’m always impressed by all that she learns with this curriculum!
My only small complaint with this curriculum is it is not heavily focused on spelling. It does work on it throughout the units, but I don’t feel it is repetitive enough. So I printed this free list of 1st grade spelling words and we will work through them throughout the year. Check out my post HERE with different spelling activities and how we will be using them weekly this year.
For some additional reading practice and fun activities to practice phonics we love Dash Into Learning early readers and activity packs. We have used Sets 1 and 2, and will continue to use the new Set 3 this year. These books have adorable stories and illustrations! Be sure to get the activity packs that go with each set as they are FULL of games, handwriting practice, activities, puppets, and more that coincide with each book in the set. Use code SMITH20 for 20% off your order!!
Math: Level 1- The Good and the Beautiful
The Good and The Beautiful Math curriculum is my daughter’s favorite! She always asks to do these lessons first. We actually finished our Math Level K early this year, so already got a head start on Level 1 and are about 20 lessons in. It is colorful, fun, and very hands on! Level 1 contains a ton of games that go with the lessons that we are loving so far! You can check out their website for more inside sample pages and all that is included.
Handwriting: My Printing Book and Building Writers Grade 1- Learning Without Tears
This year I decided to switch up our handwriting. We previously used The Good and The Beautiful Handwriting Level K. Although we did love it and it worked great, I wanted to challenge my daughter a little more this year with something different. I feel TGATB is a lot of tracing. Even though that is great for muscle memory, etc. my daughter has been doing it since she was 3, so I want her to really work on writing on her own this year. I love that Learning Without Tears Printing Book is great on doing more copywork and less tracing. The Building Writers Book is a great bonus for having her start to work on how to write complete sentences and stories.
Bible: Christ Our Life Grade 1- Loyola Press.
This year we will begin the Christ Our Life series, as well as learning our prayers, 10 commandments, sacraments, etc. This book is simple, colorful, and full of great activities and discussion questions. Check out my Bible Resources post with all the additional fun resources we will be using for our Bible studies this year.
Science: Sassafras Science Adventures- Zoology Unit–
We are very excited about this curriculum! Sassafras Science Adventures follows a living book guide as well as incorporating notebooking, demonstrations/experiments, and hands on crafts. We will be using the Zoology unit and learning about different animals all over the world this year! Head to my Instagram highlight to see a detailed, inside look all about this curriculum!
History: A River of Voices: The History of the United States Vol. 1- Blossom & Root
For 1st grade I was not planning on doing a history curriculum at all. However, when you ask my daughter about her Kindergarten year she always brings up when we learned about Rosa Parks and Amelia Earhart (that we did in 2 days!) So discovering that she might be a little history buff like me I decided to add some light history to our year and this curriculum is perfect! A River of Voices is a U.S. History curriculum that covers the first European colonies to 1791. This curriculum is similar to the Zoology unit we will be using as you read living books, have a student notebook with optional map work pages, and do activities/crafts together. It uses 3 different books as it’s spine (one still on its way and not pictured), and also offers a fantastic book list for each unit. It gives 3 different ways/levels to teach for different ages and this year we will be using the “Gentle Pathway,” as it is the most laid back and I have younger kids. You can see a bunch of sample pages from both the parent guide and student notebook on their website. My daughter is very excited about this curriculum!
Spanish: The Complete Book of Spanish workbook
My daughter learned to count up to 20 in Spanish and some of her colors, when she was only 4. She loved learning a new language and wants to learn more, so we will be doing some Spanish lessons with this book I found on Amazon. It is just a fun workbook where she will learn basic words and beginning phrases.
We also love this book for exploring and learning Spanish words- The Usborne First Hundred Words in Spanish. It is great to learn the words in Spanish and have to search for them in the picture.
That’s everything!
Language Arts, Math, Handwriting, and Bible will be our core subjects that we will do everyday. We will do a loop schedule of our Science, History, Spanish, and Character Building. Once we complete a lesson from one of these subjects, we will go to the next subject, etc. This way we won’t be tied down to a strict schedule and will get to each as we rotate through. I also picked these particular curriculums because they are very laid back and can be done however/whenever you choose. Doing a loop schedule also gives us the freedom to explore something they are interested in more deeply or quickly move on. Some days or weeks we might not get to all these subjects and that’s ok.
I love the beauty of homeschool as we are able to pick and choose different curriculums to place together that best suit the needs of our children and family life. I hope you found some of these helpful! Be sure to be following me over on my Instagram this week, and next, as I’ll be sharing a flip through of some of these curriculums. 😊
Thank you for all the great information!