It’s one of my favorite times of the year! We are wrapping up our school year and planning for the next! All this week I’ll be sharing our curriculum picks for the 2024-2025 school year!
We follow a traditional school schedule where we start our new school year in August and finish in May, taking off the summer months of June and July. This coming fall I will have a 5th, 3rd, 1st grader, and a preschooler!
I will be sharing a blog post for each grade and all the curriculum they will be using. I won’t be sharing a blog post for my preschooler, because we are using the exact same curriculum and books as I have previously used with my other kids. You can see everything in THIS blog post. (*Not using the same morning time or Peter Rabbit curriculum.)
So today we are going to start with my 1st grader!
I like to keep 1st grade simple, just as I do with Kindergarten, by not doing too much and letting them have more time to play and explore their interests. We do a lot of our extra subjects (Bible, History, Science) together as a family, and I’ll be sharing those later this week. This year my older 2 will actually be doing more history on their own, so I have something separate planned for 1st grade (sharing below!)
Here is all the curriculum my 1st grader will be using in the 2024-2025 school year. *Keep note that while it might look a lot, this is curriculum for an ENTIRE school year, not everything is used every day.
Language Arts
The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 1
We love The Good and the Beautiful for early elementary Language Arts. Last year he used Level K and is now moving on to Level 1. We love the short lessons, different ways of learning spread throughout (visual, hands-on, auditory) and readers that go with this curriculum.
Phonics- Explode the Code Book 2 1/2 and Book 3
We love Explode the Code! These workbooks are so simple and take no time at all. I love to use these books alongside our Language Arts curriculum for some extra phonics practice. They have helped a lot with learning how to read, decode words, and beginning spelling. We typically just do 1-2 pages each day. They are smaller books so we typically go through 2 books per school year.
Handwriting- A Reason For Level A
I love that this handwriting curriculum uses Bible verses and scripture for handwriting practice. It is broken into 4 short sections each week, so we just complete one section each day. There are beautiful, blank handwriting pages in the back that they can write the full scripture on at the end of the week as copy work too. This book is self explanatory, so I don’t think you need the teacher guide to go with it.
Reading- Dash Into Reading (Code: SMITH20 for 20% off your order!)
We love our Dash readers! Beautiful pictures, simple text, and fun stories! We start with Set 1 in Kindergarten and will continue with Set 2 for 1st grade. These are great to have on hand for extra readers for more reading practice.
Literature
For the younger grades, we still do a lot of reading together. This year I’ll introduce him to Aesop’s Fables, Fairy Tales, Mother Goose rhymes, Rudyard Kiplings Just So Stories, and other short stories. We have all of these books in a basket and will read some each day while my older kids do their independent reading in the afternoons. My youngest in Preschool will be able to join us for these stories too! These are some of the books we are using and a peak inside:
Very Short Fairy Tales to Read Together by Mary Ann Hoberman : These books will be great for reading practice. We can each pick a character to read for that are color coded in the text.
DK A First Book of Fairy Tales by Mary Hoffman
Very Short Mother Goose Tales to Read Together by Mary Ann Hoberman
Usborne Aseop’s Stories for Little Children
Usborne Big Book of Little Stories
Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories – I have never read these classic stories before, so I am excited to read them together!
Math
Simply Good and Beautiful Math Level 1
We love the math courses from The Good and the Beautiful. They are full of color, short lessons, and incorporate fun games to learn math concepts. I love that it comes with a small math box that has all the math manipulatives you need to complete the curriculum. He did really well with Level K for Kindergarten and actually finished early so already began Level 1. We will pause it for summer and continue it in the fall for 1st grade.
**I print TGATB curriculums at home from the free PDF’s they offer. I only print one unit at a time and use snap together spines. This makes it more manageable to print, carry around, and keep open on our lessons. When we finish a unit, I un-snap the spine, print the next unit, and snap the spine back on. THIS is the binding machine I have and use way more than I ever thought I would!
History
I love the early years as an introduction to learning lots of different topics and you don’t always have to have a curriculum for that. This year for history my older 2 are going to do something a little more advanced, so for 1st grade we are going to read these super fun and short biography books together: Kid Athletes, Kid Artists, Kid Scientists, and Kid Presidents all by David Stabler. These are “True Tales of Childhood” from these superstars, legends, and presidents. Each book shares 16 different famous people and a story from their childhood. The stories are so fun and show kids that these presidents, athletes, or famous artists were once kids too, had regular-kid problems, and how they overcame them.
We are really excited to read these and will read one story every other day. I also grabbed THIS composition notebook where he can draw a picture and write an interesting fact after we have read each story. I think this will be a great introduction to a lot of people in history and see where his interests go, giving us options for deep dives of his choosing.
I also have a super fun project idea we are going to do after we complete one whole book! He will pick his favorite person, we will learn more about them and do a small report, then create a “living person” poster (similar to THIS) that he can present to his siblings and Dad. I will share a tutorial on my blog when we get to it!
*Update: Check out his “living person” poster and how he enjoyed this study in THIS post.
If he really enjoys these and we get through them all, there are more we can continue with: Kid Authors, Kid Innovators.
That is everything for our 1st grade year! Seems like a lot when you put it all together, but it is really simple when we add it into our schooldays and we don’t do everything every day.
All of his schoolwork together takes no longer than 2 hours each day. He begins the school day with his independent work (editable checklist here!) while I set up something for my toddler or grab a coffee. I’m close by if he needs help with directions or questions, but this is all work he can do on his own.
Then we do a lesson of Language Arts and Math together. We like to have those finished by lunch and our afternoons are for any extra subjects (history, science) or projects, and lots of reading.
Every afternoon we have an independent reading time, so I use this time to have him read a book to me and then I’ll read from his literature basket or history biographies. (We will swap them every other day.)
I hope you enjoyed this post today! Check out our other curriculum picks for my 3rd grader and 5th grader this school year too!
I hope you have a great week ahead!
– Lindsay
**Updated: Watch a review of our 1st grade year and the curriculum we used HERE.
1st grade Curriculum Wrap Up:
Language Arts- The Good and the Beautiful Level 1
Explode the Code Book 2 1/2 and Book 3
A Reason For Handwriting Book A
Dash Into Learning Set 2 (code: SMITH20 for 20% off)
Math- Simply Good and Beautiful Math Level 1
Literature Basket- books all linked above!
Geography- Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Geography Grade 1
History- Kid Athletes, Kid Artists, Kid Scientists, and Kid Presidents
*Interested in what we used for our Kindergarten year, check it out HERE!
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