It’s one of my favorite times of the year! All this week I’ll be sharing our curriculum picks for the 2026-2027 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 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th grader!
I will be sharing a blog post for each grade and all the curriculum they will be using! 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. I focus on their core subjects (reading, writing, & math) and some fun science/nature units. I typically don’t start history lessons until 2nd grade.
Here is all the curriculum my 1st grader will be using in the 2026-2027 school year.
Morning Menu– Arrows & Applesauce
We start each school day with our morning menu from Arrows and Applesauce. We used it in Kindergarten and continue it through first grade. It covers the days of the week, months of the year, writing the date, seasons, your address, phone number, etc. This year I might add additional printables for geography, like learning the continents and oceans.
*More first grade busy binder printables from Arrows and Applesauce.
I put them in restaurant menus and pair them with a dry erase marker so they can be used over and over each day. My kids have always loved doing these and they just take a few minutes.
Language Arts
The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 1
We love The Good and the Beautiful for early elementary Language Arts. We love the short lessons, different ways of learning spread throughout (visual, hands-on, auditory) and readers that go with this curriculum.
He is currently finishing up Level K and will still be using it for the first part of his 1st grade school year. We like to take it slow to build a strong foundation. He is doing great with it and will move on to Level 1 next.
Phonics– Explode the Code Book 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- The Good and the Beautiful Level 1
The Good and the Beautiful is my favorite for handwriting. It’s simple and quick; we complete one page each day. My kids enjoy that the work is broken up with small puzzles and drawing activities too. He is finishing up the Level K handwriting book and will start this next!
Math
Simply Good and Beautiful Math Level 1
We are headed back to The Good and the Beautiful Simply Math after trying Math With Confidence last year. I think Math With Confidence is a great program and really gives a strong foundation with math concepts, it just wasn’t a good fit for me as the teacher. With homeschooling four kids at once I need something more open and go.
We originally stopped using TGTB Math with my 2nd son because he didn’t like all the fluff and stories to learn the concepts. However, my youngest is a much different learner and would probably really enjoy them. The lessons are short, colorful, and incorporate fun games to learn math concepts. It also comes with a small math box that has all the manipulatives you need, you don’t have to collect any other supplies. *This wooden box is the original from my previous kids. The new ones look a little different but have the same supplies inside.
My other downside with TGTB, for my older kids who have always used it previously, was that they were not very strong with their math facts. So I’ll be adding in my favorite books from Kate Snow- Addition Facts that Stick and Subtraction Facts that Stick.
You can use them lesson by lesson (they are 6 weeks long,) but we really use them for all the great (simple!) games. We will try to play one or two games each week throughout the year to solidify math facts. The “board games” are included and many use any manipulatives you have or a deck of cards. Practice worksheets are also found in the back that I can print copies of for independent practice.
**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!
Literature/Science/Nature
We are combining all of these subjects this year with the Heartwood Hotel book studies from Books & Willows.
My older kids and I have loved the Heartwood Hotel books so I know my youngest is going to really enjoy them! We will use the three seasonal studies: Autumn, Winter, and Spring for the school year. Each guide covers story elements, nature studies, science topics & experiments, hands-on crafts, recipes, vocabulary and more that go along with each chapter book.
They are geared for ages 7-10 but we won’t be using a lot of the language arts activities. I’m really excited to use the story-based extensions for science and nature topics to study more of. We will probably complete a lot of narration notebooking pages on these topics.
We will be able to take our time over each season and connect as I read him the books, doing the correlating activities in whatever time/schedule we choose. I’m really excited about these and helping me simplify our studies together.
*Books and Willows is also releasing a summer literature study SOON to go with the summer book: Heartwood Hotel- Home Again
That is everything for our 1st grade year!
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!) like his morning menu, handwriting, and Explode the Code. I’m close by if he needs help with directions or questions, but this is all work he can do on his own. I’ll share an example of his daily checklist later this summer when I put it all together.
Then we do a lesson of Language Arts and Math together. We like to have those finished by lunch and our afternoons are for science/nature 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 some picture books to him (usually based on our recent science or nature topic.)
I hope you enjoyed this post today! I’ll be back tomorrow to share curriculum for my third grader!
Wishing you have a great week ahead!
– Lindsay
1st grade Curriculum Wrap Up:
Language Arts- The Good and the Beautiful Level 1
Explode the Code Book 2 and Book 3
Handwriting- The Good and the Beautiful Level 1
Math- Simply Good and Beautiful Math Level 1
Addition Facts That Stick, Subtraction Facts That Stick
Literature/Science/Nature- Heartwood Hotel Literature Guides by Books & Willows: Autumn Guide, Winter Guide, Spring Guide
*Interested in what we used for our Kindergarten year, check it out HERE!
If you need to add socials studies and science to your school year due to state standards check out Me on the Map Bundle! A favorite of mine for this age range!
