Right now we are gearing up to move into a new school year. I wanted to share with you what the schedules look like for each of the grades I am teaching and how I will implement teaching multiple children at once. This post will focus primary on what I am doing with my first grader but since we do some subjects family style it will have some cross over with my other children.
What a First Grade Homeschool Schedule Looks Like
How Long Does Each Subject Take?
Language Arts: 30mins
Math: 30mins
Spelling: 15mins
Handwriting: 15mins
Science: 1 hour
History: 1 hour
Piano: 30 mins
Art and project work take place on Friday or after all our core work is done.
What Our Schedule Looks Like
Below is what our schedule looks like for three children. We only do our core work over four days. Friday is reserved for field trips, project work, art lessons, poetry teatimes, catch up work and running errands. Every second Thursday we have a homeschool Co-op that we attend so piano will be dropped on these days.
Curriculum Choices for First Grade
Language Arts
Language arts is a huge aspect of education and therefore I wanted something that is very solid and strong. I choose The Good and the Beautiful level one for my first grader. This is a curriculum we have used for the past 3 years now and I can’t fault it. It has given my children a amazing grasp on language and reading as well as exposing them to some wonderful literature.
Each language arts level also includes aspects of art and geography. The art at the lower levels is more of an art appreciation level of learning. They are presented with gorgeous famous artworks and learn about the artist and different styles of painting. It has helped my children look more in depth at art rather just thinking “that’s a nice picture”. To be honest this has been good for me too because I don’t “get art”.
Lili, my first grader needs some additional work with spelling. Whilst she is on grade level for spelling she is becoming frustrated that her spelling is not adequate enough for her to write what she wants. She loves to write stories and wants her spelling to match her writing abilities.
Handwriting
I have used The Good and the Beautiful handwriting books in the past but they just didn’t suit my children. I may use them again in the future but I want to try something different this year.
This year I plan on creating my own handwriting books based on famous quotes and scriptures. Lili can write well but needs to practice her letter size as she tends to write her letters far too large. I think this will be a great way to get the practice she needs without writing out mundane lines of letters.
Math
This is my biggest issue every single year. I am yet to find a curriculum that I am 100% pleased with. One of the problems that we have is that we need a curriculum based on the metric system with is difficult since the majority of the math curriculums are American based.
The coming year will see us going back to Mathsonline, this is an Australian math program. It is called CTC Math in the States though, which uses American based systems of measurement and money. I do really like this curriculum my only drawback I have with it is that is online. I prefer my children to do their core work with pen and paper. It is just a personal preference. I will also supplement this curriculum with some plain work books from Target.
Lili is quite advanced for math so will be working at least a grade level ahead.
History
Again we will be using The Good and the Beautiful for this part of our school year. Last year we used year one but did not get through it all as we focused a lot on New Zealand and Australian history along with our own personal family history.
We do history family style so everyone participates together. I found this curriculum was a little too advanced for her last year but I think it will be perfect for her this year especially with her older brother working along side her.
I plan to finish of the year one we didn’t complete last year. I am not sure if we will continue on to the next year or if I will fill in the rest of the year with something else. I am waiting to see how long it takes us to complete first.
Science
The Good and the Beautiful comes through for us again here. This is also a family style subject. We will be covering space, arthropods, the human body and introduction to chemistry this year.
I am also planning on purchasing a STEM box subscription from Kiwicrate. We have never done one of their STEM boxes before but they look incredible and are highly recommended by many other homeschooling parents. I really like that everything you need to do the activity is in the box. This is a huge benefit to me because I struggle to make sure I have everything required and as a result we never get around to doing all that we had planned.
Art
Aside from doing art in the language arts books I also wanted something more hands on for Lili to do. We have really enjoyed the art lessons from Artventure and will continue with that. I also can not recommend enough the YouTube channel Art for Kids Hub. The channel is run by a dad and who has his children help him to teach other kids how to draw. What makes this channel so wonderful is the way in which the dad speaks to his children. He is so encouraging and it helps my children to feel confident too. His lessons are short and very easy to follow with great results. The pictures he draws are all things that kids get excited about like superheroes etc. We have invested in the ad free version that he offers on his website. I just like not having to worry about what is popping up while my kids are online.
There will also be a lot of opportunity for free creative art time. I feel this is important especially at this age.
Music
We have been using Hoffman Academy for piano lessons for a while now and have really enjoyed it. The children are progressing well and it is very cost efficient. We have the version you pay for which includes the music theory books to download. There is also a free version you can use which is great if you just want to try it out without having to invest some cold hard cash. I find this is a very sold music curriculum for beginners, if your child wants to head towards becoming a concert pianist you probably want to look for a real life teacher.
Project Work
This is a very important part of our homeschool education plan for our children. I wrote a more in depth post here which goes into the in’s and out’s of project work.
Lili’s projects she is going to be working on this year are baking/cake decorating and sewing. These are areas that she is really interested in and finds a lot of enjoyment in.
Reading
Lili is just moving past basic readers. I want to encourage her love of reading so this year I will be having her read The Magic Treehouse series. These are fantastic bridging books between readers and bigger chapter books. The print is large and there are a few pictures. Each book is 10 chapters long and about 4 pages each. These were the books that really ignited my older child’s love of reading and I am hoping they do the same for Lili. I originally bought just a book at a time but now we have the whole set. I would recommend purchasing the whole set over just a few at at time because it is so much cheaper in the long run. Amazon usually has them for a great price.
