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Help with 1st grade planning, esp Math & History


dzingirl
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I am new to homeschooling this year. I jumped into this without a lot of research/planning and I am just now starting to feel like I have a clue what I'm doing. Anyhow, I could use some feedback on my choices and the few areas where I'm having a hard time making a decision.

 

A little about me and DD and our life...well first of all I am looking for open and go as much as possible and I'm willing to pay extra for things that make my life easier. My DD is smart, but not particularly interested in school or learning at this point in time. She does what I ask of her (sometimes with lots of stalling and dilly-dallying) and never really asks to do more of anything. Her attention span is not very long. So I'm looking for bright, colorful, exciting, engaging, fun, etc. For complicated reasons that I won't get into now she watched A LOT of TV when she was younger. She doesn't watch as much now, but she spends a lot of time in front of the computer. So I guess I might be interested in curriculum that would utilize the tv or computer. My son is very, very active and takes 1 or 2 half hour naps a day. Unfortunately I often need to use one of them to shower. He's an early bird though and is usually asleep by around 6:30 or 7. DD is a night owl, so we've been doing most of our schooling after DS goes to bed.

 

So anyhow this is what I'm planning:

 

Reading/Phonics: Finish OPGTTR, read Bob books, Nora Gaydos, etc. Is there another program I should get when she finishes OPGTTR or at that point just make sure she's reading to herself and to me regularly?

Spelling: AAS1

Grammar: FLL1

Writing: We might get to WWE1 during the year, but her handwriting needs a lot of work, so we'll be focusing on that first. I have some Mead workbooks and I plan to get a small chalkboard and cut up some sponges and do the HWT write, erase, trace thing. I will get ZB workbooks if needed at some point.

Math: Here I am unsure. We haven't used a formal curriculum this year, just a $10 workbook from Kmart. I just ordered Miquon orange out of curiosity basically and since it was only $10 and I ordered c-rods cause I figured they might be helpful regardless of the program we use. I am drawn to MUS and I like that there's a video component. I also have heard such great things about Rightstart and like the looks of the bright colorful manipulatives. It's awfully pricey though. I'm also not sure about the whole calling 21 "two-10-one" thing. Does MUS do this too? I'm considering getting MM when HSBC has it on sale this month just to have for extra practice if nothing else. I'll also probably get LoF soon, cause I think DD would like it.

Science: I have BFSU, but haven't made the time to figure out how to use it yet. I also have the free Mr. Q book, so could use that.

History:This is the other one I'm confused on. Everybody seems to love SOTW, but I've also read in a couple of places that bible stories are presented as historical truth or that even if they are clearly marked as being from the bible, that the timeline of some events is off because it's been adjusted to correspond with the bible. We are schooling secularly so while I could skip the stories, I don't want the facts to be wrong and I'm not up on my history enough to know when the dates are off really in all honesty. So because of this I considered History Odyssey instead which still uses SOTW. But I've read that the SOTW activities are superior to the HO ones. So...I considered just buying it all....HO, SOTW (possibly on CD), the SOTW AG, CHOW, the Usborne encyclopedia, whatever else I need to buy. I figured I could follow HO but pick and choose the most fun/easiest to implement activities from both programs. Does that make sense or is that silly? Is there some other great alternative program that I'm not familiar with that would be fairly open and go, engaging, and secular?

Art: I just ordered the Usborne Art Treasury and we'll learn about some artists and do corresponding projects from there and also just holiday crafts and stuff of that nature. I don't feel a need for a real formal art program in 1st grade.

Music: Don't have anything planned for this yet. Open to suggestions. Would prefer inexpensive though.

Critical Thinking/Logic: Mind Benders, Lollipop Logic etc.

 

Anything important that I'm missing that should be included? I'd really appreciate any advice. Particularly on math and history. :bigear:

 

Thanks for reading all this!

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Honestly, I'd just recommend going with SOTW and the activity guide. I find it engaging, open and go, and secular. :tongue_smilie: For what it's worth, it includes origin stories for several of the world's major religions.

 

Personally, I don't think HO is worth buying just for the schedule. I like it more for the logic stage. The encyclopedias are worthwhile purchases. I don't care for CHOW, which is heavily eurocentric, and a product of the time in which it was written. If you buy it, I'd suggest making sure you get one of the recent revisions, which removes some of the inappropriate language.

 

If you haven't seen Classical House of Learning's guides, you might be interested in checking them out as an alternative to using a different schedule, like HO.

 

For math, Miquon is a good choice. I use Singapore, which works well alongside Miquon, and had led my kids nicely into higher level math.

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If you don't want to use SOTW The Complete Book of World History is another great option. It is completely secular, so it avoids those problems that SOTW does have. If your daughter really likes the computer, you should look into a subscription to Brain Pop Jr. They have free sample videos. I use Singapore for math but I'm not aware of any video tutorials to go with it.

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Your schedule looks great!!

 

For history, we decided to go with Ambleside Online, which follows a 6 year cycle and uses older, living books as the spines. As soon as I can wrap my head around it, I want to also incorporate Story of the World as extra reading in addition to what we are currently doing, but I haven't yet taken the time to synch the two programs.

 

For Science, we do both Ambleside Online, which includes a variety of nature study/bird study with The Burgess Bird Book/and some other living books AND we also do good ole public school McGraw/MacMillian Science Grade 1.

 

Now, the best for last!! My FAVORITE part about Ambleside online is they rich music and art curriculum they help provide. For the year, we have 3 artists we are studying (1 per trimester), which includes looking at suggested paintings, reading history about the artists and the paintings, picture study with the paintings (similar to what you would do in FLL), and mimicking the artists style in our own paintings. For music, we study 3 composers (1 per trimester, usually lining up with the artist's same time frame), listening to the music, learning to identify the name of the piece, learning the relevant music terms, history of the composer, etc. We just finished up Mozart before Christmas and the kids loved it! Third, we also follow their suggestions for singing a hymn (which you could omit if you wanted) and a folk song. The kids LOVE it! We learn new songs, learn the history of the songs, variations of the songs, etc. It all seems a bit overwhelming when you first look into implementing this in your school day, but the internet and books from the library are really all we use to get our information.

 

Good luck as you plan your year! It sounds like you have a great curriculum planned!

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Writing: We might get to WWE1 during the year, but her handwriting needs a lot of work, so we'll be focusing on that first. I have some Mead workbooks and I plan to get a small chalkboard and cut up some sponges and do the HWT write, erase, trace thing. I will get ZB workbooks if needed at some point.

 

How difficult is her handwriting? WWE1 would give her a lot of practice since it is mostly copy work. I just thought I would mention it. :)

 

Math: Here I am unsure. We haven't used a formal curriculum this year, just a $10 workbook from Kmart. I just ordered Miquon orange out of curiosity basically and since it was only $10 and I ordered c-rods cause I figured they might be helpful regardless of the program we use. I am drawn to MUS and I like that there's a video component. I also have heard such great things about Rightstart and like the looks of the bright colorful manipulatives. It's awfully pricey though. I'm also not sure about the whole calling 21 "two-10-one" thing. Does MUS do this too? I'm considering getting MM when HSBC has it on sale this month just to have for extra practice if nothing else. I'll also probably get LoF soon, cause I think DD would like it.

 

MUS does use the onety-one thing, but it isn't mandatory. My oldest daughter didn't need to use it to understand the teens, but I do not think my youngest would have cemented her understanding of the teens and of place value without it. She used it as a crutch for maybe 2 weeks? She would say "onety-one" and I would add "or eleven". My kids like Mr. Demme. He teaches a LOT in a short period of time and has a little silliness that they find endearing. Not everything is in the video, so I recommend skimming the teacher book on each lesson. For example, in the place value lesson, the video doesn't cover what to do with zeros.

 

History:This is the other one I'm confused on. Everybody seems to love SOTW, but I've also read in a couple of places that bible stories are presented as historical truth or that even if they are clearly marked as being from the bible, that the timeline of some events is off because it's been adjusted to correspond with the bible. We are schooling secularly so while I could skip the stories, I don't want the facts to be wrong and I'm not up on my history enough to know when the dates are off really in all honesty. So because of this I considered History Odyssey instead which still uses SOTW. But I've read that the SOTW activities are superior to the HO ones. So...I considered just buying it all....HO, SOTW (possibly on CD), the SOTW AG, CHOW, the Usborne encyclopedia, whatever else I need to buy. I figured I could follow HO but pick and choose the most fun/easiest to implement activities from both programs. Does that make sense or is that silly? Is there some other great alternative program that I'm not familiar with that would be fairly open and go, engaging, and secular?

 

We combine SOTW and HO here. Youngest DD just does the stuff from the activity book, and oldest DD does the encyclopedia and dictionary work from HO along with the reading suggestions. The extra activities and books from HO are enjoyed here, so I continue to purchase it.

 

As far as SOTW, I skip the parts where they talk about the plagues with scripture references, but there is no evangelism in the text. I get upset pretty quickly over religious references, but I think it is as neutral as you can get with a Christian author. The only thing I dislike is that there is IMO too much scripture quoted on worksheets and sometimes in the text (the activity sheets on the chapter on the exodus comes to mind), but there aren't many chapters like that and it's easy enough to skip over the religious content. I keep using it because it has turned my daughters into history buffs. It is engaging, entertaining, and has the girls constantly asking for more.

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"Reading/Phonics: Finish OPGTTR, read Bob books, Nora Gaydos, etc. Is there another program I should get when she finishes OPGTTR or at that point just make sure she's reading to herself and to me regularly?"

 

You won't likely need another program after finishing OPGTR as it is very thorough and will take your dd far. We worked through several Explode the Code books, but honestly just because they are fun. I don't feel like they added anything necessary. Just have her keep on reading for practice.

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