If you did a relaxed first grade year...

[jkl]

could you share what you used/how your day looked/etc. We have been truly enjoying ds' kindy year--now that I have calmed down about box-checking/keeping up with my friends whose kids are in public kindergarten and getting ready for the dreaded FCAT (an hour of homework evey night!!!) and we have found our groove. I'm finding he is learning so much from listening to tons of readalouds a day and going outside/playing at lot. I love it! He loves it! And I'm not on the edge of a nervous breakdown anymore! I want to continue like this for first grade--just unsure of exactly what to do.... Thanks!

[Ruby Rose]

We are more relaxed now than we were at the beginning of the year. Here is what we are doing now.

 

AAS1 (just started because I felt the retention from Spelling Workout was poor.)

FLL1

Math Mammoth 1

Abeka readers (that I picked up at a yard sale)

Science Living Books (picking up a bunch tomorrow from the library about plants, seasons, and gardening. We are going to start our own garden this Spring.)

History (we started the year with SOTW but lost interest. Now we are just reading Little House books and I bought the Elemental American History PDF that I will start either soon or wait until next year. My plan is to start the 4 year history cycle either 2nd semester of 2nd grade or third grade so my youngest will get more out of it too.)

We also work on handwriting with D'Nealian which is what she used in PS K.

 

Is this relaxed? I have no idea. I'm always worried I'm not doing enough, but I'm doing my best.

[Ellie]

I'm finding he is learning so much from listening to tons of readalouds a day and going outside/playing at lot. I love it! He loves it! And I'm not on the edge of a nervous breakdown anymore! I want to continue like this for first grade--just unsure of exactly what to do.... Thanks!

Well, you just continue doing what you're doing: Lots of read-alouds, and going outside/playing a lot. :)

[PentecostalMom]

Our 1st grade year materials are in my signature. It may not look "relaxed" but it really is. The only things we do every day are reading and math. Everything else is spread out. We read A LOT. My dd's have about 250 books in their bedroom. We just read a short chapter book and a story about Mud Pie Annie for bedtime. We read the Sonlight books, and nearly any other book they bring to me. Today we went to a kids consignment sale where there were lots and lots of toys. What did my dd's want to bring home? Books! You are doing fine! :)

[Mrs. Darinski]

:bigear:

[chepyl]

We started the year with the following:

 

Classical Conversations Foundations (At Home)

SM 2a&2b

SOTW 1 with the maps and color pages, plus a lapbook

R&S 2

RS4K Biology

Spelling Plus with Dictation

Silent reading and read alouds at bedtime

 

*Neat handwriting is expected on everything, but we don't do extra practice sheets.

 

We spent 1.5 hours a day on all of this. History and Science alternated days.

 

We are only doing one science even though they are intended to be semester courses. We are doing one a year 1st-3rd, then two a year after that until we finish all of Prelevel 1 and Level 1. This means we have really had time to memorize the material, look at videos and pictures online.

 

Now, we have dropped spelling, we made it through all of the Kindergarten, First, and Second Grade lists with no problem. I thought we would take a break.

 

We also dropped CC, I like some of it; we made it through all of the latin once and all of the skip counting. We will try it again next year and we will listen to the cds some, but we are not spending time on it. We are going to memorize some poetry instead.

 

So we are down to math, grammar, and science. We are going to finish SOTW over the summer. DS son said we could do it on his break, because it is not like school ;) When we finish either math or grammar, we will pick history back up.

 

In the meantime, we will be reading the lit suggestions and science sections from What Your First Grader Needs to Know.

 

Our days are much shorter now, 30-45 minutes, but we will be schooling all year for the most part.

 

*A lot of the schedule changes are due in part to how sick I have been. I have good days, and really bad days! But this baby is really slowing me down!

 

With our relaxed schedule, DS has done really well. Since we do a few things a day, his retention is so much better than when we were trying to do it all in a day.

[jar7709]

My son's 1st grade right now:

 

Most days/wk:

MBTP and Math Mammoth in the morning for 1/2 to 1 hour

CM-like read alouds on the couch of history or science or lit in the afternoon, for 1/2 hour to an hour

 

1-2 days/wk:

BFSU science lessons

WWE-inspired writing

 

Plus a lifestyle of reading and learning and imaginative play inside and out. :) And DD is kindy-ish right now and she gets everything her big brother does with ETC instead of WWE and a kindy math workbook instead of MM. Relaxed FTW!

[joyfulhomeschooler]

MFW 1st grade LA and Bible

ETC

Horizons math

A Reason for handwriting

 

And she follows along with big brother for science and history when she is interested. Very relaxed. Oh, we only do the LA and Bible portion from MFW 1st. It has been an enjoyable year so far.

[frugalmama]

We are pretty relaxed, but I'm not sure others would consider it relaxed. Our materials are in my sig.

[Joyofsixreboot]

I always am pretty relaxed with kindy, only slightly more uptight in 1st and by 2nd we're up and running. For first last year we used CLE LTR and math. That took possibly an hour tops. We read from FIAR selections (just read and not necessarily more than once), AO lists, Oak Meadow lists and anything else we wanted. We watched The Magic Schoolbus and Bill Nye. We cooked, painted, gardened , took nature walks, colored, wrote stories and generally played. I had no boxes and if they didn't care for a book we put it aside for another. My kids have had no problems settling down to more seat work in 2nd.

[NanceXToo]

I'm doing K with my son now and will be continuing with Oak Meadow for 1st grade which is pretty relaxed/gentle in the earliest years. Lots of hands on Waldorf-inspired stuff (it's not true Waldorf though, just utilizes some of the nature/seasonal/rhythm/craft/story-based kind of stuff).

[....]

Our 1st grade has basically been unschooling. We are reading through the Magic Tree House books together. We started building a raised garden last week and will be working on it this week, also. She is going to be part of an art exhibit in March, so she's been drawing and following the instructions to several drawing books.

 

I also have her copy one sentence a day in her notebook. She told me that she just wants to write in cursive, so I've been teaching her cursive.

 

She's been listening to Loyola's Book of Saints. She's also doing All About Spelling and reading through My Father's World Bible Reader (she really enjoys this). The only thing that looks crazy is her math. She is an absolute math nut and I'm just letting her do as much math as she wants. We're reading through Life of Fred elementary series. She's working on Miquon (altho she's taken a break from this the past few weeks) and Singapore Math (she's been doing this more than Miquon lately). Sometimes she drags out the dry erase board and asks for math problems. She also helped me make some hands-on math manipulatives for the 4 yro yesterday. ;) I basically just let her choose whatever she wants to do.

 

The only thing that we're doing that she's not really wanting to do is Primary Language Lessons. I'm trying to do 2 lessons a week.

 

And, I have absolutely no idea what our 2nd grade plans are.

[SilverMoon]

In my experience, a full WTM suggested first grade is relaxed. My first graders did formal grammar, spelling, writing, reading, math, science and history, yet never spent more than an hour a day in seatwork. Not all of those subjects were done everyday, history and science staggered, grammar was only three days a week. There was still oodles of time for reading and playing outdoors.

[Karen in CO]

Just continue what your doing and add in some phonics, some handwriting practice and some math. Easy peasy.The read alouds and free time to play and explore are extraordinary. Keep them up.

Edited March 1, 2012 by Karen in CO

[Walking-Iris]

When my oldest was in his 1st year, we were pretty relaxed. Like someone upthread said---we're basically unschooling and then relaxed and then going full steam ahead by 2nd grade.

 

When my ds was in 1st we did:

Miquon for math

HWT for handwriting

Some Explode The Code books---but not really in a scheduled, orderly way. He just liked them.

Sequential Spelling (I didn't make him do a spelling list everyday, and at that age we repeated the same list until he felt confident about it---but I ended up breaking the first book into two and using the second half for 2nd)

We read a ton of books (Ambleside and our own selections) and basically worked on his reading abilities (reading aloud to me everyday etc.)

Lots of art and listening to music and play outside.

 

In hindsight I would have added a bit more science and history in a gentle way. We did learn the states and some world geography by reading and playing with maps and the globe. Basically all 1st graders need are the 3 r's and lots of opportunities to explore the world and *do* things---make art, play outside, learn games, etc.

Edited March 2, 2012 by Walking-Iris

[Sahamamama]

Well, I have a First Grader, and I know she feels relaxed, LOL. Of course, her twin sisters have me :willy_nilly:. What we do is in our sig line.

Edited March 1, 2012 by Sahamamama

[rwjx2khsmj]

Last year, my dd did FLL1&2 (the older version), OPGTTR, Song School Latin, Math on the Level (basically number recognition, counting, addition, subtraction, time, money for 15-20 minutes daily). If she chose to participate in history and science with her older siblings she was welcome but she was not allowed to stay if she was distracting. Sometimes she joined. Sometimes she didn't.

 

We did lots of reading aloud and lots of playing. Our entire school day took about 90 minutes. If she didn't want to do a subject one day (or any subjects) we just skipped it.

[Wabi Sabi]

My ds is currently a first grader and I consider ourselves to be pretty relaxed.

 

My kids usually start off the day playing: they'll draw, build with Legos, play outside, haul out the play-dough, etc. Right now they've been playing an art history memory game for the last 40 minutes together. Often I'll have them do a couple of quick, easy chores like feeding the cat, making sure the chickens have water, picking up toys, etc.

 

At some point, usually late morning (10:30ish? 11ish?) we transition over to doing his bookwork. We do math, grammar, and writing most days. We alternate every other day in between spelling and a lesson from his phonics book (ETC.) A couple times a week I'll toss in a fun crossword, word puzzle, logic page, etc. We try to do this most days, but if we miss a day here and there it's no big deal.

 

The above might take us 1.5-2 hours. Afterwards we typically eat a late lunch and then have the rest of the day to do whatever we want. This week we've gone to the park everyday so far to play with friends. We read books, play outside, go to museums, go to the library, do science experiments, work in the garden, do art projects, nap, watch documentaries, go to homeschool park days, get together with friends, take hikes, etc. He also takes several classes and participates in a couple of different activities (pottery, nature class, choir, etc.) that generally meet in the afternoon.

 

We're just now nearing the end of our first year homeschooling and so far I'm really happy with the routine we've settled into. The only change I'm really planning on making next year for second grade (or sooner if I can figure out what we want to use) is to add in some sort of more formal science per ds' request.

[Penelope]

We are covering the basics well for first grade, and then just reading aloud widely, not worrying about history or science cycles, even though my student listens some to the fourth grader's history.

 

Singapore Math

Apple and Pears spelling book A

reading on own: lots of Step into Reading books, picture books, Magic Treehouse, and so on

Writing With Ease 1 and additional narrations from other readings

FLL 1

Some Bible and poetry memorization

 

Maybe to some this isn't relaxed, but not worrying about the content and having almost the whole day to play feels pretty relaxed to me.

[jkl]

Thanks so much everyone! I'm actually surprised to see so many of you doing a more relaxed first grade. Sometimes I get intimidated because it seems so many on this forum are doing so much formal schooling with their 5, 6, and 7 year olds! One question, though. For those of you using more than 1 booklist to pull read-alouds from, did you go through and make 1 master list to combine all your sources or do you just hop around? I was thinking it might be fun to just cruise the library shelves and let ds pick whatever catches his eye and branch out from there. Maybe that's too unstructured, though???

[Wabi Sabi]

Thanks so much everyone! I'm actually surprised to see so many of you doing a more relaxed first grade. Sometimes I get intimidated because it seems so many on this forum are doing so much formal schooling with their 5, 6, and 7 year olds! One question, though. For those of you using more than 1 booklist to pull read-alouds from, did you go through and make 1 master list to combine all your sources or do you just hop around? I was thinking it might be fun to just cruise the library shelves and let ds pick whatever catches his eye and branch out from there. Maybe that's too unstructured, though???

 

We just hop around. I don't follow any book lists as written but have looked at many different lists for inspiration. We don't really plan out what we're going to read in advance either, but when reserving books using our library's online system I'll peek at a couple of book lists for ideas. And yes, there's still plenty of time to just visit the library and pull books off the shelf that look interesting as well!

[Karen in CO]

I have a couple of lists, but I just pulled the books I wanted to make sure we got to on the shelf together. I make sure to make progress through them during year. Other than that, we frequent the library. I require dd to choose a non-fiction book and a fiction book plus a science video each time we visit.

[raceNzanesmom]

We used Heart of Dakota's Little Hearts for His Glory for most of 1st. If I had to do it again I'd use LHFHG, MUS Alpha, and All About Reading 1. And, of course, continue to read and play.

[raceNzanesmom]

I have a couple of lists, but I just pulled the books I wanted to make sure we got to on the shelf together. I make sure to make progress through them during year. Other than that, we frequent the library. I require dd to choose a non-fiction book and a fiction book plus a science video each time we visit.

 

What a great idea! We do a fiction and non-fiction. Love the idea of adding a science video. :001_smile:

[alisoncooks]

We're doing a pretty relaxed Kindy here (haha, I didn't think it was so relaxed until I saw what others were doing. :D)

 

Anyway, our first grade looks like it'll be laid out like this:

CLE Reading/LA

CLE Math

Bible: Long Story Short

**These will be our only daily subjects.**

 

We'll also do geography (Evan Moor), science (Complete book of...), and art (Teaching Art to Children) 1-2x a week, pretty relaxed/flexible.

 

Add in a few library books that fit in with science + read-alouds & that's it.

[Ellie]

Organizing booklists is way too much like work. :D I looked for books I had enjoyed as a child, which often led me to other books I hadn't even heard of.

[Joyofsixreboot]

I just printed out the booklists I liked and stuck them in my library bag. We cruised the shelves and saw what was in. We read lots of other things that they just wanted to. I will admit a steady diet of Fancy Nancy my dd kept choocing did stretch my nerves so I'd pull out one of "my" books after a couple of hers. She still got plenty of quality literature.

[jkl]

Thanks so much everyone!!!!!!

[Clpretzel]

By first grade dd was reading fluently. I did read alouds and had her read for several hours a day. We did 1 weeks worth of math for the entire year (enough to realize she was above level in math.)

 

If my other kids are reading well I would like to have an unschooling year for first grade. I did second and third grade math, and massive amounts of flash card math in second grade. And third grade is all around vigorous lasting most of the day with lots of grammar and writing added in.

 

My main agenda for first grade is a rock solid reader with a passion to learn.

[SorrelZG]

 

My main agenda for first grade is a rock solid reader with a passion to learn.

 

I like this.

[momtoamiracle]

we won't start first grade until fall, but I plan on being more relaxed. For one thing, we'll school year round so we can do shorter lessons, probably just four days a week.

 

 

We'll do Math, Phonics, and FLL, along with Bible study every day. Probably 15 - 20 min each, possibly shorter.

 

 

History and Science will alternate days, unless DS asks for them - he loves them both.

 

 

Art will be whenever DS wants to do it. If I direct him he doesn't care for it, he prefers to be left to his own choices. I have an Usborne ARt book from which he can choose an activity.

 

Song School Latin will be once or twice a week, for fun.

 

 

 

 

 

the rest of his time he'll be playing, as he does now. We do just about 1.5 - 2hrs of work a day on full school days. Since we're winding down our curriculum, some days he might just do a math lesson and some reading.

 

 

ETA - I have booklists for history and science I will probably follow. Our library really isn't that great so to browse would be very frustrating. I think I probably have most of what is on the lists, if not, then I'll substitute with something else. For reading I'll just go with what we feel like.

Edited March 2, 2012 by momtoamiracle

[Walking-Iris]

I have a secret passion for book lists. Especially themed book lists. Even for us grown-ups. For homeschool purposes I just browse through our lists online (Ambleside) or our books about books (Read Aloud handbook, Books To Build On, Books Kids Will Sit Still For etc.) and just find something that seems to interest us at the time. I'm okay with putting a book away if it doesn't elicit interest until another time.

 

I also inter library loan most of the SOTW recs---not all get read. And I've tried to use the Living Math books...but forget about it too often.

[Carol S]

By first grade dd was reading fluently. I did read alouds and had her read for several hours a day. We did 1 weeks worth of math for the entire year (enough to realize she was above level in math.)

 

If my other kids are reading well I would like to have an unschooling year for first grade. I did second and third grade math, and massive amounts of flash card math in second grade. And third grade is all around vigorous lasting most of the day with lots of grammar and writing added in.

 

My main agenda for first grade is a rock solid reader with a passion to learn.

:iagree: I currently have a very relaxed 1st grader by age but he's special needs kiddo.

 

When dd10 was in first grade she was reading fluently. We started with Ambleside Online year 2 about mid-way through that year (after we finished year 1). We also did Math and that was it. :001_smile:

[CourtneyBrooke]

I have twin first-grade boys who are still very wiggly. i cannot imagine how they would react to being in a ps classroom all day!

 

We begin our day as a family with Bible time and then SOTW history. They *love* it. They color and do the mapwork. We'll also read one of her recommended reading books at that time as well.

3-4 days a week we'll do some Horizons Math- they're doing 2nd and 3rd grade respectively. We also do Phonics from a workbook which they also love, although I think that's more because it's our "special" time with just me focusing on them while the baby is napping.

 

We don't do anything else formally. I teach them piano, so the practice about 10 minutes a day. They have an involved chore list. They like to learn new sign language words and build Legos. Most of all, they love reading. They will read and/or be read to for hours a day. They actually prefer reading over almost anything else, including watching a movie. I'm so thrilled!

 

I pick out books for them at the library on Science topics like germs, animals, etc. Last week I pointed to the germ shelf and said, "Choose one to take home." Of course, they found "The Truth about Poop." The next day, they read excerpts to me alllllll day long. :lol:

[WIS0320]

I wouldn't say I intended to be relaxed (and most of this year we haven't been!) but we've had a very relaxed January and February and it has been good for both of us. I can see she is still learning despite me not being crazy planned and she's enjoyed it more.

 

I think a lot of the super planned K/1 moms are usually homeschooling their oldest child and are still in the uptight stage of not having the confidence to know if what you are choosing it really going to work and be OK. For me, my intentions were good and I know I felt like if I were planned and serious about homeschooling that she would make progress. I am seeing that just letting my kid listen to audiobooks a lot in her room while she plays/colors, having her read aloud to her brother and sister daily, and making sure we get math and phonics in daily is really probably enough for a 6 year old.

[jkl]

Last week I pointed to the germ shelf and said, "Choose one to take home." Of course, they found "The Truth about Poop." The next day, they read excerpts to me alllllll day long. :lol:

 

 

Oh my goodness, ds would be thrilled to find this book in our library! :001_smile:

[JustGin]

It's been a long time, but with all three of my dc I followed the same plan from pk-3rd grade, with each year bringing a little longer focused time. Mornings were always spent reading aloud, playing games, listening to music, going on nature walks or just walks, baking, etc, along with a short time of math and learning to read. Because I had three close in age, when we did "lessons" I worked with one child while the other two played with learning toys/games or used our art area. Until youngest was about 4th grade, we started almost every day with circle time, which for us was calendar,devotions and poetry.

That was pretty much it. We did SOTW starting when they were K, 1st & 2nd and we went through it at a relaxed pace using the maps, coloring pages and reading, but not many of the hands on activities.

 

All three of mine have fond memories of those years and especially love to reminisce about the imaginative fun they had, playing dress up, putting on plays and dances for us and about all the time they got to spend playing outside. We have such good memories, and I have no regrets of taking it easy and letting them come to formal learning gently. :)