fruitofthewomb Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 I have read the book about 3 times, taken notes, etc. and I plan to follow her suggestions pretty closely (exception is AAS instead of Spelling Workout). I am trying to work a little Charlotte Mason in there but still haven't figured that out (other than nature studies and picture studies which TWTM already recommends). But I am still unsure about a few things... READ ALOUDS I am pretty settled on my choices for each subject (I think :lol:) with the exception of read alouds. In TWTM there are suggestions for history and lit but from what I can gather from this board SOTW and WWE have their own resource lists. So should I wait until I have received my SOTW and WWE before deciding on my read alouds? My library stinks and ILL is not much better (or reliable). So I will have to purchase quite a few books. I prefer to order my curric in one lump. After I make that initial purchase its hard for me to go back and order more-I always talk myself out of it thinking that maybe I can make do with less. But if there is a whole other set of suggested reading in SOTW and WWE then I am not going to sit here and pour over catalogs and book lists trying to figure out what to order. SCIENCE She recommends Green Thumb book for plant study. The description on Amazon (and by her) likens it to a gardening guide. We plant a pretty big garden every year and have flower beds around our house so would I need this book? Or is this just for people who have never gardened on their own? (Not that I am a master gardener or anything). MEMORY WORK She seems to recommend a lot of memory work-so much I can't keep it straight. Is this really doable? Can someone spell out how this plays out in day to day life? NOTEBOOKS Do you make notebooks just like she says? How closely do you follow TWTM suggestions? It was nice to read this book and basically be told what to do but so many people just do their own thing that I guess I'm afraid to just jump into something because a book told me to-does that make sense? I have just not been happy with this K year because I feel like I made some bad curric/planning/schedule choices and I really want to do better for this next year. Thanks for reading my rantings! I am about to go crazy trying to plan all this out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meggie Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 I have read the book about 3 times, taken notes, etc. and I plan to follow her suggestions pretty closely (exception is AAS instead of Spelling Workout). I am trying to work a little Charlotte Mason in there but still haven't figured that out (other than nature studies and picture studies which TWTM already recommends). But I am still unsure about a few things... READ ALOUDS I am pretty settled on my choices for each subject (I think :lol:) with the exception of read alouds. In TWTM there are suggestions for history and lit but from what I can gather from this board SOTW and WWE have their own resource lists. So should I wait until I have received my SOTW and WWE before deciding on my read alouds? My library stinks and ILL is not much better (or reliable). So I will have to purchase quite a few books. I prefer to order my curric in one lump. After I make that initial purchase its hard for me to go back and order more-I always talk myself out of it thinking that maybe I can make do with less. But if there is a whole other set of suggested reading in SOTW and WWE then I am not going to sit here and pour over catalogs and book lists trying to figure out what to order. SCIENCE She recommends Green Thumb book for plant study. The description on Amazon (and by her) likens it to a gardening guide. We plant a pretty big garden every year and have flower beds around our house so would I need this book? Or is this just for people who have never gardened on their own? (Not that I am a master gardener or anything). MEMORY WORK She seems to recommend a lot of memory work-so much I can't keep it straight. Is this really doable? Can someone spell out how this plays out in day to day life? NOTEBOOKS Do you make notebooks just like she says? How closely do you follow TWTM suggestions? It was nice to read this book and basically be told what to do but so many people just do their own thing that I guess I'm afraid to just jump into something because a book told me to-does that make sense? I have just not been happy with this K year because I feel like I made some bad curric/planning/schedule choices and I really want to do better for this next year. Thanks for reading my rantings! I am about to go crazy trying to plan all this out! For science, I would recommend looking into Elemental Science, REAL Science Odyssey, or BFSU instead of what the book recommends. For memory work, I would recommend checking out this website. Can be used with poetry or other works instead of scriptures. For notebooks, no that's not how I do my notebooks. This blogpost explains how I do my notebook. Essentially I plan on one notebook for each year instead of several notebooks that are used for four years. I have to run so I can't answer your other questions yet, I'll be back later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jengjohnson Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 I'll try to address all your questions, but my 1st grader is my youngest student, so she often tags along on stuff for the olders. Read-alouds: Most come from suggestions in the SOTW AG. When I tire of reading about history, I'll pick a book from WWE that dd didn't want to end. Our longer books generally come from WWE. Knowing what to purchase. I wonder if you can see the list of books used in WWE somewhere on the PHP site. I know what you mean about placing extra orders, but if there's any way you could perhaps get the SOTW AG right now, you could plan accordingly and place your book order with everything else. We too do some gardening, so I don't go too much into it beyond looking at/dissecting a plant and learning the basics. I'm sure you could find a simple book about this at the library. We like Plant Parts. Be sure to do the celery and carnation in colored water if you haven't before. We don't do much memory stuff for history. We're more into memorizing poetry, parts of speech and math facts. ;) I don't notebook like she says, it just bugs me to have so many, but we always run out of room in them, so I should probably think of a better way. We have 9 weeks to go and they're really bursting. Dd has a 2" binder separated into writing, history, science, math, nature journal, and art. Like I said, it's full. As far as following WTM, I think I'm fairly close. We use FLL, WWE, and SWO. SOTW w/ narrating for history, Saxon for math (used a year or more ahead), I need more of a plan for science so I usually end up finding a curriculum that covers what I need. HTH! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walking-Iris Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 (edited) I'm sort of new to WTM as well but here's my thoughts fwiw: As far as read alouds for history---I assume you'll start in Ancients. I started that this year with my 3rd grader. And I ILLed every single book (up to where we are in the text) and to be honest I found very few of them to be anything that would remotely hold the interest of a 1st grade age child. Some of the picture books would, Magic Tree House stories and research guides would and my 4 year old really liked the Usbourne Prehistoric book. But most of them I've had a hard time being interested in myself. But that's us. My advice is to ILL as much as you can and look at the recommendations yourself...and if they don't suit your liking then try something else. There's no reason to read all of the books in WTM or SOTW for history. Like I said we ILL-ed most of them and read on average maybe one or two of the recommended books for SOTW in each chapter up to this point. Don't rule out documentaries about the topics covered in Ancients. Netflix has been great for this and usually better received than the books---something about seeing the history reenacted or otherwise just makes it more interesting. Even if it's way above your 1st graders level to comprehend---watch it anyway and talk about it. Reading aloud (for bedtime or whenever) the selections in WWE would be great. I've seen the Green Thumbs book and although it's cute I don't see how it could stand alone as a science curriculum. If you already garden what would be the point except maybe give you different ideas. But I also think it's perfectly fine to just do nature studies and gardening for 1st grade. If you want something a bit more the Real Science 4 Kids pre-level books would be great for a 1st grader. They don't take a lot of time and can be looked at over and over again---my boys really like to look at the chemistry one on their own. I have started to keep the notebooks in 3 ring binders---honestly this is a very efficient way to keep track of loose papers and keep things nice for later storage and safe keeping. We have one for history/geography, math/science, and one for art. I have my ds do any writing activities in a composition style notebook. I don't remember what was written about memory work---we don't do a lot of that actually. It doesn't seem all that necessary really imo. If your kiddo wants to memorize a poem, let them. But I would never make my child memorize poetry---blah. That sounds soul-killing. I also don't advocate rote memorization of math facts---I think with time and practice children will naturally start to internalize those numbers. Edited March 30, 2012 by Walking-Iris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alisoncooks Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 I'm pretty new to TWTM and am still in the planning stages for our 1st grade year (to start in August). So take this with a grain of salt! Science: I am planning on doing TWTM's science recs, but I didn't like the look of The Green Thumb. I just ordered lots of Usborne and DK and Kingfisher nature books and we're going to Charlotte Mason that part of our year a wee bit. (Even bought nice sketchbooks for both girls and myself to take along with us -- can't wait!):) Here's a link to my newish blog; it has some printables for a TWTM 1st grade science year. Memory: I'll probably do the memory work in FLL, but I'm also going to be doing some Bible verse memorization, books of the Bible, etc. I'm using these cards for a guide. I also like the look of the Simply CM memory box system... Notebooks: Here's where I'm deviating from the recs. I can't stand 3-whole punched stuff. Can't stand it. I plan on filing everything (still using her system of subjects and separating things into their categories)...but just filing it. Then at the end of the school year, I will spiral bind it all into one neat and tidy booklet. Cause I'm addicted to spiral binding anything I can. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momma2three Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 Well, we haven't done 1st grade yet, but here's what I plan to do: Language Arts: The Peace Hill Press books for Writing and Grammar, as well as the Zaner-Bloser books for spelling and handwriting... and we'll probably end up getting the one for writing too, because they're nice enough. History: Pandia Press's History Odyssey about Ancient History Science: Pandia Press's R.E.A.L. Science about Life Science For read alouds and memory work, I'll just play it by ear I guess. We have Amazon Prime and I can usually get books used with Prime shipping for only a few dollars. Good luck! This board is a tremendous resource of ideas. It would be impossible to do everything that people say is great, but just remember that it's practically impossible to irrevocably mess up a 6 year old's education :) You'll soon notice that EVERYONE here has stuff they've tried which hasn't worked out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sctigermom Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 I've read the book just the other night. I wanted to see what we were doing to what TWTM recommends. We are pretty on target. We tried reading SOTW and my son did not like it. So we took a step back, waited a few months, and we are just now starting again. I have it laid out where we will spend approx. 12 weeks on each section. I am using A Book in Time as my reading list (and add my own to that list based on what I find). For science we are using Real Science Odessy. We do read alouds in the morning with FIAR and I use the reading list over at Ambleside for bedtime read alouds. Last the notebooks. We notebook everything! We lapbooked before we notebooked, but I like notebooking better. We have a science notebook, a copywork/opgtr notebook, a history notebook, and a fiar notebook. Art falls into the fiar notebook. We don't notebook music bc ds is taking private lessons. For memory work we are memorizing things like our address (we just moved to our house in Dec), new phone number, short poems, pledge, bones in the body, math facts, phonics rules, and anything else I find that I think should be memorized. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lea1 Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 I am doing 1st grade with my two sons now (we started in Jan). I try to follow TWTM pretty closely. Before we started 1st grade, I went through WWE and Tapestry Of Grace and made lists of all of the books I wanted to use for read-alouds. For history, I ordered the ones that our library didn't have but that I really wanted to read with the boys. I am actually using recommendations from both SOTW and TOG for history, and we are using SOTW as our spine. The library has plenty, although I did purchase a few that were recommended by TOG. For the fun fiction type books (WWE), I already had a bunch of them and I keep an eye out for them anytime we go to the used bookstore or the used homeschool curriculum store. The library has a lot of these too but I really prefer to own them, if I can. Then we are not as rushed to get through them. I can't give advice on your science question, as I didn't follow TWTM recommendations (although I kind of wish I had now) and I am not as big of a gardener as you are. I have been through TWTM several times also, taking notes and re-reading, trying to nail down all of the memory work and make sure I am getting it all in. We get in the poem memorization and parts of speech with FLL. We are using Math Mammoth which seems to provide enough work that my sons are memorizing their facts through doing the work, for the most part. I can't remember now what else she recommends, other than the history memorization, which we are not doing yet but I plan to. I just have not gotten my ducks in a row on this one yet. I start having my sons memorize Bible verses back in August though and I am quite surprised by how quickly they memorize things. It really is amazing how quickly they pick things up so I do think having them memorize as is indicated in TWTM is doable. I need to go back again and see what I am missing. As for the notebooks, I am following pretty closely to what she suggests and it makes for a pretty easy to maintain filing system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curly Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 I've started planning next year's first grade too. I've already purchased most of what TWTM recommends but I haven't thoroughly gone through everything yet. Read Alouds: SOTW activity guide recommends several books for each section. WWE (I have the hardcover all 4 levels NOT the workbooks) there are excerpts from several books used. I didn't see a list of books any where in it but maybe the workbook volumes are different. I do plan on using most of books used in WWE as read alouds new year. Science: I'm following TWTM. It seems very simple and little prep. I have Green Thumbs. It's mostly gardening projects. Make your own compost holder, birdhouse, scarecrow, bug spray, etc. It looks fun but doesn't go into many details. When we get to plants I will add other books, depending on what interests my girls. Memory Work: I have to go back and read the book because I don't remember there was a lot of memory work. I know FLL has some and we'll do that as well as some for history but that's really it. Notebooks: I have a big binder with tabs for math, science, history, spelling, grammar, reading and writing. Everything will get hole punched and put in here instead of trying to juggle and keep track of several notebooks. I hope this helps. I'm diving into the unknown of first grade too and I keep repeating what Momma2three said - it's practically impossible to irrevocably mess up a 6 year old's education. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitofthewomb Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 For science, I would recommend looking into Elemental Science, REAL Science Odyssey, or BFSU instead of what the book recommends. For memory work, I would recommend checking out this website. Can be used with poetry or other works instead of scriptures. For notebooks, no that's not how I do my notebooks. This blogpost explains how I do my notebook. Essentially I plan on one notebook for each year instead of several notebooks that are used for four years. I have to run so I can't answer your other questions yet, I'll be back later. All of those sciences looked like too much for my dd. That's why I was going with TWTM recs-they seemed much simpler. I like REAL Science Odyssey a lot so I may change my mind... I have seen that system before. May have to use that. Thanks for the reminder. I have that same desk caddy thing! Love it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitofthewomb Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 And I ILLed every single book (up to where we are in the text) and to be honest I found very few of them to be anything that would remotely hold the interest of a 1st grade age child. Reading aloud (for bedtime or whenever) the selections in WWE would be great. I've seen the Green Thumbs book and although it's cute I don't see how it could stand alone as a science curriculum. If you already garden what would be the point except maybe give you different ideas. I have started to keep the notebooks in 3 ring binders---honestly this is a very efficient way to keep track of loose papers and keep things nice for later storage and safe keeping. I don't remember what was written about memory work---we don't do a lot of that actually.QUOTE] Thanks for this info. I don't have my notes in front of me but when I read over them earlier today while typing this thread I was just overwhelmed with the amount of memorization but it might just be me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitofthewomb Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 Notebooks: Here's where I'm deviating from the recs. I can't stand 3-whole punched stuff. Can't stand it. I plan on filing everything (still using her system of subjects and separating things into their categories)...but just filing it. Then at the end of the school year, I will spiral bind it all into one neat and tidy booklet. Cause I'm addicted to spiral binding anything I can. :D :lol: this made me laugh out loud! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitofthewomb Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 I am doing 1st grade with my two sons now (we started in Jan). I try to follow TWTM pretty closely. Before we started 1st grade, I went through WWE and Tapestry Of Grace and made lists of all of the books I wanted to use for read-alouds. For history, I ordered the ones that our library didn't have but that I really wanted to read with the boys. I am actually using recommendations from both SOTW and TOG for history, and we are using SOTW as our spine. The library has plenty, although I did purchase a few that were recommended by TOG. For the fun fiction type books (WWE), I already had a bunch of them and I keep an eye out for them anytime we go to the used bookstore or the used homeschool curriculum store. The library has a lot of these too but I really prefer to own them, if I can. Then we are not as rushed to get through them. I can't give advice on your science question, as I didn't follow TWTM recommendations (although I kind of wish I had now) and I am not as big of a gardener as you are. I have been through TWTM several times also, taking notes and re-reading, trying to nail down all of the memory work and make sure I am getting it all in. We get in the poem memorization and parts of speech with FLL. We are using Math Mammoth which seems to provide enough work that my sons are memorizing their facts through doing the work, for the most part. I can't remember now what else she recommends, other than the history memorization, which we are not doing yet but I plan to. I just have not gotten my ducks in a row on this one yet. I start having my sons memorize Bible verses back in August though and I am quite surprised by how quickly they memorize things. It really is amazing how quickly they pick things up so I do think having them memorize as is indicated in TWTM is doable. I need to go back again and see what I am missing. As for the notebooks, I am following pretty closely to what she suggests and it makes for a pretty easy to maintain filing system. Thanks for sharing how you are doing things! I think I will go ahead and order SOTW and WWE, make my book list, then make my big order later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitofthewomb Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 I've started planning next year's first grade too. I've already purchased most of what TWTM recommends but I haven't thoroughly gone through everything yet. Read Alouds: SOTW activity guide recommends several books for each section. WWE (I have the hardcover all 4 levels NOT the workbooks) there are excerpts from several books used. I didn't see a list of books any where in it but maybe the workbook volumes are different. I do plan on using most of books used in WWE as read alouds new year. Science: I'm following TWTM. It seems very simple and little prep. I have Green Thumbs. It's mostly gardening projects. Make your own compost holder, birdhouse, scarecrow, bug spray, etc. It looks fun but doesn't go into many details. When we get to plants I will add other books, depending on what interests my girls. Memory Work: I have to go back and read the book because I don't remember there was a lot of memory work. I know FLL has some and we'll do that as well as some for history but that's really it. Notebooks: I have a big binder with tabs for math, science, history, spelling, grammar, reading and writing. Everything will get hole punched and put in here instead of trying to juggle and keep track of several notebooks. I hope this helps. I'm diving into the unknown of first grade too and I keep repeating what Momma2three said - it's practically impossible to irrevocably mess up a 6 year old's education. This does help! Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitofthewomb Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 I'll try to address all your questions, but my 1st grader is my youngest student, so she often tags along on stuff for the olders. Read-alouds: Most come from suggestions in the SOTW AG. When I tire of reading about history, I'll pick a book from WWE that dd didn't want to end. Our longer books generally come from WWE. Knowing what to purchase. I wonder if you can see the list of books used in WWE somewhere on the PHP site. I know what you mean about placing extra orders, but if there's any way you could perhaps get the SOTW AG right now, you could plan accordingly and place your book order with everything else. We too do some gardening, so I don't go too much into it beyond looking at/dissecting a plant and learning the basics. I'm sure you could find a simple book about this at the library. We like Plant Parts. Be sure to do the celery and carnation in colored water if you haven't before. We don't do much memory stuff for history. We're more into memorizing poetry, parts of speech and math facts. ;) I don't notebook like she says, it just bugs me to have so many, but we always run out of room in them, so I should probably think of a better way. We have 9 weeks to go and they're really bursting. Dd has a 2" binder separated into writing, history, science, math, nature journal, and art. Like I said, it's full. As far as following WTM, I think I'm fairly close. We use FLL, WWE, and SWO. SOTW w/ narrating for history, Saxon for math (used a year or more ahead), I need more of a plan for science so I usually end up finding a curriculum that covers what I need. HTH! Thank you! The bolded stuff was especially helpful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitofthewomb Posted March 30, 2012 Author Share Posted March 30, 2012 So after reading everyone's input (thank you all so much) I think I will order SOTW and WWE so I can use them to help me finalize my book list. I think I will skip the Green Thumbs book. Our library does have several books about plants so I will just use those. I'll just do my best to do the memory work with dd. Maybe it won't be as intimidating to her as it is me :001_smile: I am going to try her notebook system. I can always re-work it if it doesn't fit our style. It's comforting to know that there are other mamas out there planning a WTM first grade too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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