First Grade curriculum

[blessedmom3]

I am new and very confused with so many choices.

Please help me choose a curriculum.

If you cannot give me an advice , please tell me what you have used or use and + or - of your curriculum .

My 6 yr old(will be next month) is advanced in reading --could easily read Green eggs and ham since he was 4 . He likes workbooks and reading aloud.

I also have a 5 year old starting K , he has a mild form of autism and he struggles to understand books but he is advanced in math and has a high IQ .

I have a 3.5 yr old girl , very active .

As you see I am very busy and need a curriculum that is easy for me .

I looked into Sonlight but I am not sure it would work with my middle autistic child .

I need something that does not require too much hands on and crafts. I am not a crafty person.

Prefer Christian curriculum.

Thanks for any advice!

[Osaubi]

Have you looked into Five in a Row? www.fiarhq.com I think you could do use the same book with all of your children. For the one that reads at a higher level you could provide some go-alongs. They have a Christian suppliment to go along with their books.

 

There is also a website that has free FIAR style lesson plans. www.homeschoolshare.com

 

 

HTH

[Mesa]

For History I'd try Story of the World. Math, try Math U See. Science I love Apologia (Christian), Language, Rod and Staff is just awesome! It's short easy and to the point.(mennonite)... For Reading and Phonics, boy I'm dont know.... I have used Abeka with my 5 yr old and I like their phonics. It does take a bit of time and you end up buying all sorts of flashcards and charts. My oldest son was taught Zoophonics in school and he's an amazing reader now. I just bought Pathway Phonics to try with my kiddos. I've heard alot of good things about it.

[Johanna]

With all of my kids, we did MFW first grade. I just love how it cements phonics and gives an overview of the Bible while doing it. I learned so much right along with them!

[LlamaMama]

Have you read The Well-Trained Mind? That's a good starting place for curriculum. From there you can research the many suggestions and post on this board to help narrow down your choices.

 

With Sonlight, you read most of the books aloud to them at this stage. Would your middle son struggle with that?

 

From my understanding MFW and WinterPromise both have craft projects. Some non-crafty parents pick those programs because it helps them add crafts to their homeschooling. I prefer not to integrate crafts and use a preschool art book instead.

[Trivium Academy]

I suggest getting Cathy Duffy's The Top 100 Picks for Homeschool Curriculum, that way you can see a lot of curriculum at once and get a feel for what might work best for you. There is a quiz for learning style and teaching style that was very useful for me.

 

Otherwise you're going to have a ton of titles thrown at you and you won't be any closer to making a decision. :) My only advice is make the 3R's your main focus and see everything else as secondary, selecting a math, phonics program and deciding how to tackle handwriting are the crucial decisions, history and science and whatever else is just the fun stuff that doesn't really matter at this point.

 

Our curricula is listed below and our K-4th grade curricula map is here but it is designed for us with our individual goals and comfort zones.

[HFClassicalAcademy]

A good start would be WTM and Cathy Duffy's book. I also agree with Jessica in choosing the 3 R's first. You will be inundated with recommendations and it is really hard to know what will work for you. Cathy Duffy's book can help with this.

 

You can see what we are doing here for 1st and kindergarten.

 

I also have an almost 3 year old to keep busy. We are using Before Five in A Row for him. I listed our activities for that here along with busy activities from my list that is here.

 

Sorry about all the links! I hope that you find some useful information.

 

Liz in NC

[Lovedtodeath]

I would look into Winter Promise LA and The Phonics Road (complete LA also). They both use vertical phonics (teaching all sounds at once, not just one per letter). I will use one of these with DS and wish I had started with them for DD. (I did vertical phonics with her on my own and she took off reading at 3rd grade level right away.) They include all the LA you need in one program (spelling, vocabulary, reading, writing, grammar) which is really nice too.

 

If I had not already designed my own geography curriculum (which I will be glad to share, if you PM me) I would do WP Animal Worlds, or stick to Ambleside Online.

[Dawn E]

Do, as Johanna already suggested, look into MFW 1st grade. You can read my blog post here about why I loved the Bible focus and materials in this program. Though we did not use the full curriculum, the parts we did use turned out to be the highlight of our year.

[suzf242]

My dd will be in 1st this year, also an advanced reader. We are using the Rod and Staff 2nd grade readers and workbooks (the readers are actually all Bible stories, which the workbooks reinforce) and Ambleside Online for everything else. Even if you don't want to go completely with Ambleside, they have great booklist, and almost everything is free online.

 

This is my first year with Ambleside, but we used the Rod and Staff 1st grade materials last year, and my dd loved it.

 

Take care,

Suzanne

[hmschooling]

I use Heart of Dakota and LOVE it. I'm not a creative hands-on person either but it plans in "just enough" that I can still do it and it keeps the kids happy and I don't feel bad if we skip one here and there. Every subject is covered and I can get school done with two children in about 2 hours a day, plus my 2yo running around (and both are academically advanced!) It's totally Christ-centered and an absolute joy to teach...easy to teach, fun to learn, and still quite rigorous. It follows a classical/charlotte mason style. www.heartofdakota.com

[gevs4him]

We love R&S for reading, phonics and math. Adding R&S English 2 next year. It is not fancy or colorful but our son does not mind. He loves it :) And I am just a R&S fan :D Some say the math is to repetitive and I would agree, but that is what we like, we feel a solid foundation in general math goes a long way in higher math - again just our opinion. When we feel like too much rep. we play math blasters and board games then write what we did on the section we skipped. What we love about the reading your child will have read the complete bible by the end of 4th grade. The workbook and worksheet workbooks are graet!! Phonics you can make some prompts( I did) but would not want to teach without the phonics flash cards - they are a big help. Again we love these workbooks!! Abeka- Art( this is good for people like me who does not have any artistic ability), Abeka-health, and science. Abeka -History Scholastic Success with Maps 1 (plan to use 2 next year)and SOTW 1. Peterson directed handwriting ( our son is a lefty with opposite side eye dominance - he had a hard time with hand writing) Use Draw Write Now 1x per week and I fill in with Lapbooking and Scholastic write and read books. Best of luck - Lisa

Blessed wife of 23 years, Twice blessed mother dd 18 college GPA 4.0 and ds 6

[specialmama]

:iagree: Ditto on Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks. It saved me a fortune because I was about to buy a boxed curriculum that didn't suit my dd's learning style! It's worth it's weight in gold.