Homeschool 1st Grade: Classical & Charlotte Mason Education

First Grade Homeschool Review.

This year is coming to a close, and I wanted to share some insights I’ve had in the last few years of homeschooling, mainly how our first grade year went this year. Codeman is wrapping up First Grade for the 2018-2019 school year.

Although I started his school the previous year in the first grade, we actually did First Grade THIS year! We prayed a lot about it, and decided that since our kids have summer birthdays, we want them to be on the older end, rather than the younger end. SO Cody did First Grade More this year. Not again but more... Which was awesome! We got a chance to do a lot more with the extra activities and definitely take lots of time to play, because I knew he had mastered the K basics and beyond. He just kept on going with the next level books in writing, math and history. We got to do the things we didn't get to master last year when I started 1st grade. I had pretty much one regret with the last year, and it was that I felt like they had to grow up too fast. Here we are with him as a 7 year old in First Grade, and it's lovely! We have another two as tagalong preschoolers, and one tagalong tot, which is helpful to know, because our experience is different than someone with their youngest being the 1st grader. Also, I always like to mention that I am sharing from my heart because I hope our experience sheds some light to your own adventure in parenting and homeschooling. I would never hope that our experiences would or should be the same. This is our story 💚

For curriculum this year, we spent a lot of time in the great outdoors, reading good books, and hitting the basics of reading, writing and math. We mostly use Memoria Press as a guide and many elements of Charlotte Mason’s, such as Learning and Knowing the World as a Child of God, Narration and Nature Study.  I have poured over booklists and publishers curriculum sets for years, and find that we overlap with ideas and products from AmblesideOnline, My Father’s World, Sonlight, and Veritas Press (among others).

We are homeschooling with a Classical Education, heavy in Literature: so we love living books, and things that bring Truth, Beauty, and Goodness to our home.  

We want our family to gain wisdom & virtue... we want them to know the Lord as their Savior, and we hope for each of our kids to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ. We want our kids to know how to learn and to want to learn. One of my favorite parts of  a classical education is learning in Age appropriate stages: the grammar stage is so much fun! (and later we will approach the Logic and Rhetoric Stages) Check out https://teachthemdiligently.net/blog/2014/05/grammar-stage-classical-education/ for a brief summary of the Grammar Stage in an easy-to-understand way. 

We do our Classical Education with some methods and philosophy of Charlotte Mason. 

Math:
Rod & Staff Arithmetic 2– The teacher’s manual was helpful for a few days in particular when I needed to see how to teach the lessons the way the workbooks lay out. For the most part, the student workbooks are independent for our 1st grader and he likes to just open up to the next lesson and complete.

Flash cards of Addition and Subtraction— we used them very little, but enjoyed them those days for something different than the daily  grind in the workbook.

Numbers Tracing Board— recently got these from Treasures from Jennifer on Etsy, and he loves the hands on: number tracing (he has several letter and numbers that he commonly reverses), and doing things with counting beads

We do regular everyday life math— cooking, baking, measuring, time, calendar, cutting, etc... and he started his own small business “Blue in the Dew—Kastenbauer Kids” Homemade Hiking Sticks. .

Reading: 
Pathway Readers— Days Go By & More Days Go By: he absolutely loves these books, can’t wait to move in to the next ones when I let him.

Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading— we just open up and do the next lesson or two (not usually any extra activities. We do this maybe once a week; it’s been less of an interest to him since he learned how to read so well. But he likes that it is short and sweet to learn phonics rules and reading rules and tricks.

On his own books— he has read most nights in bed, used to be about 10minutes, now it’s up to an hour but usually about half an hour before we force him to turn out the light. He likes The Imagination Station, I Survived... , Magic Tree House, Boxcar Children 1-3, and some others like the Green Ember, he loves them but those are a little tough to read on his own.


Writing: 
Memoria Press Copybook II— he finished this up earlier in the Winter since we started it last year. The cursive selections at the end of the book became more challenging for him at the end, which was a good challenge. We did one per week but in less than the five days MP suggests. So, Day 1: read and discuss language/any grammar or punctuation, then copy it. Day 2: correct it, read it aloud, illustrate it. Maybe Day 3: read it and recite. We would memorize and recite the poems but not most of the Bible verses as we worked in AWANA and other Bible Memorization.

Journal for Copywork— we started his own copybook after he finished the MP copybook, to stick with print practice and chose a Bible Verse or special note to copy.

Memoria Press New American Cursive (NAC)— book 1, not his favorite subject, but he has mastered most of his cursive letters and can read many things written shorthand by adults as well. We did this about once a week, just opening up to the next lesson.

Notes at home— we would get in good practice writing letters or sticky notes and he also started a journal in which I never corrected anything, he wrote things like “Jesse is the menest kid I no. I do’nt even like him nemore.” And “today we plaeyd at the creke. Annas’ foot got wet. I love playene there.” And my personal favorite: sticky notes on my* back that say “Cody Stencs” 😆

Science & Natural History: 
Nature walks

Nature journal— I tried to keep him drawing or painting something when I felt up to it. Because it meant we were *all doing it. And painting with toddlers is a busy project. I suppose he has about one or two per month. We look at the Moon phase, note the weather, and label the animal or plant. Sometimes it is simple, sometimes more detailed and more enjoyed by him. He didn’t like labeling a lot, and I sometimes write the narration.

Everyday outside time-- Some days it was hard, and we spent many winter days waiting for the sun to stay up longer, feeling like we might never touch the ground again. Beyond our own Homestead I’ve lovingly called Wildwood Acres, We visited parks, state parks, grandparents and friends, lakes and rivers, field and stream, woods and bog, and a special trip to the Naples area of Florida. I traveled to Iceland and Scotland, too, which made for a special time of learning as well!

Paddle to the Sea— a great start to our adventures with Holling C. Holling books... practical geography, and so much fun in a story. With a map and following the Beautiful Feet Books guide. We liked learning about the wildlife and topography of the Great Lakes area (our home!) as well as natural minerals and resources, shipping and other sea terms. Almost finished with this one... will all miss Paddle!

My Body workbook— a simple workbook that I copied a coloring page out of and we read a paragraph while the kids colored the page and cut out that organ. It will be  a whole tracing of him, layered with glued on organs of his body when we get to the end of the book. We do this about once a month although I have it scheduled weekly. It’s fun, short and a good overview, just takes the brain power to tackle copying the pages before starting the day!

Enrichment: 
History-- Story of the World, Vol. 2-- His favorite subject is history!  We are in Vol 2, since we started with Vol. 1 last year, and he LOVES it. We read about one chapter a week, not doing many extra activities, but most of the play on that afternoon comes from who we meet and where in that lesson.
History-- D'Aulaire's History stories-- Leif Erickson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Buffalo Bill.  I don't have any of the guides from Beautiful Feet Books, but we loved just reading and narrating, usually during Tea Time or Lunch.

Music-- We listen to the classical pieces of music in our Memoria Press year, listening on Spotify and Youtube. We have read a few of the composer's bios, but usually I just mention his name and the title. One of their favorites is "In the Hall of the Mountain King," which is lovely, and familiar to them in the movie Trolls! We watched several renditions of The Nutcracker this year, and all loved it!
Happy Hymnody-- Hymn Singing!

Art-- Memoria Press Enrichment Guide, the Art Cards of Classical Art pieces and the information of Artist, Medium, Era, and Style. I just introduce it once, hang it on the wall, write that info on the white board next to the hanging card. We refer back through them sometimes, but I am hoping to do more reviewing them in the future. It is one of my favorite parts of Classical study, so I'm glad the kids enjoy this too!

Literature-- We read and read and read. Every day during the day, often in the morning when I don't want to make breakfast yet, snuggled on the couch; most days before nap with everyone, but at least my little ones; every single night before bed we read as a family. We usually read a few books, and this is difficult because everyone wants to pick one, but we have to chose to do some longer chapter stories after the baby's in bed, or they can't focus or hear. Cody's favorite has been Missionary Stories with the Millers. We love Little Critters,  Frog and Toad for "just one more, pleeeease" size books ;) and lots of other picture books. We read the Memoria Press First Grade read-aloud books, which are one per week, if I have them, in addition to any supplemental books in correlation to that week's read-aloud, or our daily science and any other interests. Many of our books are chosen from the Ambleside Online curriculum for AO Year 0 and AO Year 1.