Alright — August is nearly over and I’ll have something else to write about besides our general homeschool plans, organizing our days, and homeschooling high school.
Each child has their own educational plan for the year; I’ve also combined certain kiddos for different subjects or learning opportunities. If you haven’t yet seen our combo preschool & 1st grade plan, it might be worth a peek — full of literature goodness!
Today, I’ll share the individual plans for the 1st and 4th grader.
Homeschool Curriculum Plans for 1st grade
Our 6yr old boy is energetic, a ready-to-roll type of kiddo, and has a studious bent. He appreciates A PLAN and likes to know just what he’s getting into. The less surprises the better.
He’s a hard worker and wants to accomplish with excellence whatever he sets out to do (code for slight perfectionist)! So with this in mind, I recently sat him down to review what’s on the agenda.
LANGUAGE
First Language Lessons from Well-Trained Mind. We have the older version with first and second grade in one book. It’s not my all-time favorite, but it’s familiar.
All About Spelling – we love this curriculum. He nearly finished Level 1 last year, so we’ll review, finish up and move into Level 2.
Five in a Row {FIAR} combo plan with his 3yr old brother
Foundations and Frameworks – I sometimes dislike writing about this since I can’t offer you anything to purchase! Written for the school setting by a friend of ours, this reading comprehension program expands from K to 6th grade.
It utilizes graphic organizers (which become more complex by grade level) and numerous questions to teach kiddos how to think critically about what they’re reading. I’ve yet to find anything else that surpasses it. More info found here.
MATHEMATICS for 1st Grade
Mathematical Reasoning Level B
SCIENCE & HISTORY
Nothing formal, but intentional. Nature study, living books, and using Living Learning Lists
Still pulling from Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding as a resource to guide me as a teacher.
He’s free to join in his sisters’ history lessons — or not.
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MUSIC
This is a HUGE area for him because he’s so focused on it.
We’re still thinking and praying through just how to move forward, but it will include music lessons with Mom and Dad (or others). He’s also participating in primary choir with our local homeschool performing arts academy.
Art and Poetry is done with the family as I described before.
LOTS of PLAY
Offering young children generous amounts of unstructured time in their day, as much as possible, is a cornerstone of our days. So we aim for this.
Homeschool Curriculum Plans for 4th Grade
Now, our 9yr old girl is quite opposite of younger brother and older sister. She prefers to make her own plan and often has suggestions for how her days should flow.
Ahem. We work with it!
She’s intensely creative, a dreamer, imaginative, inquisitive…think Anne of Green Gables and you’ll have her down to a tee. With the energy of Gabrielle Douglas.
Her primary love is language and writing; she can almost always be found with pen and paper or a book in hand. So we focus attention here.
LANGUAGE – reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, spelling
Foundations & Frameworks as described above
I’ve compiled a big, big reading list for her using my favorite resources
All About Spelling – we’ll start with Level 2 though she can read beyond this. I’d like her to learn the spelling rules though before moving on.
Our Mother Tongue for grammar. We’ll take this at a pace that fits her.
Extras: Storybook Weaver, Punctuation Puzzler. I’m gently encouraging her to submit writing to children’s magazines (some resources for young writers: Spilling Ink and Writing Kid newsletter). She’ll also participate in a Junior Speech Club.
MATHEMATICS for 4th grade
Saxon 54. I debated moving to Teaching Textbooks, but stuck with Saxon this year.
SCIENCE
The same plan as the 1st grader — in fact, I’ll group them together for this.
HISTORY
Story of the World Volume 2 (The Middle Ages) – mostly via audio; part of her reading list reflects books from this time period. Lots of notebooking and some projects and work done together with her 9th grade sister.
ART, MUSIC, POETRY
Mostly done as a family which will include artist and composer study. She’ll continue piano lessons with Mom.
EXTRACURRICULAR
The past two yrs included field hockey, but paused for now. Horseback riding is the current focus. Sewing class and participation in our church’s monthly GEMS club rounds out her schedule.
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We’ve begun our school year and everyone’s flying high with enthusiasm for fresh starts. Truly, it’s an exciting time of year!
I invite you to subscribe and come along for the journey….
Sounds fun and at the same time very good curriculum for kids. Me and hubby are planning to get my kids a few of the homeschool curriculum in a few months. Because eventually will get them into it, we just want to have the change from private school to homeschool on a slow pace because we don’t want them to get overwhelmed with how homeschooling works. They have been in the private school from pre school and our eldest is going to be on the 5th grade, second is going to be on 3rd and youngest is going to be on 1st grade. We decided to get them into homeschool since we couldn’t afford the private school for all three of them. And while reading your post it seems to be so much fun and interesting with homeschooling.
Yes Kelly — it IS lots of fun! I can say this with confidence though the work is full. Homeschooling has surprised me with just how much humor and laughter we’ve enjoyed in our days.
It’s a gift to our family…
Enjoy your days as well!
Wow, these are some amazing plans you have for this year! It’s such hard work, but so worth it! Be encouraged that you are doing amazing things for your kiddos! They are so beautiful by the way!
Your kids are beautiful. Thank you for sharing!