Language Arts:
1. Literature: We read lots of library books together! Many were books that I found listed in various kindergarten curriculum reading lists such as Sonlight, My Father's World, or the Honey for a Child's Heart list. Some were online "favorite lists" from other homeschooling parents. A few were books that went along with what we were learning in history, science, or fine arts in Classical Conversations. Some were just whatever seemed interesting to the boys... we read lots about knights.
2. Phonics: This was an area that we did pretty differently than I had planned. We finished Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy lessons in K4, so I purchased the My Fathers World Grade 1 Reader and Workbook as well as the Pathway readers and workbooks to use for K5. I also grabbed two of the American Language Series K books on a whim at a conference. We started with those and ended up loving them so much we bought the rest of the series and just read those the entire year. Elliot read 5-7 stories per day. He read through each book twice to really make sure he was mastering those sound combinations before moving on. We have about half of the final book left, which we will finish this summer before trying the first grade MFW and Pathway Readers books and workbooks I had bought. I'm a bit worried that at this point they are below his level, in which case I have no idea what we will do next. Suggestions?? For those that used Pathway Readers, about what level did you stop using them and what did you do next??
3. Handwriting: Elliot finished the kindergarten and first grade Handwriting Without Tears book very quickly, as he loved it and did multiple pages each day. I looked for other handwriting "curriculum" but didn't find anything I thought was worth the price. So we bought a stack of Level 1 HWT notebook paper and just had him copy something each day. He enjoys writing letters to friends and family, so often his handwriting was a letter he would dictate, I would write down, then he would copy. Sometimes it was a memory verse we were working on or something from the CC memory work. Occasionally it was a random short paragraph out of his Ninjago Lego book just for fun. We plan to get HWT 2nd grade book and another stack of notebook paper to use for first grade handwriting. I also found a fun handwriting joke book online that he can use to make his very own hand written joke book. Nothing fancy, but it seemed like a fun way to get in some daily handwriting practice.
4. Grammar and Spelling: We talked about when to use capital letters, ending punctuation, and commas or colons as we came to them, but didn't do any formal grammar this year. We also didn't do any formal spelling, we will start that in first grade with the All About Spelling curriculum.
Math: Most of my homeschooling friends use Saxon Math, and I can totally see that for later levels, maybe starting in 4th or 5th grade. But I just didn't like the lower levels. I looked at the K book, and even the first grade one, and just felt that so much of it was common sense that it would be almost wasting 30+ minutes a day doing the lessons. I'd rather him spend 10 minutes learning something than 30 minutes doing busywork just for the purpose of saying we did some math. It just didn't seem very efficient, and one of my goals for these first few years of school is to try to keep actual school time to a minimum and let them have plenty of free time to play outside, pretend to be knights, play with legos or draw hundreds of ninjas... time just to be little boys. So, we started by using a little calendar workbook I made. It took a couple months but he became good at writing the date, learning the basics of place value, and using base ten blocks to symbolize numbers. After I felt he had mastered the calendar notebook we used the Skill Sharpeners Math workbook, which is recommended by the Math Mammoth curriculum writer as a good preparation for Math Mammoth. It isn't really a curriculum, but it kept us doing some math each day. We supplemented with some dollar tree workbooks, I printed mazes and connect the dot worksheets online, we have a set of play money that we used to learn money, pattern blocks to practice patterns, a clock to learn to tell time, and we played lots of games. One of my favorite things we did was to use the Racko game cards to put numbers in order. There are numbered cards from 1-60. I gave Elliot 10 random numbers and had him put them in order from least to greatest. This was so good for practicing reading two digit numbers, greater than/ less than with larger numbers, and number order of non-consecutive numbers. After finishing the Skill Sharpeners book we still had a few months left of school, so I printed worksheets online in areas that I felt he needed more help in, or that covered concepts left out of the Skill Sharpeners book. Greater than/less than using symbols, even/odd numbers, simple measuring worksheets, some extra practice with money and place value, addition and subtraction using a number line, etc. We learned a lot of math, with minimal time invested and with little to no frustration. Kindergarten goal accomplished!
Everything else: Classical Conversations! We continue to love classical conversations. It really doesn't take much time to learn the memory work each week, and my social boy loves having a day with friends. It is efficient yet thorough, so it's a perfect fit for us! As he gets older we will supplement CC more and more, but for now we basically just do the memory work.
Oh, we also took lots of random field trips and did a very basic character study using the We Choose Virtues tools. It isn't very in depth, but has introduced 12 virtues in a fun way. The boys at least now know what it means to be diligent, attentive, perseverant, etc. I think it has mostly helped me to be more intentional about praising them when I see them display these virtues. It is so easy to get into the habit of only correcting bad behavior and not praising the good, thus discouraging my precious boys. Looking over these cards together each day reminded me of the things that I could be praising them for. The biggest change in them was when we learned about being helpful. They now take lots of pride in being helpful without being asked!
That's it! For first grade I still want him to have plenty of play time, but we will add All About Spelling for a formal spelling curriculum, and get serious about math with the Math Mammoth Level 1 curriculum. Math Mammoth is mastery oriented with some spiraling over grades; focuses on conceptual understanding, mental math, and number sense; and the teaching/explanations are right in the student work text (meaning there are not separate teaching manuals and work texts, so it requires less teacher preparation/makes my job easier!) It is similar to Singapore Math but moves at a slightly slower pace, with more built in review. We will have a new baby, so my main goal for 1st grade is simply to survive without getting too far behind. :)
Experienced homeschool moms and early elementary educators... I welcome any thoughts/feedback you may have about what we are doing! If you ever see an area that you might be concerned we are not doing enough, or maybe something we are missing all together, please feel free to tell me! I am so new at this and still learning, and your input can only make our homeschool better. I really do crave your input! Thanks!!
