And just like that, our first grade homeschool year is behind us with only a week left. It was certainly one for the books, and I am glad we made the switch to a Charlotte Mason-inspired homeschool. I can’t believe I get to share another year in review with you! If you didn’t read our kindergarten year in review with my oldest, you can find it here!
If you’re reading my blog for the first time, we use Ambleside Online for our 1st grade curriculum.
A Few Changes In Our Curriculum Choices
Two months after we started our Year 1, I knew I needed to make adjustments to curriculum we were using. We dropped a heavy phonics-based language arts curriculum and replaced it with copywork straight from the readings we had daily. I’ve also shared about our experience with Charlotte Mason’s gentle reading by sight and sound method in this blog article. I credit Miss Mason’s reading by sight and sound method to my daughter’s love of reading. If you want to read more from Charlotte Mason’s stance on language arts/phonics, I highly suggest reading her first volume, Home Education starting on pg. 199. While I believe there is a time and place for learning phonics, for my year 1 student, it didn’t make sense to do so while she was in the beginning of learning to read while also trying to lay the groundwork for a love of reading.
We also switched to Right Start Math Level A in the middle of our 1st term and we haven’t looked back! I find it to be both positively challenging and doable for both student and teacher. Some complaints I was leary of was the lessons were too long, or not as “open and go” as other curriculum. However, after almost 3 terms of trying Right Start, we still have short lessons (15-20 minutes). This is just what has worked for us. We worked through Level A rather quickly and will continue on to Level B.
And Now, Year 1 In Review:
Morning Collective
Each term we memorized one longer scripture passage, and one new poem. Each month we learned a new hymn using the AO hymn schedule. We also followed AO’s schedule for Bible and poetry readings closely. By the end of the year, we included vocabulary copywork, and a morning basket. The morning basket would be full of books, current handicraft projects, drawing books, etc. for independent time. I’d change some of the things inside her morning basket 1-2x a week to give variety.
The independent morning basket was great for me to tend to my 3 year old (reading a few books and/or playing together, giving him quality time before formal lessons started with my 1st grade student) all while still giving my 6 year old mind food she was able to work on, independently. Morning basket time took 10-15 minutes. Morning collective all together took 30-45 minutes.
Daily Core Lessons
Math: Right Start Level A: See above (4th paragraph) for further details.
Handwriting: Getty-Dubay Level B
My 6 year old loves handwriting and would happily complete a page a day from her book. If you asked my daughter, handwriting is her favorite subject, and it has flourished over this year.
Reading: She would read for 10 minutes to me daily. Our reading by sight and sound lessons (phonics) took place 3-4x a week. After each reading by sight and sound lesson, she would copy her new words in her word book.
Copywork: Copywork came straight from the day’s readings, usually a sentence or so long. Often she would include a watercolor illustration along with her copywork. Copywork came from Bible, Poetry, Geography, History, Natural History, or Shakespeare readings.
Daily Core Lessons were done 4x a week, typically Monday-Thursday.
Weekly Loop Lessons
Geography: AO’s scheduled Y1 geography readings and Beautiful Feet Books Map
Geography was another favorite subject once we established how to actually do a lesson. To be completely honest, we didn’t finish the BFB map, but that didn’t stunt our learning of the Great Lakes and the surrounding geography. After every lesson we located Paddle (from our book we read) on our world map. We’d look up geography terms as they came about using this book and I especially enjoyed following this free Paddle guide when we wanted to go even deeper. Really, just reading the chapter each week, narrating, and mapping Paddle’s journey was enough.
We started mapping the U.S. 50 states which I’ve shared details of how we’re doing that on this Instagram post. My husband and I have dreams of traveling to new states with the kids in the future during breaks and we’re all making lists of places we want to go!
History: AO’s scheduled Y1 readings
We skipped Trial and Triumph this year which I made the decision to do even before starting our year. Overall, the readings were short, but the material took time to get accustomed to before narrations were consistent. I’ve learned that taking our time in reading the short chapters and also asking for a short recap of the last chapter before starting a new chapter was helpful.
I do wish we had made a kings and queens timeline to have kept track of who was who in terms of events and battles. I’m hopeful that when we start our history timeline next year and Book of Centuries in the coming years that she’ll retain more. There was plenty of interest from my year 1 student during our actual readings, and it helped to mention some key names, places or events of the chapter I was about to read for her to pay attention more closely. I am often going back to Know and Tell by Karen Glass for narration tips and help, but I am trusting the process!
Whenever a history biography came up in the AO Y1 schedule, I turned to Beautiful Feet Books Early American History Guide which I bought to compliment our AO biographies. I especially loved their additional read aloud suggestions that I would add in our morning time read aloud loop.
Natural History: AO’s scheduled readings (Paddle was moved to the Geography subject in our schedule)
Both my 6 year old and my 3 year old loved this subject, and both readings were always a delight. Whenever I pulled down our Burgess Bird Book we’d read, narrate, and discuss the birds in our chapter. My children enjoyed when I pulled up this site to watch a video in incredible detail of the birds we just read about, and listened to their bird songs. Sometimes my kids would try to replicate their songs, which often had us laughing at the noises we’d make.
Foriegn Language: My First Book of Sign Language and 500 Flash Cards of American Sign Language
We went through this book pretty quickly and it was fun learning to sign together. This subject got pushed to the wayside unfortunately so we didn’t learn new signs during the end of our second term. I started adding our sign cards into her morning basket in term 3 for her to practice on her own, which she enjoyed and was excited to show me what she learned. We will continue this in our rotation for morning basket resources in the future.
Literature/Tales: AOY1 scheduled readings
Parables of Nature was a personal favorite, and my daughter enjoyed the readings, better than the other scheduled tales. However, because they were longer chapters, I often had to break it up in multiple readings for the week. I do think this is a lovely book for mother’s to add to their own personal reading!
My daughter was very fond of Shakespeare, especially when we included puppets to help get our storyline straight. Her favorite so far is A Midsummer Night’s Dream. King Lear was her least favorite.
Nature Study: AO schedule
I appreciated the slower pace of using AO’s schedule for nature study because we were able to take our time learning about specific topics over a 3 month span, instead of jumping to a new topic each week (as we’ve tried in the past and got burnt out). My daughter especially loved creating her own wormery as recommended in the Handbook of Nature Study when studying invertebrates and learning about scorpions (safely) up close when my husband caught one over the Summer last year.
We also dove into Delightfully Feasting’s Delighting in Habitats: Desert for a term and really enjoyed it and will probably add in more of Crystin’s Special Studies Units in the future. I’m eyeing her Wildflower’s Unit for next year! I have a 10% discount code for you to use on any of her products! Just use FEASTINGAMANDA at checkout.
Music: AO’s schedule
Playing our term’s composer music in the background was the simplest way I was able to keep this subject alive. One day, when my children are older, I’d like to go deeper and read about the actual composer, but for now, just listening to their music in our morning time and afternoons seemed to be enough. My daughter often asks to listen to Bach when she’s working on a narration.
Folk songs were also a huge hit when we had them in the background during playtime. I didn’t focus on memorizing our folk songs as we did with our hymns.
Picture Study: AO’s schedule
Picture study was also executed simply. During morning collective, once a week, we would look at the artist’s work and talk about what we saw. Sometimes, I would have one or two of the artworks in her morning basket with some paper and watercolors and would ask her to do her best to replicate one of them.
Handicrafts
The main handcrafts she worked on this year was learning basic stitchwork, looming potholders, and watercoloring. In her free time, she enjoyed crafting her own creations for friends and family with supplies she was gifted for her birthday and Christmas.
I am really glad we chose Ambleside Online as our core curriculum. There were loads of learning curves, but I know with any curriculum there will be. We’re very excited for second grade and I will be sharing our plans in an upcoming blog!
