Inside: Looking for suggestions for first-grade homeschool curriculum? You’re in the right place! Take a look at what we used for our first-grade homeschool curriculum. We have a relaxed classical homeschool approach and use a mix of programs.
Choosing a 1st grade homeschool curriculum can be intimidating! It’s the first official number grade for your kiddo and they’re going to be jumping into more than just letters, numbers, shapes, and colors, so you want them to love it, am I right? I’ve been there! Let’s talk about first grade and what homeschool curriculum choices are great for guaranteeing a fun, low-stress year that is full of hands-on learning, great stories, laughter, and fun!
What is Taught in First Grade?
I love that in homeschooling most families don’t have to worry about following all the standards that public school does. But, I always keep an eye on the standards for our current grades to make sure I’m not missing anything important. If you would like to do the same, you can check out the standards for first grade here.
When it comes to the standards for first grade (and really elementary school in general) I really only pay attention to the math and language arts standards. These are the subjects that really build on previous years as you go, so I try to stay on top of those. All the others – history, art, science, etc. – repeat several times during the school years, so you can kind of pick and choose what you want to learn when.
For first grade math skills the main focus is on addition and subtraction facts within 20, adding 2-digit numbers, place value up to three digits, measuring, telling time, 2- and 3-D shapes, and a light introduction to fractions. There really isn’t that much! As a former high school math teacher I would encourage you that the addition facts are the most important, so if you just focus on one area that’s where I would spend my time!
Language arts in first grade homeschooling is focused on reading (or mostly listening) comprehension, retelling stories, remembering details about stories and using them to describe characters, settings, and major events in the story. You’ll also start to talk about the difference between fiction and non-fiction, how different characters have different experiences in stories, and dive into poetry (if you want, but please try it!).
The beauty of homeschooling first grade is that you have the flexibility to cover these topics on your schedule and how it best suits you and your child(ren).
Now, some people think you should cover a gazillion topics in elementary school, but I disagree. One of these most common homeschooling mistakes is to over plan. This is a sure fire way to create stress and overwhelm in your homeschool and that is not what we are going for here! First grade in your homeschool should be fun, low-key, and continue to develop that love of learning, reading, and curiosity that your child has from kindergarten.
I always suggest starting with the core subjects and adding on as you have time in your schedule. Or, cycling through enriching activities month by month. This is a great way to cover lots of topics without putting too much on your (or your child’s) plate.
Core Subjects for First Grade Homeschool
If I was going to choose the super most important subjects for homeschooling first grade, as in, if you did nothing else this year you could still have a successful year if you did these subjects they would be:
- math
- language arts/reading
- read aloud
That’s it! Whew! Doesn’t that seem so much more manageable?! You really don’t need to cover 8 subjects every day this year. This is why I don’t advocate buying an all-in-on boxed curriculum for first grade (or really any elementary year). It’s just too much and once you’ve spent all that money on it you’ll feel obligated to get through it. That’s when the stress and overwhelm and fighting begins. No thank you!
Now, what you’re going to find is that by the end of the year you will have covered so much more than just those three subjects. You’ll also cover lots of what I consider enrichment subjects, too.
You can do this a few ways. Maybe you do one extra subject each day. Or maybe you do one extra subject for a month and then switch. Or, maybe, you just do whatever you and your kiddo feel like doing that day and just have fun with it!
Enrichment Subjects for First Grade Homeschool
So, what else do you cover in first grade? Lots! Here are some suggestions for enrichment subjects to add in as time allows:
- Science
- History
- Art
- Music
- PE
- Bible
- Spelling
- Geography
How Long is 1st Grade supposed to take every day?
So, you might be asking yourself…Ok, if we are only covering 3-4 subjects per day, then how long should I be expecting to spend homeschooling first grade each day?
Great question!
On average, 6-year-olds have an attention span of about 12 to 18 minutes! I mean, we see that every day, don’t we? Kids are interested for a while and then bam they are onto the next thing! This means you’ll want to keep your formal instruction time short and chunked out.
What does that look like?
Maybe you do 15 minutes of math and then take a break and read a book or play with Legos. Maybe you just play a math game instead of doing formal instruction for the day. Or, maybe you do both!
The same goes for language arts….I would say keep it to 15 minutes or less unless your kiddo is really wanting to keep going. My littlest is in kindergarten right now and she loves math and she’s always asking to do a second lesson, so we do!
Now that the pressure is off to spend an hour on math and language arts every day you can see how you actually might have time to add in some of those enrichment subjects. Yay!
Also, did you notice how one of the core subjects I mentioned was reading aloud? That’s where you read and your child just listens. Or plays with Legos or Playdoh while they listen. Or color. Whatever. But, they’re just listening to a story. And this part can be a lot longer than 12 to 18 minutes. This, to me, is the sweet spot of homeschooling. Your child (and you) can learn so much from just reading books. When it comes to reading aloud you could easily spend 30 minutes to two hours each day. I would say you’d probably want to break that up into 20-30 minute windows depending on your child’s feedback.
So, let’s get to the first grade curriculum! Here is what we are currently using in our first grade homeschool! (update: I wrote this post several years ago, so I’ve gone through and updated it. Some things we’ve kept using and I’ve also discovered some new amazing resources!)
1st Grade Homeschool Curriculum Picks
Ok, now that we’ve got what to cover and how long you can plan to spend homeschooling first grade each day, let’s get on to the fun part – CURRICULUM!
I love homeschool curriculum. love it. There are so many amazing choices out there. But, that’s partly the problem, too. There are so many choices that it can be hard to choose and then you’re left with this feeling like “is my child missing out because I didn’t choose XYZ curriculum?!” Just know that we all feel that and you just have to find what works for your kiddo and go with it.
Here is what I’ve used with great success for our first grade homeschool to ensure a fun-filled, exciting, and low-stress year of learning.
1st Grade Math
A friend of mine turned me onto Horizons Math from Alpha Omega and I’m so glad. I love the bright colors and simplicity of the workbooks. They are also very easy to tailor to your child’s needs.
If your first-grader needs to spend a little extra time on a topic, they’ve got lots of review in each lesson. But, if your child is a math whiz, then you can shorten the lessons and not waste their time.
I actually wrote a guest post for Terryn at Just a Simple Home about Horizons Math 1 and you can read more about it there.
The only hang up we had with Horizons Math 1 was the large blocks of addition problems on some of the pages. I realize that they aren’t nearly as fun looking as the other activities, but they’re still important! My first-grader wasn’t buying it. So, I had to find another way to get her to practice and learn her math facts.
A friend suggested Addition Facts that Stick. It’s great! It’s an entire book that gives you fun game ideas to practice with your child. The games are either played with a regular deck of cards or they provide a simple gameboard that you can copy. This book definitely made first-grade math more fun for my daughter.
Update! I am still using Horizons for one of my daughters. It’s a great program with lots of variety and provides a solid math foundation. But, if your kiddo just isn’t into worksheets or Horizons math just isn’t a good fit, my next suggestion is The Good and the Beautiful. We used it last year with my one daughter and my youngest is using it for kindergarten math this year. It is, in my opinion, the perfect blend of worksheets, hands-on, and games. Each book comes with a small set of manipulatives that are used throughout the course like counting sticks, dice, game pawns, etc. I also love that they prompt your child to learn things like memorizing your phone number (so important! – we made mine into a song to make it fun and easy), leap year, days of the week, and more!
You can take a look at The Good and the Beautiful here.
We’ve also started to incorporate more games into our math lessons. They are so fun and the girls learn so much! You can see some of my top picks for elementary math games in this post.
Learning to Read in 1st Grade Homeschool
We don’t use a set reading program for our 1st-grade homeschool curriculum. We tried Hooked on Phonics, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and a few others and she was just.not.having.it.
She would get frustrated if a word was hard to sound out, etc., so I just let phonics slide for most of the year and we worked on sight words.
About 3/4 of the way through the year, I noticed that my daughter was more willing to sound out words, so we started book 2 of Explode the Code.
Book 2 starts with blends, so if you aren’t quite ready for that you might want to start with book 1. Book 1 covers consonants and short vowels.
My daughter hates to write. I think it’s just a matter of she can’t spell that many words by herself yet and writing is time consuming. I don’t push the writing very much and we try to find activities that require minimal writing.
One reason I love Explode the Code is that there is minimal writing. It’s a lot of circling the correct blend, etc. There is a page or two for each set of words that requires the students to write the words, but again, it’s not that much writing. My daughter generally did it without too much complaining.
As a fun little add-on to our reading, I bought these Disney themed workbooks for reading comprehension. My first-grader loves Disney princesses, so these were fun to have. We read through the stories and then there were questions that she had to go back to the text to answer. It got her doing a little bit of sneaky copy work. The stories are broken up, which is great for this age group. So, you read a little bit of the story, answer some questions, read some more, answer some more questions.
Towards the end of the year, my daughter really picked up reading on her own. She became an official bookworm and I started getting her lots of picture books from the library to read by herself.
Update! When my second daughter was ready to begin learning her letters, phonics, and start her reading journey another homeschool mom turned me on to The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading and it has been a lifesaver! There is no writing, it’s all done by memorizing these little poems for the vowel and consonant sounds, and songs! So easy and fun! And effective!! My daughter has such a strong phonics foundation and I 100% credit The Ordinary Parent’s Guide! Definitely pick it up if you are starting (or struggling with) your learning to read journey!
History and Geography
I follow the sequence recommended in The Well-Trained Mind for history. History for first-graders covers the Ancient period from early nomads to the Roman Empire.
We listened to The Story of the World on CD. This was great because we could listen to it in the car while we ran errands. My first-grader would always ask “Can we listen to the CD?” Jim Weiss does a fantastic job with voices on historical characters! Listening to an audio CD is a great way to add some variety to your first-grade homeschool curriculum.
In addition to listening to The Story of the World, we used the Usborne Book of World History as a jumping off point to look at different civilizations we heard about on the CD.
I love this book when teaching history to first-graders because it has tons of visuals, reads like a story, and gives a good introduction to important historical topics. If we had more interest in a particular civilization, then we checked out some books from the library for further reading.
Update! We still use and LOVE Story of the World! This year we took a little detour and are diving into US History using picture books and History Pockets from Evan-Moor, but next year we will be right back at it with The Story of the World. And I definitely recommend getting the activity book along with the book and/or CD. There are so many color pages (great for doing while you’re reading) and fun activities for each chapter.
First Grade Homeschool Writing and Grammar
We didn’t focus too heavily on writing or grammar this year because my daughter was reluctant to write, so I didn’t push it. We wrote letters to family members and did a pop-up book project. I had ordered Evan-Moor’s Grammar and Punctuation for grade 1.
My daughter would balk at every page.
It was writing. I wasn’t surprised.
I ended up looking at the topics on the worksheets and covering them in a different way.
We discussed proper capitalization and punctuation when she wrote letters to her cousins. I would talk about grammar rules when we read a book, etc.
Sometimes I would pull out a worksheet if it had minimal writing or was something I thought she would like.
I really like the book. It’s a nice, easy approach to grammar. If your child doesn’t mind writing a little bit (like a few words per page), then I highly recommend it for your first-grade language arts curriculum.
My daughter also had an interest in learning cursive, but I knew she wasn’t quite ready. I found this dry erase cursive book and it was perfect! She could easily go through and trace the letters, then practice on her own. It goes through all the letters and then has a few pages of words to practice as well. It’s a perfect start to cursive. I love that it’s dry erase, so she could do it as much as she wanted.
Update! We still use Evan-Moor’s Grammar books. My oldest daughter is becoming more comfortable with writing and my middle daughter didn’t mind it nearly as much, so the workbook was a perfect fit. I also heavily supplement with picture books about grammar. Elementary grammar is mostly about parts of speech, punctuation, and capitalization, so it doesn’t need to be to intense or stressful for you or your kiddo.
Art Resources for 1st Grade Homeschool
I used Pinterest a lot for art. We basically did a lot of crafts. A LOT of crafts. So many crafts that my daughter can get on Pinterest and type in ‘kid crafts’ and find something she wants to make.
Around January I found Abeka’s Art Project books. I thought book 2 looked perfect for first-grade art projects. This book is a great value and a huge time-saver. Its pages are a thick, almost card-stock feel and everything you need for the projects is in the book.
They even have projects for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Memorial Day, and lots of other holidays. The projects are high-quality, but also easy enough that my daughter could do a lot of it all by herself.
Update! This year we are using Blossom & Root’s Kindergarten art curriculum for all three girls. Yes, it’s kindergarten, but the lessons (which are really just having fun painting and exploring art) are easily adaptable for a wide age range. My 4th grade loves the lessons just as much as the younger two. We look at famous paintings and then create our own painting focusing on one aspect of the famous painting. For example, the first painting was to paint a sunset two times – once using warm colors and again using cool colors. So fun! And lots to talk about! I always paint with the girls when we do art and I highly recommend you participate in any art lessons with your kiddos. It’s good for us to let loose and enjoy creating sometimes and the kids love it!
First Grade Homeschool Science
We covered life science in our first-grade homeschool curriculum. And it was a very relaxed life science study. We covered animals, the human body, and plants. As a home base, we would read the Usborne Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Natural World.
The illustrated encyclopedia is very similar to the Book of World History in that every page is a new topic. So, you can read a page about whales, bears, horses, etc. There are more general pages for say, mammals, and then individual pages on specific types of mammals. It has great illustrations and just enough information to suit a first look.
It covers all of life science. There are pages for plants, as well as animals.
I would choose an animal for the week. We read about it in the illustrated encyclopedia, then checked out a few additional books from the library.
When we started covering the human body in our first-grade homeschool curriculum, I knew I wanted to make it as interactive, yet simple as I could. I found this book at a used book store and it was AWESOME!
You start by tracing a life-size outline of your child. This book then provides life-sized organs for your child to color, cut out, and paste onto their “body”. Each page also comes with a little bit of information about that particular body part.
This was great. We would just do a new body part every few days and it was a great introduction to their organs, muscles, etc. And my two-year-old could participate, too. Although, her organs might have been slightly out of place!
Even though we were officially covering life science, I did through in the occasional science experiment just for fun. Mostly I looked on Pinterest for something like “easy science experiments for kids” and then found something that looked relatively simple and fun. We did a few from this site. They have a lot of good, simple experiments.
Update! Since I first wrote this post I have discovered The Good and the Beautiful science units and they are AMAZING! Yes, they are Christian-based, but you could easily skip over the reading or sentences that mention God if you are doing a secular homeschool. We have done Meteorology, Marine Biology, and are just about to finish up Intro to Energy. They include so many (simple) activities that the kids love, and just enough writing for early elementary. Next up we plan to do their Water and Our World unit. TGTB is also so affordable! I love that they keep their science units around $30 each. I always buy the copy to ship to me instead of printing it out myself because there are so many color pictures it would eat up a lot of toner.
If you are wanting to use a purely secular first grade homeschool science resource then I recommend Blossom & Root.
Keep it Simple and Relaxed
First grade is still such an early phase in the learning process. A lot of our time was spent playing. A lot. Play is so important for children and it’s learning in and of itself. I mean, Finland doesn’t even start formal schooling until 7, so I feel like that gives us permission to play as much as we want. There is time to “catch up” later, but there might not be time to play.
We used these first-grade homeschool curriculum picks to supplement my daughter’s playtime and satisfy her natural curiosity.
I would encourage you to do school activities when your child is interested and let him or her play when they are interested, too.
I hope these curriculum picks help you satisfy your child’s natural curiosity and lets you encourage their love of learning as you watch them grow.
Be sure to save this article for later, so you can refer to it when you are selecting your first-grade homeschool curriculum.