First Grade Curriculum 2013-2014

Reading
All About Reading Level 2

Writing
The Complete Writer: Level 1 Workbook for Writing with Ease

Spelling
All About Spelling Level 1 (Fall)
All About Spelling Level 2 (Spring)

Language
First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind: Level 1

Math
Saxon Math 1 (finish in the fall)
Saxon Math 2 (Spring)

History
The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times
The Story of the World: Activity Book 1
The Story of the World: Test and Answer Key

Science
We will be studying animals, plants and the human body.

Homeschool Highlights: Pre-K Wrap Up

We have completed Jenni's Pre-Kindergarten school year! It is truly amazing to see the progress she has made over the 36+ weeks we had school. It has been such a joy and a blessing to see her excited to learn and be with her every step of the way!

 Jenni's first week of Pre-K (August 1, 2011 - Age 4 years)

Jenni's last week of Pre-K (May 25, 2012 - 4 years, 10 months)

Pre-K Highlights

Bible

Memorized weekly scripture

Greater understanding of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit

Math

Completed Singapore Math workbook

Completed Saxon Math K

Jenni knows all the basic shapes, enjoys reading and creating patterns, and can read numbers 0-100. She can count by 1's, 5's and 10's to 100. She can do simple addition mentally, "harder" addition and subtraction using manipulatives, understands ordinal position (1st-5th), and can use the balance to weigh and compare manipulatives. She has learned the days of the week and the months in the year. She can sort items by shape, size and color. She has a good understanding of many types of graphs, identifying more, less, or equal to, enjoys telling time to the hour, half hour and quarter hour, and has a good understanding of counting money with pennies, dimes and nickels. She enjoys using manipulatives during math (pattern blocks, counting bears, clocks, the balance, linking cubes, etc.), reading math stories and enjoys math games.

Reading, Writing, Spelling

Completed Explode the Code Primer Set A, B and C (Get Ready for THE CODE, Get Set for THE CODE, Go for THE CODE)

Completed Explode the Code Book 1

Jenni knows the letters of the alphabet, is able to say each sound the letter makes and write each letter - capital and lowercase. She can write her name and a few other words/names from memory, and she can write words that she can sound out. Her writing has greatly improved over the year and she is able to write a few sentences at a time. She can read short words with short vowel sounds, some sight words, and some larger words.

Reading

Bob Books, Set 1, read-alouds and other #1 beginner books

Completed Before Five in a Row (B4FIAR)

Five in a Row, Volume 1 (FIAR in progress, will continue this in Kindergarten)

Jenni has always enjoyed the books we "row" a week at a time and all the activities that we do along with the book - all the activities tie so nicely together with the story.

Science

Jenni has enjoyed different hands-on activities from growing vegetables and flowers from seeds to mixing colors.

Geography

Beginning Geography, Grades K-2 workbook (in progress, will continue this in Kindergarten)

We began learning about different cities, states, countries, and continents through various stories we read in B4FIAR and FIAR, as well as working in a Beginning Geography workbook that we will continue in Kindergarten. Jenni knows the city, state and country which we live in. She can recite the Pledge of Allegiance and sing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" (aka America). She also has learned the basics of map skills - directions - left, right, up and down - and is beginning to understand north, south, east and west. She knows a few different names of countries (United States of America, Mexico, China, France, and Russia) and knows a few facts about each.

Art

Jenni loves all different types of art - coloring, drawing, painting, tissue paper art, foam art, etc. She loves to use scissors to cut paper and glues the pieces onto other sheets of paper to create designs. She also likes creating art books and other "pieces of art" for family members.

We are all looking forward to the summer - relaxing, enjoying the outdoors, working on fun crafts and projects, getting ready for the big move late summer once our house is finished being built, and welcoming Baby J into our family! Jenni J is really looking forward to kindergarten and moving up to the next grade! We plan to start kindergarten in June, somewhat following a year-round school calendar. Joshua will "formally" begin preschool when he turns three next January. His preschool year will mainly consist of Letter of the Week - Alphabet Fun activities that I started with Jenni when she was 3. Jenni had a great time learning and experiencing new things that way and we will continue the concept with Joshua but make the activities more "boyish." :) What a huge blessing it is to be able to stay home with my children, teach them and see them grow!

Jenni's Kindergarten Curriculum 2012-2013

Saxon Math 1 (math book, workbooks 1 and 2, and daily meeting book)

All About Reading, Level 1

Explode the Code Book 2 (ETC Book 3 in the spring)

Beginning Geography, Grades K-2 (Evan-Moor)

Daily Science, Grade 1 (Evan-Moor)
Five in a Row Volume 1 (FIAR Volume 2 in the spring)

Spring 2012 Pre-K Curriculum

Jenni's Spring 2012 Pre-Kindergarten Curriculum:

Bob Books, Set 1 & 2

Evan Moor Beginning Geography

Explode the Code, Books 1 & 2

Five in a Row, Volume 1 (Social Studies, Language, Art, Math, Science, Bible)

Mudpies to Magnets

Saxon Math K

Week 1 of Pre-K

We finished our first week of Pre-K. Our first week consisted of lots of learning, lots of questions (adorable ones) and lots of fun. Our first week back to school was a success!

 

The first day of Pre-K! I was helping J pick out her outfit that morning and Jenni said she wanted to wear a dress, a fancy dress. I found a red dress and she said, "That's a pretty dress but pink is much fancier!" So we went through her pink dresses and Jenni chose this :)

Bible Verse of the Week: God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. (Genesis 1:31)

We are using Singapore Math. This week our focus was on similar objects, describing objects, matching pairs, matching things that are used together, crossing out the thing that does not belong, sorting and matching. We also focused on number recognition and simple addition during our Alphabet Fun unit.

 We are using the Explode the Code Primer Set A, B, and C and then will go into the Explode the Code series. The exercises are designed to develop visual, auditory, and kinesthetic perception of the letters. Activities include tasks such as visual tracking, matching, tracing, copying, and identifying the letters and their sounds. Special emphasis is given to discriminating between similar objects and letters and to developing the motor control necessary to write legibly. This week in our Code book we reviewed the letter Ff, the sound /f/, and working on writing the letter Ff more legibly.

 We are also continuing to use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons for beginning reading.

The Runaway Bunny (Before Five in a Row)

We are continuing to "row" a book a week with Before Five in a Row and once we finish that up we will begin Five in a Row. This week we rowed The Runaway Bunny. We read the story each day, did the supplemental activities in the B4FIAR manual, worked on the lapbook, and had lots of great discussion! The following activities are supplements to the manual and relate to the story.

Art: Rainbow Crayons

 Using muffin tins and muffin cup liners, remove the paper wrapping from old crayons and break them into small pieces.

 Preheat oven to 275 degrees and put in for 15 minutes or until melted. Let cool to harden.

Rainbow Crayons :)

 We talked about the purpose of scarecrows - they are created by farmers in order to keep birds from eating the seeds in the garden.

Bible Time: The Runaway Bunny illustrates the meaning of Jeremiah 31:3 where the Bible declares that God's love is everlasting and that He draws us with unfailing kindness. In Psalm 139, God assures us that no matter where we go He will follow us, just like the mother bunny in the story.

Finishing up the story, we played an If/Then game.

And the rest of our school time consisted of our Alphabet Fun unit learning about the letter Aa!