Pre-K Through 1st Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices

I’ve been asked by some of my homeschooling Instagram friends about this years curriculum choices, so I decided to create three posts answering this question! I’ll be creating separate posts sharing what I’m using for the highschooler, upper elementary, and middle schooler, but in this post I’ll just cover Pre-K Through 1st Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices I’m using for my preschooler daughter and my son who’s crossing into 1st grade soon. I’ll also share the daily schedule/list I’m using.

If you happen to be more of a “show me” person you might want to head over to my YouTube channel and browse through the videos in my homeschool tips playlist.

Also, if you are needing the information in this post you’ll also want to read;

• Pre-K And 1st Grade Homeschool Curriculum Review
• Best Educational and Entertaining Toys for Pre-K
• My Father’s World Review
• What Your Child Needs To Know Series

Intro…

Planning this homeschool year was a little trickier than in years past. In addition to the early elementary kids, I also have a highschooler, a middle schooler and an upper elementary kid. And there’s also the baby! I’ll probably return to this post to update it as the year progresses because I’m currently still in the first month of our new school year and I’m still making adjustments (which is something I always recommend doing during the first month, (you can read about this in my post 25 Tips For Planning Your Homeschool Year). BTW, if you have a child around the 8th grade be sure to check out my post with 9 Steps I Used To Plan Our Home Highschool.

Another one of the reasons it was trickier though is I decided to use up a lot of stray materials that I’ve been storing for a long time now, and piecing everything together was definitely a challenge!

A last reason is because I have ADHD and two of my six children have it as well.

READ MY ADHD POSTS HERE.

I’ve got some solid tips for you to get you started on the right foot though, and I’ve got some pointers that I wish I knew when I was getting started, so let’s jump in!

Before You Start…

Get Your Child’s Eyes Checked

Before I share my curriculum list and schedule, the first thing I want to stress that you always want to be sure to do before you jump into schooling is get your child an eye exam. We learned the hard way that this is a critical thing several months into our homeschooling journey with our oldest son who needed glasses but we didn’t know. All kinds of problems can arise by trying to teach a child who can’t see properly!

Make Sure They Are Ready

Another thing you should make sure of that is equally as important is to make sure your child truly is ready.

After making the mistake of starting too soon with my oldest child (I knew he wasn’t ready yet I went against my gut and succumbed to the quizzing of extended family), I’ve vowed to never again start to soon. Did you know that starting too soon, before your child is ready can create/exacerbate learning disorders including ADHD and even damage children’s eyes?

I like to start my kids out gently, and I always watch for signs that they either are or are not ready. I highly recommend the article 10 SIGNS YOUR CHILD ISN’T READY FOR KINDERGARTEN by 24/7 Moms before you start more formal lessons with your child! I also recommend the following articles;

The Potential Risks Of Sending Kids To School Too Early by Scary Mommy-(we experienced many of these to be true with our eldest)
U.S. Schools Kids Start Too Early, Study Finds
Ridiculously early school start times are putting students at risk
Early schooling damaging children’s wellbeing, say experts
Too much, too young: Should schooling start at age 7?

How & When We Start

Personally, I believe in easing a little child into school as soon as they start showing interest, and I take it at their speed until they are about 6.5 to 7. That may seem old, but I’ve found with boys especially it’s better to wait vs starting too soon.

Also, I’ve found that you can spend 3 years drilling and making a kid hate school-or you can wait and teach them the SAME amount of information in few months when they are older! On this note, every child is different but I find that around age 8 is the magic age for my boys-especially with reading.

In the meantime I read to them a lot, and I keep books on their level readily available. We do short and fun lessons with letters and numbers (always keeping it light and fun), nature walks and lessons. I love gathering Montessori and Reggio Emilio toys as I can for them to play and learn with.

A Word on Obedience & Attitude Problems

After little kids show interest, they enjoy school for awhile. After a bit the new starts to wear off. There comes a point that you call them in to practice handwriting or reading and they’d rather play.

This brings me to the topic of obedience. If your child hasn’t learned obedience you’ll want to brace yourself! Don’t be shocked if you find that you have to break from lessons to teach obedience often.

And before you decide it would be easier to put them in school-just remember that you’ll still have a disobedient child when they are not in school and on weekends-so you may as well deal with it now (they’ll probably be easier as teens if you do)! In the long run you’ll have a better relationship if you teach them to obey now!

TIP! I’ve found that it works best to try to separate obedience training from school. If I call a child to handwriting practice, for example, and if they come with a bad attitude or complaining I’ll assign them a quick chore to work their grumbles out. It works almost every time for us! You could also try a star reward system for good behavior like THIS MAMA HERE.

Pre-K Through 1st Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices

With that said I’ll share my Pre-K Through 1st Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices for this year.

For the early years we focus primarily on reading, phonics, math, and we are also implementing a Charlotte Mason approach rich with nature studies, pictures studies, and lot’s of story times. I combine as many subjects as I possibly can for all my kids-but of course some subjects for grades k-2 are usually best taught separately.

For the nitty gritty curriculum choices here’s what we are using in the core subjects;

• Phonics and Reading-I’ve always been a huge fan of Horizons for teaching my children to read and phonics. Although it doesn’t always create immediate readers with all the kids (in fact it is a slower gentler method) it seems to create steadily solid results. I highly recommend it!
• For phonics and reading for the preschooler we are using Get Ready For Reading Phonics Course by Jen Merkling. It is wonderful, and one of the best aspects to it is you can print however many pages you need, as you need them. Be sure to click the link above and read my post on it. UPDATE 3/22/2021, I still HIGHLY recommend this program, it was gentle, enjoyable, and super effective for my daughter!
  
• We are also using one of my favorite methods for teaching reading with wooden letters. I’ll write a separate post on that soon!
  
• For the preschooler I’m using Preschool Prep Workbook and although it’s alright I kind of like Horizons Preschool books better! Find them here; https://www.christianbook.com/page/homeschool/alpha-omega/horizons/horizons-preschool?event=Homeschool|1001186
  
• For math we are using Math U See (we switch to Teaching Textbooks in 3rd grade) I didn’t have this curriculum for the first two kids who struggled, I only started using it for kid 3 and 4, and so far it’s turned them into little math wiz’s so I’m sold on it. I start my children very slowly in the Primer in preschool. Math U See is a hand’s on, kinesthetic approach to math and kids love it!
  
• For geography we are reading and drawing pictures from Maps & Globes, Geography From A to Z and flash cards from Montessori Factory and Green Urban Collective.
  
• For vocabulary we are using Love At Home, which we like very much!
  
• For science we are using a combination of books including See Inside Your Body, What Makes You Ill, Things Outdoors, Science With Plants, Science With Water, First Encyclopedia of Science, and Stars and Planets.
  
• For health I chose Health Safety and Manners by Abeka.
  
• We are also doing nature studies using Usbornes First Book of Nature-which could also be considered part of the science category.
  
• For handwriting practice (which I’m only doing with the 1st grader) I’ll be using Weavers Penmanship to Praise.
  
• For Bible we are using children’s Bible Stories and narration.
  
• For reading time we will be using a combination of living books SEE HERE for them.
  
• For art we are using picture studies with Usborne Art Cards, God and the History of Art, and our imaginations!
  
• Lastly, since I’ve planned this year myself I’ll be using the library and internet a lot. I never stress about this too much, but as a general guide to help me I like to use either the What Your Child Needs to Know books (read about them here) just to give me a bit of a guide. What Your Child Needs To Know According to the State and According to God, is another pretty good book you could use for this. Again, I don’t stress too much about the lists at this early stage because I’ve learned the hard way not to stress because THEY WILL LEARN WHAT THEY NEED TO KNOW!!

One of the most important things when they are this little is to remember to keep it fun, keep it light and remember if there’s something you are really having to push that it’s okay to set it aside and come when they are a little bit older.

Daily Schedule Template

I have a daily schedule, however it does not have set times. There are many buzzwords going around in the homeschool circles right now that perfectly describe how we’ve found to run our homeschool days, I’ve heard the terms homeschool rhythm, homeschool flow and others. It seems many of them mean the same thing- a loose schedule that’s basically just a checklist of subjects to cover daily.

So many homeschool mom’s are teaching multiple grades, have a baby in the mix, and find there is no way to keep to specific, set times.

In our home we have teens to tots and I’ve found that starting in middle school it’s a good idea to start keeping to some set times so the kids can learn time management-also so they can get their larger loads of school work finished.

For the elementary workers with younger siblings, however, it’s best to just have a list to flow through during the day, taking breaks as needed. On that note I will say that their little brains are usually sharpest in the morning, and it always works best to do the subjects they’re not as fond of right after breakfast! If you let them play first they are not as apt to do things like phonics and handwriting, and they grumble more.

It’s good to stay flexible with a schedule too. For example, after our first two weeks of the school year I ended up moving Bible time (which is group time) to later in the day because the little children get up at around 6:00 and are ready for school earlier than the older kids. Since I’ve found it works best to take care of them first we do just that while the older kids are doing independent work, and by doing so the little ones are not as demanding while I’m working with the older kids later.

Every family will be different when it comes to this.

Here is a free downloadable template of our daily schedule. Feel free to edit it to meet your needs though! Also, be sure to check out THIS POST where I have a template that you can use to completely create your very own schedule with only the subjects you are choosing to teach.

I like to print these onto my watercolor backgrounds. You can find them HERE.

I hope Pre-K Through 1st Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices has given you some fun inspiration for your homeschool! Be sure to check out my related posts;

• How To Homeschool With A Baby
• 14 Inspiring Homeschool Mom’s to Follow on Instagram
• How I Teach Kids With Various Learning Styles (And You Can Too)
• 25 Tips For How To Plan A Homeschool Year
• Love at Home Education Curriculum Review
• Best Effective Chore Chart System for Kids
• Picking The Best Homeschool Style For Your Family
• My Fathers World Homeschool Curriculum Review & Video Walkthrough
• Homeschool Room Idea’s-Create Learning Spaces
• Our Inattentive ADHD Story Plus A FREE Printable Focus Cheat Sheet

Need some encouragement and motivation? Head to my YouTube channel to watch this video….

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