First Year Thoughts + First Grade Homeschool Curriculum Picks
/And just like that, we’ve wrapped up our first year of homeschool! 33 weeks of instruction, 33 weeks of learning and growing right alongside each other, 33 weeks of time spent with my girl that I will forever cherish. We always said we’d keep an open mind and take things year by year, but the decision to keep going with homeschool for first grade was an easy one. We’ve figured out the rhythms that work best in our home (keyword: our!) and we’re headed into summer break and the 2026-2027 school year with so much confidence and excitement for year two!
Our growing girl
The growth I’ve gotten to witness in Steele from August to May has been incredible. Her confidence has skyrocketed in so many areas. She’s reading chapter books on her own, her math skills absolutely blow me away, her handwriting and writing skills in general have improved immensely, and she can make a friend wherever she goes, kids and adults alike. She’s built sweet friendships through dance class, regular playdates and time with church friends and other homeschool friends. She’s been volunteering to be on stage at our church’s kids’ worship and she’s been asking really insightful questions about what it means to follow God and be baptized. She’s well rounded and well spoken and I’m just so proud of her.
Finding Our Rhythm
A big part of finding our rhythm this year involved embracing my type A-ness, not trying to suffocate it to fit the “go-with-the-flow” picture of homeschool that’s so widely portrayed. I started out the year thinking “We’ll just see how it goes!” when it came to pace, routine, etc… but in trying to be relaxed and “breezy” (iykyk), all I did was stress myself out more. Turns out, it’s ok to operate with checklists, Google docs, clear stopping points for each day and clear expectations for each week/month. Obviously we adjusted where we needed to if something came up, but for the most part, especially in the second semester, a more structured approach served us so well.
The other major factor in finding our rhythm was finding the right balance of rigorous and challenging but not exhausting. We probably averaged 2 to 3 hours each day Monday through Thursday, (Fridays we saved for art lessons and math Sprints – more on that later) but we covered lots of ground each week because she was eager to learn and I knew she was capable, especially once we found our sweet spot with our curriculum and grade level. In early fall, we were breezing through lessons (and doing more each day to compensate), but it quickly became more of a quality vs. quantity issue. We ended up moving her up to first grade language arts and first grade math mid-October, slowing our pace down significantly, and that made such a difference in her attention span and motivation.
our homeschool Values
Before we began homeschooling, I summed up our reasons for choosing this route with the words faith, family, and freedom. A Christian foundation and faith integrations for all of our learning, savoring childhood and more time together as a family, and the freedom to learn at our own pace, to not be tethered to a 7-hour schedule or state standards, and to structure our days in a way that works for us. And those all still hold true, but I’d add a few more values that became evident this past year.
Well-rounded learning: we fit in a lot over the course of our weeks. We didn’t do every subject every day, but I was protective of our school time and getting the most out of those precious hours together.
Taking care of our bodies: with ample play, ample movement/time outside, and ample rest.
Intentionality with instruction: of course I believe that so much learning happens beyond workbooks and lessons, and that so much can be observed and absorbed just by being out in the world. Of course I want my kids to be able to explore their own interests. But I also believe that they deserve intentionality with what I’m teaching them and how I’m balancing our workload each day – that they deserve more than just me “winging it” and hoping for the best, and that my time spent reviewing our lessons for the week ahead of time, mapping out a yearly/month-by-month plan and adjusting as needed, and the hours upon hours I’ve spent researching all sorts of resources, is all worth the effort. I tried my best to plan our weeks purposefully and intentionally, with breathing room built in too.
Wins + What worked well
Slow but structured mornings | Not being rushed is one of my favorite things about homeschool. No alarms around here (except on the days the boys have MDO), but when we’re all home together, we’re all up by 7:30-ish, making breakfast, sipping coffee, doing our daily chores (the kids all make their beds and put dirty clothes in the washer, and Steele empties the dishwasher daily), starting our devotional, and easing into our lessons around 8:30-9. Writing memory verses was a sweet part of our mornings, too. Here’s the full list of memory verses we did in Kinder and have planned for first grade.
Art Day Fridays | What intimidated me at first ended up being something all of us looked forward to! I have another blog with all of the art projects we loved for Kindergarten.
Singapore Math and Sprints | I’ve just been so impressed by this program (more about Singapore Math’s approach HERE) – the mental math strategies she’s learned, the ways it challenges her to think about things from different angles and to know the WHY, and its emphasis on speed. There’s lots of research on speed and quick recall in the younger years translating to proficiency and building a stronger foundation for more advanced math later on – we used Sprints each week as a fun way to practice!
Being strategic with our writing days | Writing at age 5-6 takes so much mental and physical energy (their little hands are still growing those muscles!), so I wanted to be strategic about doing our Kinder Writer’s Workshop on days when we had more time to focus and weren’t doing as many other handwriting-heavy/fine motor-heavy things.
Google Docs for Current + Completed Weeks | Google Docs was my BFF this year. I have one document for our weekly schedule/checklist (that I print on Mondays and lives on the fridge) with several weeks into the future ready to go, along with our big picture plan – notes for what we’ll be completing each month in each subject, links to online resources, etc. As we finished each week, I’d copy over that week’s checklist to a Completed Weeks doc, so now I have everything we did in Kinder saved and ready to refer back to for the boys (who still have one more year of pre-K at the church preschool we love!).
Plans for First Grade
Most of what we did in Kinder, we’ll continue in first, but we’ll be adding some things to our year that I’m really excited for!
Little House Unit | Steele has been ENTHRALLED by the Little House on the Prairie series, so I have a Laura Ingalls Project planned where we’ll map their journey, create diary entries from different characters, learn about homesteads, grasshoppers, and blizzards, cook recipes, and practice research and presentation skills.
Social Studies + American History | We’ll be using Bite Size Social Studies as our main lessons and Little Patriots Discover America to supplement on occasion.
Writing and Poetry | Bite Size Writing – I found the Bite Size resources on Teachers Pay Teachers and love how thorough they are. They’re designed for public school teachers but they work great for homeschool too and have lesson plans with videos and printouts all ready to go!
Bible Character Studies | Another fantastic Teachers Pay Teachers resource on Bible characters and character traits. We’ll start these after we finish our Mom & Me Bible study in November.
Keyboarding | We loved Keyboarding Without Tears and will continue with their first grade student license. Typingclub.com has free keyboarding lessons that we may switch to at some point but we used Handwriting Without Tears for Kinder and I liked the continuity.
Art and Music | More Art Day Fridays planned thanks to my favorite Deep Space Sparkle, switching off with some YouTube music lessons every other Friday.
Field trips | Frontiers of Flight museum, a Texas State Aquarium visit, and some zoo trips of course!
Flex time | Building in some flex time on Fridays next year for seasonal studies (we love Brighter Day Press) and time to wrap up any loose ends from the week.
It might sound like a lot, but it’ll spread out nicely over a whole year along with our core subjects. Here’s how I plan to spread things out within our weeks (aiming for 2-3 hours a day Monday-Thursday, 1-2 on Fridays):
First Grade Homeschool Curriculum PIcks
Along with the Teachers Pay Teachers and online resources above, here’s what I’ve purchased for first grade. Most of these are continuations of the open-and-go curriculum we used and loved last year, and we’ll keep working a level ahead on language arts/reading and math. More on each one below!
How Great is Our God | We love the kids’ devotionals in this series. They’re short and sweet and share a cool science fact with tie-ins to God’s grand, intentional design.
Just Mom and Me Having Tea | I’m excited to do this one with her in the fall! We’re spreading it out over 9 weeks.
The Good and The Beautiful Science Units | Last year we completed Wind & Waves our first semester and Sparks & Stars our second, so we’ll do Fields & Flowers and Nests & Burrows this year. I like that these are more story/audio/experiment-based and encourage discussion. They’re great for a wide range of ages!
The Good and The Beautiful Language Arts | I like a lot about TGATB and think it’s really engaging for this age, but I do feel like it’s lacking in some areas. Last year we supplemented with these other two books a couple of days a week and I felt like both were absolutely worth adding to our lineup.
180 Days of Spelling and Word Study | Great vocabulary practice with prefixes, suffixes, root words, analogies, etc.
Scholastic Reading Comprehension | Short but effective little lessons for practice with inferences, context clues, sequence, etc.
Evan Moor Geography | We really enjoyed the Evan Moor Kinder Geography workbook and will continue with Grade 1. Lots of important foundational skills and concepts!
Singapore Math | Already sang their praises above and if you ask Steele, she’ll tell you math is her favorite part of the day. The Home Instructors sets come with everything we need, and we also love their Sprints and PK-5 Manipulatives set. We work through the Textbook and Workbook Monday-Thursday and on Fridays, we’ll review, play math games, do a Sprint or two, OR she’ll do a test if we’re at the end of a chapter. Yes, we do math tests! I don’t want my kids to be intimidated by testing.
Handwriting Without Tears | Going back and looking at the difference in her handwriting from August even just to October of her Kinder year is WILD – she improved so much in such a short time with this program. We’re going to use the first grade printing book for some practice over the summer but I’m switching directions and not going with HWT for cursive because the way they teach cursive letter formation is… odd, to me. But I really do like their approach for print!
Cursive Logic | A 14-week program for teaching cursive. I was hesitant to start in first grade (I’d planned to wait another year) but Steele has been begging to learn and I think she’s ready, fine motor-wise, so we’re going for it! The benefits of learning cursive go beyond just handwriting – it’s so good for their brains and develops coordination in ways print alone can’t!
Last but not least, these are the titles we’ll use to supplement our Writing Workshop and poetry units.
We’ve got so many exciting things on the horizon for first grade and I can’t wait to dive in. Savoring our summer break but we’re already eager for August!
