Everything you need for an incredible 1st grade homeschool year. Art, English, Science, Math, History first grade homeschool curriculum recommendations, including free and low cost options.
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First Grade Homeschool Curriculum Recommendations
What You'll Find on This Page
Homeschooling first grade can be so much fun! These curriculum recommendations will get you off to a great start.
Remember that part of the beauty of homeschooling is that you can tailor the materials to suit your particular child. You’ll notice that I recommend multiple resources for each subjects. This allows you to choose the materials that your child will love best.
First Grade Homeschool Curriculum: Art
Too often forgotten, art is an important subject for building fine motor skills and nurturing the critical life skills of creativity and self expression.
First graders thrive when they are offered a collection of art supplies and set free to do as they please. You can also set up a home makerspace to inspire more three dimensional art.
Jean Van’t Hul’s The Artful Parent is a wonderful resource if you want to create more structured lessons.
You can also sign your child up for homeschool art classes and buy themed art kits for kids.
Expose your children to art whenever you can. Many museums, including the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art allow you to visit their collections virtually – for free!. Challenge the kids to create art inspired by great artists.
First Grade Homeschool Curriculum: English
Teaching First Grade Reading
Reading aloud is the absolute best thing you can do to develop your first grader’s English skills!
As far as reading curriculum, different children enjoy different approaches. My son loved the sight words approach of Bob Books. My youngest daughter loved the phonics based All About Reading lessons. I have friends who LOVE the phonics based Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons approach, but my own kids hated that book.
My two other daughters taught themselves to read before I even thought about pulling out reading lessons for them. They sat on my lap and listened to me read and were able to pick it up.
First Grade Writing Curriculum
Journaling is my personal favorite first grade writing curriculum. Develop narrative writing by asking children to write about their day. Offer writing prompts to get kids writing both fictional and non-fiction accounts.
I like to teach my children cursive before printing. This is common practice in Europe, and it helps prevent letter direction confusion.
First Grade Homeschool Curriculum: History
I love using timelines to teach 1st grade history. We also read a lot of non-fiction and historical fiction books together. Art projects often double as history projects for first graders.
First Grade Homeschool Curriculum: Math
My children enjoyed Kumon math workbooks best out of the various first grade math curricula we tried over the years. Some parents like Singapore Math.
I also fill my house with math manipulatives, including cuisenaire rods, bear counters, family counters, and pattern blocks.
Sum Swamp is our favorite first grade math game.
If you want to start practicing math facts, we recommend Page A Day Math. Fine motor practice and math memorization!
First Grade Homeschool Curriculum: Science
I focus primarily on household science experiments in first grade. These experiments use items you already own at home, and I love that they teach children to look for the science all around us.
Magic School Bus books combine reading with science facts galore. I also fill my home with well illustrated and photographed science books, like this DK Science! Knowledge Enyclopedia.
Homeschool Curriculum Recommendations for Other Grades
Are you homeschooling several different ages? Here are some of my other homeschool curriculum recommendations:
- Schoolhouse Teachers Homeschool Curriculum Membership
- Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum Recommendations
- First Grade Homeschool Curriculum Recommendations
- Third Grade Homeschool Curriculum Recommendations
- Fifth Grade Homeschoool Curriculum Recommendations
- Sixth Grade Homeschool Curriculum Recommendations
- Timberdoodle’s Eighth Grade Curriculum Kit
Do you have any first grade homeschool curriculum recommendations to add to this list? Please let me know!
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MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.