Homeschool: A year review

We are finishing up our 1st grade homeschool year. We have about 3 or 4 more weeks, and then we will be finished with our math book and can take a few weeks off. I just read on another blog that the first 3 years of homeschooling are the learning curve, and I definitely feel like it's been a learning experience. I started out the year purchasing curriculum that I thought would work, and some of it did work. Some of my choices weren't quite right. I know I'm deviating here from what I normally post on this blog, but I'm writing all this down here for my own journaling purposes.

I love Explode the Code for phonics. Noah and Eli work through books 2 and 3 and recently started on 4. We will continue with book 4 through the summer and books 5 and 6 for second grade. I bought Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read 1st grade to use and we got through level 1. We just never got into a routine with it. I didn't like having to put the DVD in and set it up to watch the lesson. There was nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't for us. I had bought Hooked on Phonics to replace Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons because it was just so boring and we were just struggling to get through lessons. Ironically enough, as they got better at reading, I pulled 100 Easy Lessons back out, and we have been working our way through it without a problem. I have even started Sarah on it and she is blowing me away with how quick she is picking up sounding out words.

We used First Language Lessons level 1 for grammar since I picked it up for free at a curriculum exchange last year. There is definitely nothing wrong with it. We almost finished level 1. It's just repetitive, and I don't really see the point memorizing the poems. One day it was a review day of all the poems, and I was getting so frustrated at the boys for not knowing them. Later that night it dawned on me how silly it was to stress myself out about memorizing some random poem. On a positive note, the do know what a noun, pronoun, and action verb are. They pretty much have our address memorized. They know the months of the year and days of the week. They understand basic capitalization and that sentences end with a period or exclamation/question mark. It definitely gave us a good foundation. We are going to try Growing with Grammar and Winning with Writing for 2nd grade language arts.

For history we used Story of the World Volume 1 which is ancient history. We read stories about Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, China, and more. We didn't make it all the way through this one either but 3/4 of the way. We didn't do any of the activities, just read the chapters and discussed. I was going to continue with volume 2 next year but really want to do some American history. We will be using Abeka's 2nd grade history text next year which is Our America.

Science didn't really happen much. I bought Cut and Paste Science but it was pretty lame. We did do a unit on planet Earth, talking about the different layers of the Earth, biomes, oceans, etc. We also did the butterfly kit. They also attended a class at the National Botanic Gardens in DC that met once a week for 4 weeks. That was a lot of fun. Other than that, we watched lots of Wild Kratts and Magic School Bus. We will be using Sassafras Twins Zoology next year.

For math this year we used Horizons 1st grade math. We loved it. They boys are great at math and it pushes them. I think it's the perfect pace for Noah and maybe a little fast for Eli. My only complaint is the teacher's manual was lacking. I am not one to make copies, so I didn't use any of the drill pages in the back of the teacher's manual because I would have had to copy them. I'm good at math, so I never really felt the need to use the manual to help me teach. However, we will try Abeka Arithmetic 2 next year since they have a separate drill and test booklet for each kid and a more scripted teacher's manual. I like scripted manuals.

We started out the year with Horizon's penmanship. Noah did fine with it and has stuck with it all year. Eli needed a bit more help, so I switched him to Handwriting Without Tears. It was a pretty short workbook though, so I just had him pick back up in his Horizon's penmanship book where Noah was at. I think we will either use Handwriting Without Tears for both of them next year or go back to Zaner-Bloser which is what we used in kindergarten.

We've been slowly working our way through the LDS Old Testament Stories and Discover the Old Testament from Discover the Scriptures. I feel like we've made leaps and bounds this year with our kids as far as the gospel goes. They used to tell us they hated church and now they like it. They remember what they are learning and love helping with Family Home Evening. They have improved so much with their prayers and actually think about what they are going to pray about. It's pretty awesome. I think next year we will use this free devotional, Armor Your Children, for a quick devotional each morning.

Our biggest challenge and success this year has been reading. The boys still grumble when it's time for them to read, but they are reading so much better. We started listing to audio books in the car which has peaked their interest in books. Noah once said to me while listening to a story in the car, "It's like you can see it in your mind!" We've also read a couple of chapter books as read alouds at home. They are now reading a little to me each day, and they will even stay up reading early readers to themselves in bed.

Audio books we've listened to include: The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Little House in the Big Woods, A Cricket in Times Square, Pinocchio, Matilda, and a book of a bunch of Egyptian folk tales.
Read alouds: The Chocolate Touch, The BFG, and currently The Indian in the Cupboard.