I will be the first to admit, I am no expert when it comes to homeschooling. We are just in the beginning stages of transitioning to homeschool from the public school system. With a lot of fellow newbie homeschoolers messaging and asking about our curriculum and resources, I decided to put it all into one post. Take it all with a grain of salt, as we are only 3 weeks into this journey. I hope this helps some of you that feel as lost as I did a couple months ago while we made this decision.

Now all of the disclaimers: I have tried to link what I can, and want to note that none of these links are sponsored. We respect everyone’s choice for school this year and every year, but I want to add a disclaimer that we were not disappointed with Harrison’s educational experience with the public school system. The teachers and administrators in our school system were great advocates for him. However, we have 2 high risk kids and that was the deciding factor for us to homeschool during COVID-19. We ultimately decided that homeschool would best fit our schedule and goals. I also want to clarify that I am not referring to a virtual school or a learning plan through a school. We are our own “school” and file the paperwork with the state of Wisconsin to establish that.

In the early stages of researching homeschool I stumbled upon a YouTube channel called HomeschoolOn. She has an awesome curriculum review playlist that covers a large variety of curriculum options by subject. We used those reviews to decide what we wanted to purchase for our core subjects including ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies. We ended up choosing Christian options, but she does cover secular options as well. Keeping in mind that the style of learning your child prefers can greatly determine what curriculum will be successful in your home.

It is also important to note that the curriculum you chose actually makes up just a small portion of homeschool hours. In Wisconsin there is a requirement of 875 hours. You can break that down however you would like, but following a 35 week schedule, that comes out to 5 hours a day. You will be miserable trying to fill 5 hours a day with structured, sit down curriculum. While I’m sure it takes a while for every homeschooling family to find their groove, we adapted pretty quickly to filling our days with educational but fun activities.

A set hour by hour schedule does not work for us. We learn on the go, we flex our schedule however we need, and we have not had any tears over it. We try to finish our book work between 9-11am, but if we spend the morning in the garden and taking a walk, then we switch to book work in the afternoon. Since we do use books that follow a 5 day week, we have stuck to Monday – Friday so far. I chose 35 weeks with breaks throughout so we never do more than 7 weeks without a week off. Fortunately, this is flexible in Wisconsin and as long as the 875 hours is reached you are good to go, so every family can do this differently.

Now I will go into a little more detail of what we chose for our 1st grader and why. If you prefer, you can skip ahead to the “Other Resources” section to see what games and books we are supplementing with.

1st Grade Curriculum Choices

Last year our 6 year old participated in 1st grade for language arts. We decided to purchase the 2nd grade level for his ELA and so far it seems to be the perfect fit. We chose Language Lessons for a Living Education by Masterbooks ($30 at Christianbook.com). It follows a 5 day week with day 1 focusing on a short story, day 2-3 on grammar and punctuation, day 4 on creative writing, and day 5 focuses on spelling and vocabulary. The lessons take about 15-20 minutes and Harrison seems to enjoy them so far. We also purchased a handwriting workbook called A Reason for Handwriting ($16). It isn’t Harrison’s favorite, but the practice already improving his writing and the lessons are short.

We chose Abeka for math, using the Arithmetic 1 kit ($29). I love the look of the whole Abeka curriculum and that is probably what we would have chosen if we went all in on one complete set, but it gets expensive. The book is colorful and fun. Harrison flies right through the worksheets, but I can tell it moves along quickly and he will soon be working a little bit harder to master some of the concepts. The kit we purchased also includes weekly tests and speed drills that start in week 3. Luckily, I’m pretty good at 1st grade math, so we were able to pass up the parent kit this year. We spend about 15-20 minutes on the Abeka worksheets each day.

For science we also chose a Masterbooks curriculum called Adventures in Creation ($31). This follows a 3 day week, so we alternate it with a few other supplemental science activities. This week we are learning about the properties of light and using a prism to create the rainbow of colors. Day 1 introduces the subject, day 2 includes an experiment, and day 3 explains and reviews with each day taking only 10-15 minutes. So far we both enjoy this curriculum, but Masterbooks are very strong on the Christian side of things, so if you don’t want Biblical curriculum this one won’t be for you. There is a bit of planning that is involved and some items that will need to be purchased, but there is a master list at the beginning of the book and a lot of the lessons use household items. You don’t need to purchase a big fancy science kit. We have a deck of nature activities cards that we choose from for nature walks and the kids love it. I also found a book called My Body ($5) from Teacher Created Resources that helps kids learn about their organs, muscles, and skeletons by creating full size paper figures of their body parts. This book is recommended for kids age 6-10. We haven’t started this one yet, but the kids are excited for it.

Social Studies has been my favorite subject to study together. We purchased Our Star Spangled Story by Notgrass. This was our most expensive curriculum, but we saved a little bit by buying the Part 1, Part 2, and workbook portions separately, coming in at a total of $69, slightly less than the kit. This can be used for grades 1-4. The textbooks cover US history from before European settlement to present day in 3 lessons per week with a hands on project at the end of each 3 lesson unit. We have really enjoyed making clay dishes and an origami Mayflower boat. This curriculum takes closer to 20-30 minutes each day and requires more parent participation than the other subjects. There is also an optional reading list that goes along with the curriculum and I have chosen a couple of those books for read alouds.

Our curriculum choices cost a total of $180, which comes in much below the cost of all inclusive homeschool kits. It can also be even more affordable depending on what you chose, so do not be discouraged by that number if you are considering homeschool. The library is free and has unlimited learning options. I also want to point out again that the total time we spend on this book work only totals about 1.5-2 hours a day. We use a very eclectic style of learning which includes a variety of learning activities throughout the day.

Other Resources

We use a variety of imaginative play and building toys during the day. Basic blocks, playdoh, paint, puzzles, and pinterest ideas make up a lot of our supplemental activities. We cook, measure, make forts, and play pirates. We’ve made fossils from pressing animals into playdoh and dug dinosaurs out of kinetic sand. We love to use what we have right here to learn, but we also have some materials we love though, so I want to share those next.

Do you remember BrainQuest cards from the 90s? That was a major flashback for me when I saw that THEY STILL MAKE THEM! Harrison loves the quiz cards, but they also make workbooks. He has the 1st grade curriculum workbook and they even have Star Wars themed workbooks, so we have the 1st grade reading and math versions of that. These are available for Harrison to work on any time he wants and sometimes it’s a nice start to the day when I am busy settling the younger 2 boys.

We are loving all of the Junior games of Scrabble, Monopoly, and Boggle. These games are easy enough for both our 4 year old and 6 year old. I also recommend Sight Word Swat and Pattern Play. We love them both. Harrison was introduced to 10 frames in Kindergarten and I found some 10 frame counters that we use for all kinds of games. These are great for the 4 year old too. We roll dice, practice addition and subtraction, or practice patterns with the counters. The best part of this supplemental material is that you can make what you already have work for you. Don’t feel like you have to go out and buy all new games. Many of these were given to us as gifts over the years.

We are doing a lot of reading this year. I read books to the boys together, but our 6 year old loves to read independently as well. Right now his absolute favorites are Little Critter books and Pete the Cat. He read the first Captain Underpants book in 2 days and is already on book 8 of the Magic Treehouse series. I also read aloud to Harrison. We have finished Charlotte’s Web and we will finish the first Little House book this week. I have a few more books picked out for read alouds, but we are taking our time working through them so they don’t get boring or overwhelming to either of us. We also love the National Geographic books, like The First Big Book of Why and The First Big Book of the World. We have these on the Kindle Freetime app, but I plan to collect more of the paper copes over time because they are a favorite.

I found some writing journals from Learning Resources that have space for a picture and writing on each page. We are using these for creative writing and art. I also found an adorable journal called Between Mom and Me that includes writing prompts for both mom and son. It will be an awesome keepsake when we are done.

Our kids are in love with OSMO. It is a kit that attaches to a tablet (we have the version for Kindle). It has letter games, number games, tangrams, puzzles, patterns, drawing, a little bit of everything! The kids would play it all day long if I let them and they don’t even realize they are learning. You can get the starter kit for $99 and there are a ton of add on options available. It is a big winner in our house.

The greatest part about homeschooling is that you can chose what works for you, change your mind, or switch right in the middle. I can’t guarantee that everything we picked will be what we end the school year with, but I do plan to update both here and on Instagram. If we do anything especially fun, I’ll be sure to post it to Instagram stories, so that is the best place to follow along. For more ideas for 4 year olds and 6 year olds, you can check out my Pinterest pages as well.

Whatever educational option you chose this year, I hope you feel encouraged and supported. While 2020 seems like a really rough year, it can also be a time of growth. I hope everyone is able to find something great to come out of this difficult time. I am here. If there is any way I can help, please reach out!