Curriculum/Teaching Review 2013/14 (1st)

Every year I bombard moms homeschooling older kids as to their thoughts and recommendations on curricula they have loved/not loved. And every once in awhile, I get asked myself. So here is my evaluation of what we use/did this year.


Kyrie is very kinesthetic and visual. She is also the first child I taught to read. My mom and others told me that each child is essentially starting over. So so true.

I scheduled an hour of work for Kyrie every day in 1st grade. Some days we did a little more, some days a little less. But her sit-with-a-book capacity doesn't last long. Her body is always moving which is tough on me. I am most interested in inspiring her to love learning, so I modified to keep it tight.

Here are the materials we used:

The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading

Loved this book. There are over 200 short lessons that take minimal prep and maybe about 10 minutes of instruction. Based on the number of lessons, I fully expected that we would still be finishing this up in 2nd grade. But by the time we neared the last fifth of the book, she was reading so proficiently that she was doing two and sometimes three lessons at a time. So we completed it in a year. And she's reading. Well.  Grade: A

Zaner-Bloser Handwriting Grade 1

Zaner-Bloser comes highly recommended by classroom instructors and others and I have used it off and on with Ben. It offers consistent manuscript instruction which I need. A new feature that I love is that you can print lined paper off their website that is grade- appropriate with lines and line-markers at different heights. Kyrie loves to write so she went through reams of paper. I bought a large ream of the old-fashioned cheapie writing paper. But for letters and other things, printing on nicer paper was a great option. Zaner-Bloser isn't cheap and I'm sure other great products exist. But this works well for us.  Grade: B+ (cost drops it a little)

First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind: Level 1

I used this for both Ben and Kyrie and it is a great preparation. Along with introducing early language concepts (e.g. nouns, verbs, proper and common nouns, etc...), it staggers poem memorization, art analysis, and listening exercises. And again, each lesson can be accomplished in about 10 minutes. We did this three times a week. Grade: A

Horizons Math

We skipped Kindergarten math and just to be sure I wasn't plunging her in over her head we took the Horizons Math placement exam. We did it before last summer and she placed into 1st grade. I did take some time in the summer to work on a few things she wasn't strong on. She did well with this curriculum. Horizons uses the spiral method, which means you keep coming back to concepts interspersed with new concepts to prevent boredom. For me, this is essential. There are plenty of problems and they are color-coded so it was typical for me to say, "You just need to do pink and green today." The teachers manuals are helpful if you need help teaching a concept and the instructions in the student manuals are nearly non-existent. Devising what the writers are asking the student to do can be challenging sometimes. However, I haven't used the teacher's manuals for 1st and 2nd grade before, choosing rather to keep sharp grading problems and make do. (It's spendy.) I did break down and begin buying it for later grades.  Grade: B+ (Cost again)


Kyrie took science classes at an incredible nature center in our area that offers classes for homeschoolers. The instruction is amazing. She also took art classes and a specialized class on Lewis & Clark at a co-op. She jumped in on Ben's Bible class for the reading part. And we read a lot.

She is going to take a big step up in 2nd grade. But her foundation is strong and she is ready.