Saturday, May 20, 2017

Curriculum Review: 1st Grade

This will be short, because the point of 1st grade is to nurture and create a thirst for learning. So Evie has very little formal learning but a lot of saturation by being around her older siblings as they learn. She participates in science experiments and history with them. I notice her listening comprehension most; she will say things like, "At first the main character of the story was.... but now it seems to have changed to....." She will be fun to teach as she grows older. I didn't do any formal handwriting instruction this year, which  may have been a mistake. She gets bored of making letters and I didn't want to discourage her; but I am going to have her do that next year so she makes them correctly.

Reading - We started the year with the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading and I quickly assessed Evie wasn't ready to read. We hit the pause button and around the beginning of the year I had her do a quick online Reading program (Reading Eggs) just to jump start her interest. We took up the Ordinary Parent's Guide again in the spring and she has made a lot of progress. I think I detect interest and comprehension and that we will go quickly in the fall. I love the way this book is short and easy, teaching reading phonetically while also working right off with those "disobedient words." (4 days/wk)

Math - Evie loves math and Horizons was her favorite thing to do every day. Interestingly, the first thing she learned to read were written numbers.
She has mastered addition and subtraction into the 100s place and even learned to carry. (5 days/wk)

Grammar - First Language Lessons is quick, easy, but solid instruction. I have used it for all three kids. We take about 10 or 15 minutes on a lesson. There are great poems to learn throughout the book and Evie loves this part and learns well. (3 days/wk)

Art - Evie finished up Joseph, the Canada Goose this year. This is a step-by-step drawing guide that follows the story of the an elderly man befriending an injured goose. I appreciated that it included the very simple, imperfect art work of other children as an encouragement, even as it taught drawing and some color technique. Evie does a lot of coloring, cutting, pasting, and drawing on her own. (1 day/wk)

Logic- I worked through the Mindbenders verbal book with Evie. She has done a lot of Mindbenders puzzles in the past and really enjoys them. (1 day/wk)

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