Year 1 Curriculum Picks for Luke (2021-2022)

A list of our curriculum picks for my eldest son who will be on Year 1 (or Grade 1) this year. This list is Classical + Charlotte Mason inspired.

A Few Notes Before We Begin:

The first question people ask when I share my curriculum picks was how did I come up with this list? Well, in a nutshell, lots of research and reading. This means, going back and forth reviews online.

But eventually, I’ve narrowed it down to trusting the recommendations of Ambleside Online and our current homeschool provider, Living Learning Homeschool. Both are CM inspired. But since we do Classical as well, I tweaked and added other books mostly from The Well Trained Mind. (See related post: How We Homeschool Classical + CM)

Take note that this list is custom made to fit my son’s current skills, interests and sensitivity. I placed notes on some of the categories to explain.

And lastly, if you’re interested in seeing our Kindergarten curriculum picks last school year, you may click on this link!

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VALUES EDUCATION

• BIBLE & THEOLOGY:
  • Ambleside Online’s Bible Reading Plan for Y1
  • Wonderfull: Ancient Psalms Ever New
  • Leading Little Ones to God

 

• CHARACTER:
  • Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty
  • Book of Virtues
  • Laying Down the Rails for Children
  • Supplement: Everyday Graces

– We’ve used Everyday Graces extensively for Kindergarten so we are using it only as additional supplement this year.

 

LANGUAGE ARTS

• GRAMMAR:
  • First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind Level 1
  • First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind Level 2 *
  • Supplement: Grammar-Land

* We are using both books because we have done half way of Level 1 during the latter part of Luke’s Kindergarten year. The plan for Year 1 is to finish FLL 1 and continue with the first half of FLL 2 for the rest of the school year (but no pressure for FLL2)

 

• READING:
  • Billy and Blaze set
  • My Father’s Dragon
  • Aesop’s Fables
  • Just So Stories
  • Other picture books (Click here for a list of some of the books)

– Luke already knows how to read so I’ve decided to hold off on any formal phonics/reading curriculum this year. Instead, I will just let him read more good books as practice. I will be asking him to read these aloud so I can check.

• LITERATURE:
  • Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by E. Nesbit
    • Midsummer Night’s Dream
    • The Tempest
    • Twelfth Night
  • Wizard of Oz
  • Little House in the Big Woods
  • Charlotte’s Web
  • Trumpet of the Swan

– Aside from reading E. Nesbit’s versions of these 3 stories, I will also be trying the method I learned from Ken Ludwig in How to Teach Shakespeare (I highly recommend this book)

 

• FREE READS: 
  • D’Aulaire’s Greek Myths
  • Velveteen Rabbit
  • Farmer Boy
  • Little House on the Prairie

– Free Reading books are those that will be read throughout the year but are not included in our schedule and no required narrations.

 

• POETRY: 
  • Book of Poems by Gyo Fujikawa
  • When We Were Very Young: (Review here)

 

• COPYWORK:
  • Hymns
  • Psalms
  • Shakespeare lines
  • Quotes from books
  • Filipino Folk Songs
  • Filipino Bible Verse

– Will make more copywork sheets available on my shop soon: Wise Kids Printables

 

MATH

• MAIN:
  • The Good and the Beautiful Level 1
  • Supplement: Life of Fred “Cats”
  • Supplement: Life of Fred “Dogs”

– We started TGATB 1 already last school year so if all goes according to schedule, we’ll finish by the 3rd quarter. This means, I need to pick another Math curriculum for our last quarter but I haven’t decided yet so that’s TBA for now!

– We love Life of Fred but I’ve decided to use it as our supplement only. We are also done with Life of Fred Apples and Butterflies (the books recommended for Kindergarten)

UPDATE OCTOBER 27, 2021: We are switching to Dimensions Math. Review coming up!

 

SCIENCE

• SCIENCE:
  • God’s Design: Life for Beginners (doing “Human Body” only): (Review here)
  • God’s Design: Heaven and Earth for Beginners (doing “Planet Earth” only) *

– We finished the plant section of God’s Design: Life last school year. I’ve found that God’s Design is a good spine but you need to supplement it with other science picture books. (See suggestions and a list of what we use as supplement here.)

 

• NATURAL HISTORY:
  • Insect Life by Arabella Buckley
  • James Herriot Treasury

 

SOCIAL STUDIES

• WORLD HISTORY/TALES:
  • Story of the World 1: (Review here)
  • Story of the World 2 (Halfway only)
  • Island Story
  • Supplement: Fifty Famous Stories and On the Shores of the Great Sea

– Almost done with SOTW1 last school year so we are reading the last few chapters and moving on to SOTW2. But we’ll be taking it slowly (and will most probably finish only til’ half and continue the rest for the next school year)

– Also, introducing Island Story this year, but plan to tackle only up to Chapter 21.

– Because SOTW covers very little of Biblical history, I plan to read the chapters on “On the Shores of the Great Sea” that focus on Bible characters.

 

• CHURCH HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHIES
  • Trial and Triumph
  • Tales and Customs of Ancient Hebrews

– Chose only 10 key people from Trial and Triumph for this year.

 

• BIOGRAPHIES
  • Cleopatra by Diane Stanley
  • Bard of Avon by Diane Stanley
  • Some Writer! The Story of EB White
  • D’Aulaire’s biographies:
    • Leif the Lucky
    • Benjamin Franklin
    • George Washington

• PHILIPPINE STUDIES
  • Atlas of the Philippines (For Philippine Geography)
  • Francisco the Filipino
  • Fil and Filippa
  • Gabriella Silang (Tahanan Great Lives Series)
  • Teodora Alonso (Tahanan Great Lives Series)
  • Picture books such as:
    • Si Segunda Noong Panahon ng Espanyol
    • Ang Kaibigan Kong si Mabini
    • Bandila

 

• CANADIAN STUDIES 

  • A Pioneer Sampler : The Daily Life of a Pioneer Family in 1840
  • Spirit of Canada: Selected stories only

– Lightly touched, because the kids have Canadian roots.

 

GEOGRAPHY

• Home Geography by CC Long
• Paddle to the Sea

 

FILIPINO

• LITERATURE / LANGUAGE

  • Filipino storybooks (Related post: Living Books on Philippine History and Culture)

– No formal workbook or curriculum for Filipino. Instead, I will be following CM practices of learning grammar and language and that is through exposing the child to good books and everyday conversations. We will work on formal Filipino grammar in the coming years.

 

FOREIGN LANGUAGE: CHINESE

• Chinese Storybooks: Read aloud + reading practice
• Easy Steps to Chinese 2a and 2b: Review
• Easy Steps to Chinese 3a

– I want to teach Chinese the way I teach Filipino but I can’t because my language skills are also limited. So instead, we will be following a workbook as our spine, but I will continue to practice speaking and reading books in Mandarin with the kids.

– Luke also has Mandarin lessons with a Chinese teacher 2x a week.

 

ART & MUSIC

• Sebastian Bach, the Boy from Thuringia by Opal Wheeler
• Mozart, the Wonder Boy by Opal Wheeler
• Ludwig Beethoven and the Chiming Tower Bells by Opal Wheeler
• Vincent’s Starry Night and Other Stories
• Artist studies of the ff:
  • Pierre Auguste Renoir
  • Fernando Amorsolo
  • Andy Warhol
  • Overview of Spanish art: Goya, Velasquez, Gaudi
  • Paul Cezanne
  • Marc Chagall

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• For lessons and activity ideas, please feel free to check out this page: Homeschool Lessons.
• For curriculum reviews, click this link: Curriculum Reviews
• For more recommendations, visit my Amazon Storefront.

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RELATED POSTS:

• Kindergarten Curriculum Picks for Luke: 2020-2021
• List of Free Living Books for Kids
• Blending Classical Method + Charlotte Mason
• How We Homeschool: 5 Years Old
• How I Make My Homeschool Lesson Plan