What, have you found, is the most effective homeschool curriculum for kindergarten/first grade?

Question

What, have you found, is the most effective homeschool curriculum for kindergarten/first grade?

Answer 1

My mom used A Beka for me and my brother.  I never really got math very well so she switched from A Beka's math to Math-U-See.  It helped me a lot.

Answer 2

Child lead but with me suggesting activities and projects. We play games to learn basic maths, lots of arts and crafts, gardening, cooking. Right now we have a tank of tadpoles so she can learn about the frog life cycle. Lots and lots of reading together. She has her own digital camera and computer which she loves using. We're in the kindergarten age group right now and she's already working at a 1st grade level so I guess that's effective.

Answer 3

It's going to depend on your child's personality and development....what works for one child may not work at all for another.  Our little girl is VERY active, has trouble sitting still,

is very dramatic and is very hands-on. She still has a rather short attention span, so I've had to find things that interest her and keep her moving.

For kindergarten, we used the Bob books, workbooks from Wal-mart, worksheets that I created and free arithmetic pages off the internet. (Our daughter had already been practicing printing letters and knew some of the letter sounds from a CD we bought her. We even took an old Twister game and put letters on the circles. When she landed on a letter, she'd have to make the sound.)

We used whatever worked: blocks, toys, card games, measuring cups, looking up animals on the internet, going on nature walks, using money, telling time, singing songs, etc. We live on a farm, so we can have lots of "hands on" activities. We also have lots of books, a microscope, telescope and musical instruments. We've made cheese from  goats' milk and looked at lizards, frogs and all kinds of animals. She's raised chicks and planted a garden.  I believe that practical skills are very important, too, so she has cleaning chores (dusting, wiping off the counter, taking dirty clothes to the laundry area).

I've just started her on 1st grade work (our school year doesn't follow the public school year) with the Christian curriculum Rod and Staff. It is mostly printed in black and white and looks "dated", but it has lots of things to color and cut out. The reader starts out with sight words rather than phonics, but our daughter can sound most of the sight words out and she's doing very well in reading. She had gotten rather bogged down in the Bob books; now she's enjoying reading again.

We're doing the whole R & S curriculum including art and music and adding First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind and some learning songs. Sometimes we read an easy book for variety, or I let her play Starfall on the computer. She was having trouble understanding math, so I made some [cheap] Cusinaire (sic?) rods printed off the computer and it's made a world of difference. She can "see" that 6 is more than 4- a concept that was hard for her to understand before.

On Fridays we do art, music, writing, poetry, computer learning or watch a video.

So far, this is working very well.

Answer 4

Well, it depends on the child, and on the parent, and on the family as a whole, you also might  need to consider your state requirements, a few states are really strict, but many let you do as you please.

What are your goals and priorities for your child at this age?  Early literacy?

Delight directed learning?

High test scores?

Development of thinking skills?

Creativity?

Freedom to play?

Development of Moral Character?

Of course you probably would look at that list and say that all of those things are important to some degree, but which are MOST important to you will impact the curriculum choices you make.

Here are my favorites for Kindergarten / First Grade:

Explorers Bible Studies- Bible Beginnings Two, "God's Promises" and "Jesus My Shepherd"

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/B...

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/B...

Alpha Omega Horizons Phonics and Math:

https://store.aop.com/aop/67.cat

"Christian Kids Explore" science series ( This is a highly adaptable curriculum, even if some of the books say they are for 3rd-6th, there are plenty of activities that younger kids can do, you just wont expect the same level of mastery from the younger child, but instead will let them explore and skip most of the written work.)

http://www.brightideaspress.com/CKEBiolo...

http://www.brightideaspress.com/CKEEarth...

http://www.brightideaspress.com/CKEChemi...

http://www.brightideaspress.com/CKEPhysi...

The Story of the World Volume 1, with the Activity Book:

http://www.peacehillpress.com/index.asp?...

OR

The Mystery of History, Volume 1:

http://www.brightideaspress.com/MOH1.htm

(I actually like Mystery of History best, but the series isn't complete, and I don't like the idea of starting it and not being able to keep going straight through).

To this I add, as time allows,

Writing Strands, Level 2

First Language Lessons For the Well Trained Mind

Of course, much of this is for the First Grader, for the Kindergartner I would stick mostly to the Bible lessons and the Horizons Math and Phonics.  The other subjects would be added in at first grade.

The science and the history texts I mentioned have plenty of suggestions for arts and crafts, but if you feel you need to add more in, there are plenty of good idea books available.

Answer 5

My son is in 2nd grade, and I began homeschooling him at the beginning of his 1st grade year.  I would highly recommend the following:

http://ebiz.netopia.com/clpress/

"What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know"

"What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know"

http://www.time4learning.com/

Math for Your 1st and 2nd Grader (All You Need to Know to Be Your Child's Best Teacher):  By Steve Slavin

Singapore Math

I hope this is helpful.

Answer 6

I like Hewitt really well. They have K-2 full curriculum programs that are nice.  Here's a link to the 1st grade.  You may want to try that if your child is already reading.

http://www.hewitthomeschooling.com/book/...

Homeschoolers are very individual.  Some want a textbook for every subject.  Some like unit studies. Some want a full service program like CLASS that takes all the record keeping  responcibility away from them.

If you like textbooks, I would look at ABEKA.

http://www.abeka.com/

Abeka is an accelerated curriculum.  I like some of the books, but don't like others. You will just have to look for yourself.

Another good suggestion is to simply go to your local barnes and nobel bookstore and look at the McGraw Hill spectrum workbooks or other workbook programs. That has the advantage of picking and choosing what book you want for each subject, and you get to look it over before you purchase.  I like Barnes/Nobel because they give a teacher's discount to homeschoolers, and they are good about ordering what you want.

Another favorite company of mine is Timberdoodle.  It is a different kind of products than schools use.  But I love them. The Body Book is great. And my son loved the Pathway readers. I wasn't fond of Miquon Math, but some people love it.  I like Addison Wesley better.

http://timberdoodle.com/

Timberdoodle believes in hands on learning.

Answer 7

I found success with Singapore math. We started with 1st grade math.  Living learning books for science and Story of the world for history.  My children learned to read by doing.  We used Bob books for a start and move on to reading books as they progressed.  We didn't start grammar until 3rd grade.

Answer 8

unschool :D

Follow the interest of the child, retain his inherent love for learning.

Answer 9

You'll get different answers from everyone because everyone has different children.  :)

Personally, we love Math-U-See and Five in a Row.

Answer 10

a beka