Pursuing a wonder-filled life. Books. Travel. Humanities.

Lauren Ducommun

Charlotte Mason 1st Grade Lesson Plans 2024

Our youngest has enjoyed attending 1st grade at our local public school, but over Christmas break she persisted in her request to be homeschooled. I work from home, so my main concern was that I wouldn’t have the time to teach her phonics. But after looking over the Discover Reading booklet that we used for our eldest in first grade, it looks like she can graduate to just reading practice. We will also incorporate audiobooks where we are able, so that she can be slightly more independent in her studies.

My daughter will be starting with the AmblesideOnline Year 1 curriculum, but since she is already one-third of the way through 1st grade, I’m cutting it down to two terms. In prepping for my new student, I discovered my son’s narrating notebook from when he was in 1st grade. It’s fun to look back and see what we did together!

The wonderful thing about using AO Curriculum, is that the book lists stay the same over the years, so the only items I’m having to buy for first grade are a math book (since we sold our previous curriculum), a personal Bible for my daughter to use, and books to supplement citizenship. The other books we still have from when my son was in first grade!

Year 1 Homeschool Plans for 2024

Texas considers home educators as private schools. The only mandatory subjects are good citizenship, reading, spelling, grammar, and math. So I’ll start with those subjects and go from there.

Citizenship

Here are ways we will be growing in citizenship this year:

  • Be a kind and respectful fellow citizen
  • Be active in community service (pick up litter, donate)
  • Participate in community events and organizations
  • Visit Texas historical sites and read about U.S. Landmarks
  • Read inspiring tales and heroic biographies to gain ideas of how a citizen can contribute to their community
  • Study geography of Texas and its culture

Since Texas requires curriculum in a visual form (a book, workbook, or video), we will read the following:

Reading

For reading we will be focusing on the following:

Read Aesop’s Fables, and selections of The Blue Fairy Book and Tales from Shakespeare from AO’s Literature for Year 1. I was able to download these as audiobooks from Librivox and Audible. An oral narration is required after each reading.

Read a poem each day from AO’s Poetry for Year 1.

During her free time, or at night before bed, we will choose some books from AO’s Free Reading for Year 1 to read together, or for her to read to me. No narrations are required for these books.

In lieu of a formal phonics program, we will be practicing reading with the following books:

The AmblesideOnline Forum has some wonderful resources to go along with the Treadwell Primer book, including word list and printables.

Spelling and Grammar

We will be using Charlotte Mason’s methods to teach spelling and grammar. This includes daily copywork (copying well-constructed and beautiful sentences from the literature readings), oral narration (developing habit of attentive reading and comprehension), recitation (memorizing and reciting passages from literature and poetry), and going over phonics rules, as needed.

For copywork, I downloaded a wonderful free PDF from the AmblesideOnline Facebook group (Search for “Year 1 AO copywork – print” file by Winkler) that contains sentences from their readings from each week. If needed, I can create more copywork sheets using this Handwriting Worksheet Generator.

Math

I’ve had my eyes on The Charlotte Mason Elementary Arithmetic Series since it came out. I love how short and simple the lessons are, and though it is more teacher intensive than a worksheet, it is scripted, and it uses math manipulatives that you can find around your house.

We will be using Book 1 but won’t be starting from the beginning, we will most likely jump in about 1/3 of the way through.

I didn’t buy their math kit, I just got some grid paper, popsicle sticks, rubber bands, poly beads, and wooden dowels from Walmart.

I also made my own number cards and printed them on cardstock. You can download the PDF for FREE number cards below.

number-cards-1-9-from-laurenducommun.com_Download

Now for the subjects that Texas does not require but are a beautiful portion of the AmblesideOnline curriculum.

History

AO History in 1st grade, covers 55 BC to 1066 AD along key people from throughout history. All readings require oral narration. Since we are cutting out a term, I will be replacing Viking Tales with Leif the Lucky by the D’Aulaires. My daughter will listen to the other history books. I downloaded the MP3s from Librivox and uploaded them to a tablet for her.

I also really like The American Story series from Betsy Maestro, so we will be reading the pages The Discovery of Americas that cover our time period.

Once a week, we will also work on creating a timeline.

Nature Study & Science

For nature study, we will listen to The Burgess Bird Book by Thornton Burgess, and study birds during the winter. I also picked up a used, clean copy of Fifty Favorite Birds Coloring Books off eBay for my daughter to color while listening to the stories.

We will study amphibians in the spring.

Sex Ed

In addition, we will read books on the side that cover things like sex ed and child safety. I’m hoping to write a separate post about this soon, but below are some of the books we will highlight throughout the year:

Why am I including “sex ed” so early? 1) Lately, research has shown that most females will start puberty when they’re 8 to 13 years old. That means girls as young as 2nd grade can be starting puberty. 2) Young kids see messages of sexuality every day, and finding your identity within your sexuality has been embraced by our society. This means we need to lay a foundation of what God’s view of human sexuality is, in tactfully age-appropriate ways for even our youngest kids.

[ photo of sex ed books]

Geography

AO Geography for Year 1 assigns Paddle to the Sea, which is one of my favorites! When my son was in first grade we lived on the Ontario Peninsula surrounded by three of the Great Lakes. It was perfect! We’ll do some mapwork, too, using the Paddle to the Sea map from Beautiful Feet Books (it’s also available in a bundle of four maps for $14.21 from Christian Books).

We will also be covering various geographical concepts.

Foreign Language

My son has been using Flip Flop Spanish, which is the best foreign language curriculum we’ve ever used! My daughter will just join in on his lessons.

PE

I can’t seem to get my mind wrapped around Swedish Drill. PE for the rest of the year will look like nature hikes, swimming, walking, and runner’s club with our local homeschool group.

Art

We will be using the AO Artist Rotation Schedule for Artist Study. A Humble Place has generously put together the prints into PDFs, so I was able to print these off at our local Office Max.

In the afternoons, we will rotate through Drawing practice and Handicrafts .

Our area has two free art museums with a few paintings from the artists we will be studying. We plan to go to Kimbell Art Museum to see paintings of Tintoretto and Monet, and to Dallas Museum of Art to see Seurat and Monet.

Music

Throughout the week, we will be listening to the AO Folksongs, AO Composer, and AO Hymn rotation.

At some point I’m hoping my daughter can start fiddle lessons, too. We just have to see what’s in the budget.

Bible

We will be reading through selections from the book of Genesis till the end of the school year. I bought this New Living Translation Children’s Bible off eBay for my daughter’s personal Bible.

Risen Motherhood has these beautiful kids’ Bible study cards, that we will print and use as needed. (Tip: print double-sided on the short edge)

For theology, we will be reading The Ology by Marty Machowski once a week, and going through The New City Catechism for Kids.

What school supplies do we need for Year 1?

The wonderful thing about using AmblesideOnline is that the same books that our older child used are the ones that we get to keep to use for our youngest. Including her math curriculum, I think we only spent around $75.00 on her first grade curriculum this year.

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