We moved Joel into Core A for his first grade year right after his birthday. We will probably stretch Core A until next Fall so he will be a little older before starting World History I on a regular school year schedule. This is my fourth time through this core, but I did update it to the most recent so there are a few books that are different and will be nice.
We do morning devotions together. We’ve been doing a little bit of Hannah’s readings and a little bit of catch up for Ginny for Girl’s Ministries. Joel also has his own reading during school time and a memory verse each week.
In history/social studies, our spine is the Usborne Internet Linked Children’s Encyclopedia. The one we had was falling apart so I ordered a new one and it is a larger version so that is nicer for the illustrations. It also has fun links to follow for supplemental activities. Another book we use weekly is The Usborne Book of Living Long Ago that compares different time frames clothing, food, homes, and customs. As a supplement we read Game On in Ancient Greece this unit.
Read Alouds are getting a little bit longer, but good for little listening ears to practice. We read Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, Sled Dog School, and The Ordinary Princess and we have selections from The Bill Martin Jr Big Book of Poetry each week.
Reading / LA has been a hard sell for my little wiggle worm. He has a spelling list each week and handwriting every day. He is definitely an audible learner so those sight words make him mad every time, but we’ll get there. He also is doing pretty well with his early readers. We have selections from I Can Read It: Word Lists and I Can Read It! Book 1 for this unit. He also has some worksheets from Explode the Code 1 for grammar rules.
We are doing science combined with Ginny. We started K Science a little late in the year so have been doing it almost double time. We finished up week 36 this unit and will go straight into Science A. We read DK Findout! Science and Forces Make Things Move and a weekly spread from National Geographic’s Little Kids First Big Book of Why. We had a weekly reading from Discover and Do Science Experiments and the kid’s favorite part was watching the accompanying video from Sonlight each week.
Joel is working through Horizons 1 for math. He is pretty good on his simple add and subtract facts already so he isn’t very challenged other than getting him to sit to do the full worksheet. Also work on reading clocks.
The only school supplement we did this unit was a trip to the zoo. But never fear, we stay busy. Joel participates in karate twice a week and Royal Rangers on Wednesdays. He gets to do all the fun activities at Connections and with Active Love Church. He wants to be a ‘helper’ very much so I have given him the “pick up trash” duty. He does a pretty good job. Joel and Ginny play very well together and still get a lot of trampoline and outside time to get some exercise. We had a trip to camp at the Diltzs and a visit to the Moehrings to see PawPaw as well as fun Easter events and Joel got to go to district PowWow with Daddy and Ben for camping.