First Grade Homeschool Curriculum That Worked for Us

While it’s important not to compare or overwhelm ourselves trying to do what everyone else is doing, I still find it so helpful to see how other families choose their curriculum and shape their daily rhythms. Learning what others love (or don’t) can offer inspiration and practical insight as we build a homeschool life that fits our own family’s needs and values.

Every family has a unique homeschooling style, and it’s so important to find a rhythm that fits your home—not someone else’s. It can be tempting to compare your journey to families with older children, larger age gaps, or co-op involvement, but what works for them may not be the right fit for you.

It took us a little while to discover what worked best for our family (and I’m sure we’ll keep adjusting as the kids grow), but once we found our groove, homeschooling became such a joy. Honestly, I’m a little sad to hit pause for the summer—it’s been such a sweet season of learning together!

So if you’re interested in what we landed on for grade 1 and most likely will keep doing next year – keep reading!

Language Arts

Reading and writing have been the foundation of our homeschool journey so far—it’s where we invest most of our time and energy. As a result, both my 4- and 6-year-old are reading well beyond their grade levels. This wasn’t a goal I set out to achieve, but more importantly, they genuinely love to read, which is a joy to witness. We’ve used The Good and the Beautiful from the preschool level on, and it’s been a wonderful fit for our family.

The curriculum includes built-in spelling practice with weekly review and a test after each unit. While writing activities are also included, we use special writer’s journals where my kids do their “best work.” These journals are a space for practicing handwriting, sentence structure, creative writing, and narration—and have become one of our favorite parts of the day.

One resource I really enjoy is the Ambleside curriculum. While many families I know use it as their full curriculum, I found it a bit too heavy for our current season—I prefer to keep things simple. That said, I often pull from their rich reading lists, which are a treasure trove of beautiful, living books.

Read-alouds are a big part of our homeschool rhythm. I typically read a chapter book aloud during lunch and again at bedtime, and throughout the day my son (6) and daughter (4) take turns reading their own books to me. Reading slightly above their level and guiding them through it has made a huge impact—I truly believe it’s been the biggest factor in how quickly their reading skills have grown.

Some of our favorite read alouds this year have been:

• Pinocchio
• On the Banks of Plum Creek
• The Boxcar Children
• Mr. Popper’s Penguins
• Who Was Julius Caesar
• Nate the Great books
• The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls Series

Arithmetic

We began the year with Saxon Math, but eventually transitioned to The Good and the Beautiful (TGATB). While I personally prefer the structure and layout of Saxon—and still use some of their worksheets from time to time—I realized my son thrived with TGATB’s shorter, more creative lessons.

One thing I really appreciate about TGATB is the optional math manipulatives box, which makes the lessons completely open-and-go with zero prep. That said, I still enjoy adding in extra games, hands-on activities, or the occasional fun worksheet to reinforce what we’re learning and keep things fresh.

Science

My personal philosophy is to focus mainly on reading, writing and arithmetic. Science and History are extras that we definitely touch on but its not a curriculum or text book. For science we love to just learn about things the kids ask about: bugs, nature, gardening, ocean animals, etc.

We enjoyed the devotional, How Great Is Our God by Louie Giglio as well which is a science based kids devotional. From that we had a lot of fun questions and asked google often:) I also love a good nature journal with prompts for when we’re outside or going for walks.

History

My son LOVES history. We started this year just by reading biographies and books on topics he loved such as Egypt, Rome, Native Americans, etc. I then found the history books Story of the World and it has been the perfect fit. The text reads like a novel almost and the kids thoroughly enjoy history time (which we do 2-3 times a week).

The text also comes with an activity book with coloring pages that my son loves!

Bible

We’ve collected quite a few children’s Bibles over the years and have read through them multiple times—each one bringing something a little different. So when we get a new Bible to read, it’s a big deal in our house! While we primarily use those during our Bible time and focus on weekly or monthly memory verses, one of our absolute favorite resources has been the Salvation Series kits. I’ve only seen them available on Christianbook.com, but they’ve been such a treasure.

Each kit includes large, poster-sized images paired with a booklet that provides a short, meaningful caption to read with each picture. We did a couple each day, and it quickly became the kids’ favorite part of Bible time!

Music & Art

We did Art maybe once a week but it was not a huge focus. My kids color a ton and draw or do watercolor paints often but I am not a big craft person. I honestly find them a bit pointless and kind of wasteful.

However, later in the year I did purchase Outside-the-box-creation and its been amazing.

Such easy video lessons for the kids to follow along and not only do a small craft but learn art concepts and vocabulary. Highly recommend!

We have not landed on anything for music but plan to start piano lessons this fall. I am still on the search for a good music program though so I will let you know when we find it!

Physical Education & Health

At this age kids truly just need to run and play outside. Get their hands in dirt, roll down the hill, ride a bike, etc. If they enjoy doing sports thats great. If not that’s fine. I did want to incorporate learning about hygiene and our bodies this year. New York State includes health and safety in the requirements so we just incorporated this into our talks during meal times and a youtube video or too. This is something I really don’t think needs to be a stressor or overwhelm you when just starting to homeschool! 

Overall this first grade year was such a success. Blending different curriculums together to fit our style and needs has been great. I’d love to hear what curriculums you have been loving! Let us know below!