{"id":57306,"date":"2021-06-01T06:32:59","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T10:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/?p=57306"},"modified":"2021-06-01T06:33:02","modified_gmt":"2021-06-01T10:33:02","slug":"homeschool-curriculum-review-3rd-and-1st-grade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/homeschool-curriculum-review-3rd-and-1st-grade\/","title":{"rendered":"Homeschool Curriculum Review: 3rd and 1st Grade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s June and we are officially in summer homeschool mode<\/a> around here. It feel really nice to be in a more relaxed routine and we’re enjoying spending the extra time in our days kayaking after ducks and staying up a little later than usual to watch family movies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ll enjoy this downtime while I contemplate whether we will begin our fall curriculum sometime in July, which is on the early side for us, or August, which is more typical but we have some a three week trip out west planned for early August which we’ll be focused on playing around with maps and exploring National Parks, not doing math lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since I’m unsure of when we will begin, I want to have everything ready to go for when we do, especially since last year things got back ordered, which is understandable, as it was a crazy kind of year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, I prefer to be prepared, so I’ve actually already ordered our curriculum for next school year, which I’ll share with you soon, but first I wanted to do a recap on how our third grade homeschool curriculum and first grade homeschool curriculum<\/a> worked for us this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I gave a curriculum update<\/a> a few months in to third grade and first grade, but now that our workbooks are packed up and put away, it’s time to dive into what worked and what didn’t in our homeschool this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First and Third Grade Homeschool Curriculum End of Year Review<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After using TGATB for Hailey a couple years ago, I was worried it would still be rather dry. However, my desire for an open and go curriculum won out and we chose it. Overall we were pleased with it. Read my detailed The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts curriculum review<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019ve made some alterations to liven lessons up a little bit, whether it\u2019s hopping around on index cards with spelling words or balancing books on our heads in between sentence diagramming. Level 1 has a lot of games that Kaitlyn has really enjoyed, and overall I feel it is a comprehensive guide through the mechanics of reading, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary with some literature, geography, and art sprinkled in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cons for The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts program was that the lessons were fairly long (for level 3), taking about 50 minutes to complete, including the independent practice portion. The lack of writing assignments was also a negative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Math <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We really played around with math a lot this year. We used Singapore Primary US Edition for our core curriculum, but also used Horizons workbook pages for extra practice, played around with Beast Academy, used math board games<\/a>, and used the apps Todo Math<\/a> and Math Seeds (a math program available through Reading Eggs<\/a>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I love playing around with math because different methods click for each girl and it challenges them to think and problem solve, at the end of the day, Singapore is still our bread and butter. It’s done really well for us and both girls grew exponentially in math skills and confidence this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Good and the Beautiful Science <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We made it about halfway through The Human Body Unit<\/a> for TGATB. That would indicate that we didn’t like it, but actually the lessons are quite engaging and hands on and the girls enjoyed them a lot. I struggled with planning ahead and getting all the necessary supplies ready for each unit’s project, but overall I would recommend this curriculum and I could see us picking it up and continuing it next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beautiful Feet History <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Because of delays in shipping, we didn’t receive our full\u00a0Early American History Unit<\/a> until October, but we jumped right in with the Vikings unit<\/a> and never turned back. We adore this literary-based curriculum. It engages us all and we often ended up researching more about a person or a time frame after each unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lessons are a great length, about 15 or 20 minutes, which we often do while eating lunch since the girls love when I read picture books to them while they eat. It’s collectively our favorite part of our core curriculum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bonus Things We Loved in Our Homeschool this Year<\/h2>\n\n\n\n