Blog Challenge Post 3 -1st Grade Curriculum Planning

I'm still trying to get our planning done for next year. The last two months seemed to go by very very quickly. We finished up K and then it was VBS week at church and then we took our trip to Virginia and we were back from that for only a week before I had surgery and spent two nights in the hospital. I'm only 3 weeks into my 6 weeks of recovery with restrictions so planning and organizing for next year is going slowly. We are enrolled with St. Thomas Aquinas Academy (STAA) again this year. I had our annual phone conference last week. We will use quite a bit of their suggestions. I also have a few Seton workbooks I will likely add in as well as using Memoria Press 1st Grade Lesson plans. The MP plans I use mostly for their read aloud list and social studies and science suggestions that are tied to each weekly read aloud. We used the K plans last year and I preferred them to FIAR which is STAA's suggestion. I'm waiting on my Rainbow Resource order for some remaining items so this list could still change before we submit our notification to our school district in August.

Religion-Faith and Life 1, Mass Book for Children, Living the 10 Commandments, Just Like Mary, Little Acts of Grace by Rosemarie Gortler and Donna Piscitelli. I would love to try to get to a daily Mass even just 1st Fridays and we will be working on the basic prayers in the Faith and Life book as well as the rosary following STAA lesson plans on this

Handwriting-Handwriting Without Tears Grade 1 

Math- Math U See Alpha- I love love MUS. Whenever I try anything else I'm like why did I do that. It also seems a good fit for Teresa with it's hands on approach and short lessons.

Phonics- Little Angel Phonics  A and B
We started Book A the last few months of K.

Writing/Language Arts- Writing with Ease Level 1
This has narration and copywork with grammar and reading comprehension too. The sample lesson looks easy to follow. I liked the Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading so hopefully this other Well Trained Mind product will work for us as well. I'm not sure how well Teresa will like it but any grammar and writing is not likely to thrill her.

Social Studies- Memoria Press Lesson Plan ideas, field trips,and the Seton 1st Grade History book.

Science- Memoria Press Lesson Plan suggestions and/or lots of books from the library. We really did a lot of science reading this past year especially the Cat in the Hat Science Series. We will do the raise your own butterfly kit in the spring. We managed to get a garden planted this year which was something Teresa wanted to do but the butterflies didn't. We have a COSI membership and will go there as well as trips to the zoo and other science museums. We might also get a few science kits with simple experiments.

Art
Lots of ideas for this of course we won't do them all. I'm not very artistic so I like lots of ideas to pick and choose from. I plan on Teresa's taking this year some of the weekly homeschool art classes in the neighboring county. You can go as many weeks as you want so we will likely do some but not all. The art lessons are right next to the bigger library that we like to use for reserves so it will make the drive more worth it and I will have a place to wait with Matthew. We also have Seton's Art 1 which is more religious crafts. I've ordered Art Pacs 1 and 2 based on STAA's recommendation. Another reason for some many art ideas is because Teresa likes art and drawing and cutting and gluing but her handwriting is her weakness right now so it's developing her fine motor skills in a sneaky way.

Music- Okay Dad is going to have to take this one. If I'm not artistic I'm definitely not musical. Otherwise we will plan on listening to CD's.

Phys Ed- Besides walks, bike rides, and normal family activities Teresa does quite a bit at our local Y.  She is already signed up for fall soccer at a local park that isn't a Y sponsored. She will at least do swim lessons once soccer is over. She also wants to at least do the Martial Arts summer camp mornings next week. I would like her to do the weekly classes again even though they are at 7pm once she turns 7 just because I really think they help her with self control and concentration.