It's hard to believe that my youngest is going to be going into Grade 1 this coming fall. Yikes! How did that happen? I think every year that I go through a grade with Missy I will be thinking, "This will be the last time that I do this grade." I find this sad.
Anyway, as it was with Kindergarten, Missy's Grade 1 year is going to look very different from Mia's Grade 1 year. The reason being that I have learned alot since I traveled this path with Mia. I have learned that you need to go at the child's speed and ability, not at what speed you think she should be working at. Also, I have gained much confidence over the years in not depending on curriculum as much. This is evident in my plans for Missy. Simplicity is rampant in these plans.
Math: I will continue on in this year without depending on curriculum in this subject. I enjoyed doing math on our own this past year and will continue with this for next year. I do use RightStart Math as a guideline for what Missy should be learning but I do not use it lesson for lesson. We do our own thing. I use Games for Math by Peggy Kaye as well as Family Math for ideas in teaching the various concepts. We have also used oodles of math readers as jumping off points for math discovery. You can find the book lists at the Living Math site. We also depend highly on Stuart Murphy's Math Start series, as well as the Greg Tang books.
Reading: We will use curriculum for this as Missy has difficulty in this area. We will be using Bartons Reading and Spelling program when Missy is ready. Missy has little phonemic awareness so we are working on that right now. Once she has that down pat, we will move on to Bartons
Writing: We will use the tried and true method of writing in copywork.
History and Science: Missy will follow the same path as her brother and sister in doing unit studies for these subjects.
Literature: I don't want to start Missy in Ambleside Online for her Grade One year as I think this might be too tricky for her as she gets in to the upper years, so I will make up her own literature list. I haven't fully decided yet what we will be reading but I think the list will contain Clara Pierssons animal stories, Baby Island, some Roald Dahl and, of course, Winnie the Pooh.
Well, this list is certainly simple, isn't it? Again, simple is good.