I don't mean to brag but I feel pretty productive today. I taught Sunday school two services, did our own homeschool, lesson planned for this upcoming week, wrote and posted a blog post on 5th grade vocabulary and spelling and started some laundry. Why stop now? How about I share this weeks lesson planning for my first grader? Sounds good to me. Lets go.
I usually lesson plan on Saturday or Sunday whenever there is a quiet lull in the day. Currently a load of laundry is humming in the background, the boys are outside and my husband is working on my Jeep so it's the perfect moment to open up my happy place (my six day lesson planner) and begin anew. I start with my first grader. I open my planner to his week (I keep all students in the same planner) and gather all his resources into a pile from easiest to more complex to plan in front of me. I remove the cat from my planner and proceed.
Before the academic subjects I plan our morning bible time. We are currently working through one reading at a time from the Action Bible. The boys love it. I just open it up and write in the names of the readings. On, to the schooly stuff.
I start with the independent reading column. Since I have him read one book for an entire week for 10 minutes a day I write the new title at the top of the column and read 10 minutes in the rest of them. That was easy! He's currently reading A Thousand Candy Santas. See my blog post on independent reading bridge books for RC for more detail on picking books.
Next is math. He is working his way through his multiplication tables so each day is basically the same. He does a memory pyramid (freebie) of whatever current table he's working on, a page or two from his multiplication workbook and flashcard practice so I can write the same thing in each day's square.
Third is reading and writing. My first resource is McGuffey's Second Eclectic Reader (included with Robinson Curriculum) the Revised Edition. I alternate it with another reader now (we were going through it too fast) so I write in this one's lessons and it's Copywork every other day under the reading and writing columns. Copywork for the Primer is also available.
The second set of resources are The Original McGuffey's First Eclectic Reader. I plug this into the alternate reading days and pair it with some sort of copywork. This week it's writing Cursive Jokes. Other weeks it's usually something I've created and I'll give a few links here. Most are free: Spell My Numbers-boy, Spell My Months , Spell My Colors , My Days of the Week I found I was going to end up too far ahead in the McGuffey Reader's just reading one so this keeps us reading on the same level but takes us twice as long.
Spelling is crazy easy for me. I just print off a weekly McGuffey's Spelling Packet for first grade and write in spelling packet and lastly, spelling test. The packet comes with the daily activities all planned out, open and go. I do make our own flashcards from the week's list. I cut index cards in half and made two of each word so we can play memory during the week. It's my son's favorite! So naturally competitive. My husband says he gets it from me but I deny it.
Simple right? Let's keep plugging these babies in. Science is next. This is one of our family subjects. We are currently going through Farm Anatomy. We've already completed Nature Anatomy. I actually plan using the corresponding notebook. It tells me what pages to read in the book to go with the notebook pages so I write in the reading pages and notebook and check the Activity Book to see if there are any corresponding activities I'd like to facilitate and write that in if so. This week there was! I don't do every day with this but I do fill in with another resource: Brainquest. I do that last though. You'll see further down.
Social Studies is another family subject. We use The Good and The Beautiful's Year One History. We are fans of this curriculum and will probably always use it we all love it so much. It truly blesses us. I do two lessons a week so I plug those days in (trying to keep in mind what days are already pretty full with science and extra curricular activities. Sometimes this subject ends up being an after dinner family activity so Dad can join too. As we don't do tv our evenings are so much more enjoyable and family oriented. History fits in here perfectly. We also try to go to the library once a week and load up on books that match our history theme so for the last month or so I've had a pile of books on Egypt sitting in the schoolroom. I write in "read library books" on non-lesson days. The boys can pick up a library book and read it whenever they like or if I need to spend some time with one student it's a good space holder to keep the other one from running off and not coming back to school. You know they do that!
I fill in any holes I notice with our BrainQuest workbook. This week I added a page of math so he's getting some addition review and some language arts pages under writing. These are not imperative to get done but I find that they work well as review and a non-prep option. I just note the pages I want him to do and we book mark them. I've filled holes with other materials before like coloring pages, my copywork resources, tying your shoe practice or an art project. As subjects take longer to do, fill work will be unnecessary but this keeps us all together in one place a little longer since his older brother's schoolwork is considerably longer. I like us to all be in one place at least until lunch.
I note their activities last just so I can see them and keep them in mind throughout the day. I also write any appointment under the dates if we have any but none this week, thank the Lord. All in all it's taken me longer to write this blog than it did to do the actual lesson planning but there it is. For your enjoyment, curiosity, criticism; whatev. I love seeing people's process and now I've added mine to the mix.
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