Homeschool Curriculum for 1st Grade...Help Needed!!!

O(5) will be in 1st grade next year, and it will be our first year of "official" homeschooling!!!  I can't wait, and she is really excited, too (most of the time).  I really want to make our curriculum choices soon because I want to have plenty of time to familiarize myself with the materials and have everything prepared.  I want our first year to go as smoothly as possible!  I'd like to have a Montessori and Charlotte Mason style homeschool.  E(2) will also be homeschooled, but she's easy...I have everything that I used with O when she was 3, and I have John Bowman's Montessori at Home book  (which is an absolute treasure).

I'd LOVE to have input on which curriculums have worked for you and which haven't.  Here are the ones that I've looked at online, but have never actually seen in real life.

For math, I'm interested in Right Start Math and/or Life of Fred. 

For reading/language, I'm interested in Language Lessons for the Very Young.  

We'll continue with World Geography and Cultural Studies through our cultural exchange packages.

I'd like to have a Spanish curriculum, but have no idea what to get.  Right now, we watch Little Pim dvds (which we LOVE), but I'd like to have an actual curriculum.

O wants to learn to read and write in cursive, so I'm thinking of getting Pictures in Cursive.

She would also like to learn more about American History.  She has a good foundation from reading the Little House on the Prairie books and American Girl books.  

I'm not sure what to use for Science, and I'm not sure what else I'll need to teach.  PLEASE offer any advice that you have through comments to this post or emails to me at chasingcheerios@gmail.com.  THANK YOU!!!

Argentinean Lentil Stew and Chipas

The girls and I have cooked several Argentinean foods lately, and we've really enjoyed it!  I don't love to cook, so our study of Argentina has been a good motivator for me.  It has also motivated me to include the girls in meal preparation more often (which they have loved).

Last week, we made Argentinean Lentil Stew.  I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com.  The girls didn't love the stew, but they ate it.  O(5) loved peeling and helping cut the carrot.  She also helped cut the apple.

We also made Chipas (Argentinean Cheese Bread), which they LOVED!  O(5) said that kneading the dough was more fun than playing with playdough!

The girls loved mixing in all of the ingredients.  I'm guessing that I should have melted the butter, but I usually don't think of things like that until it's too late.




Kneading the dough is SO much fun!




They REALLY loved rolling the dough into golf ball sized balls.



Deeeelicious!

1 Million Page Views!!!

I just stopped by computer (briefly...no time to write a post) and noticed that this blog has just passed the 1 million mark for page views!!!  Thanks for reading!

Our Peace Basket

The girls (especially O) love our peace basket.  It sits on the floor behind a chair (O chose the location), and they enjoy going back there for some peaceful moments.

When I put together the peace basket, my goal was to include items that would reach a variety of their senses.  So, we have a whelk shell for the girls to hold up to their ears to hear the ocean (they have to be very still and quiet to hear the sounds of the "waves"), a finger labyrinth to trace, a cinnamon stick to smell, a book to read (When I Make Silence by Jennifer Howard), and our Starry Night Bottle to shake and then watch the "stars" settle to the bottom.



I decided to remake our Starry Night Jar after E(2) was shaking it and slammed it into her face (she was ok).  I decided that a plastic bottle may hit with a little less force when shaking than a glass jar!  Also, I LOVE the round Christmas Coke bottles.  (I also love Coke...it's an addiction that I'm trying to break...I haven't had one in more than a week!) So, before Christmas, I bought many round Coke bottles to use for various Discovery bottles.  The round bottle works perfectly for our Starry Night bottle.  I just poured the contents from the jar into the bottle and added extra water to fill it up.

I know that most people glue the tops of their discovery bottles so that the kids don't open them with disastrous consequences, but I've never done this.  So far (going on 4 years), the girls have never opened a bottle.  I like to have the option of pouring out the contents and using the bottles for something else, which is why I don't glue them.

Painting Like Georgia O'Keeffe

The children at O(5)'s Montessori School study a different artist each month, and at the end of the month I go in and do an art project with them based on that artist. The artist of the month for November was Georgia O'Keeffe. O's teacher read several books about Georgia O'Keeffe with the children, and theyworked with the Georgia O'Keeffe art cards from Montessori Print Shop.

On our art day, we taped watercolor paper to the table for each child and provided them with a live flower in a tiny vase (each child chose his or her flower), a set of watercolor paints, and a cup of water. The kids got right to work!



Before the children started painting, I told them to study their flowers. They looked at the centers of the flowers, studied the texure, noticed the colors, and noticed that the shapes of the petals repeated. I told them to paint the flower BIG and to try to make the petals reach the edge of their papers. 





Here is a link to the lesson plan that I followed.

Both of our girls LOVE painting with watercolors, and I'm so excited the new liquid watercolor set they received for Christmas.  We may be painting like Georgia O'Keeffe at home, too!

Color Sorting Bags

While cleaning out the chaos that is our activity drawers, I found these color bags that I made for O(5) many years ago. (see O's color hunt game here)  E(2) was THRILLED to see them!  She dumped all of the objects out and started sorting!


We haven't used these bags in more than 6 months (at least), and I'm feeling guilty that I haven't had them out for E (because she loved this activity).


I have a feeling that this is going to be one of E's favorite "works" for a while :)

"P" Week

E(2) had "P" week in October, and I wrote the post, but never put it up on the blog!

She made pumpkin pie with O and my mom.




We ate purple cabbage.




We carved a pumpkin.




We made pipe cleaner spiders.




We did lots of puzzles.








She pulled her puppy around the house.




She dressed up like a pink poodle.




And wore her hair in pigtails.




The girls loved their first experience with pop rocks! This was probably the highlight of our "P" weeks!




We went for a windy ride on the pontoon boat.




The girls painted wooden pocketbooks.








E matched pumpkin life cycle cards (from Montessori for Everyone).




She really enjoyed talking about the life cycle of the pumpkin.



We dressed like pirates.



She painted this tray and made prints of it. 


We had a picnic in the woods, rode the plasma car, and played the piano. Fun stuff!