First Grade Homeschool Curriculum: What We Chose
Choosing a first grade homeschool curriculum comes down to four real decisions: a phonics/reading program to finish the learning-to-read job, a math program you’ll actually stay with, a light handwriting routine, and a read-aloud plan that quietly covers everything else. That’s the load-bearing list. Spelling, grammar, and formal science and history can all wait a year without any loss; art and music cost nothing but time. Below is what we chose for our own first grader, what each subject costs, why we picked it, and where a different family would sensibly choose differently.
A word on format, because it’s this domain’s oldest tradition: the original Homeschooled Mom ran “my curriculum choices” posts year after year — the 2012 edition featured a four-year-old working through first-grade materials — and that what we chose and why framing is the only honest way to write about curriculum. I have not used every program on the market and won’t pretend otherwise. What I can give you is our actual shortlist, our actual picks, the published facts that drove them, and a plain account of which subjects at this age are worth money and which are not. The method underneath all of it is how to choose homeschool curriculum without panic — this post is that method applied to one specific six-year-old.
Reading: finish the phonics job
First grade is the year phonics either gets finished properly or gets abandoned at “close enough,” and the gap shows up for years. We kept the same step-by-step approach that worked in kindergarten and added a daily workbook page for reinforcement: we chose Explode the Code Book 1, a decades-old phonics workbook series that drills short vowels and blending in a format kids can do semi-independently — ten minutes, one page, done. The full arc of our method, stall-outs included, is in teaching your child to read at home.
A first-grade reading block has three parts and runs about twenty-five minutes total: a short taught lesson from your spine, five to ten minutes of the child reading aloud to you from something decodable at their current level, and the workbook page as independent practice. The middle part is the one families skip when the morning is tight, and it’s the part that actually builds fluency. A lesson taught and never practised out loud is a lesson the child watched you do.
Families we know have been equally happy finishing the job with All About Reading (scripted, multisensory, pricier) or with the phonics strand of an all-in-one like The Good and the Beautiful’s language arts (faith-based publisher; its early levels fold phonics, handwriting, and literature into one open-and-go book). Different tools, same destination: a kid who can decode anything by Christmas of second grade.
When it stalls — and at six it very often stalls somewhere around blends or silent e — the wrong move is buying a fourth program. Slow the sequence, shorten the block, hold the same step for three weeks, and keep reading aloud to them at a level far above what they can decode. A six-year-old who isn’t reading in September is frequently reading in March with no intervention beyond patience. If it’s still genuinely effortful a year later, that’s the point to ask your pediatrician or a reading specialist rather than to shop.
Math: pick for the teacher, not the kid
Here’s the unpopular truth from our shortlist season: most reputable first-grade math programs teach the same content — place value to 100, addition and subtraction within 20, time to the half hour, coins, measurement, and early word problems. The real variable is you. Scripted, manipulative-heavy programs (Math-U-See and RightStart are the names you’ll hear constantly at co-op) suit parents who want to be walked through every lesson; leaner workbook programs suit parents who find scripts suffocating.
We went lean, with Math Mammoth Grade 1-A and its 1-B companion: a worktext, meaning the explanation sits on the page the child works on, so there’s no separate teacher’s manual to keep a finger in. That format is either a relief or a problem depending entirely on which kind of adult you are. Alongside it we used the counting cubes we already owned — a set of MathLink Cubes covers every manipulative need of the first two years and survives every sibling — because I’d rather improvise from a solid page than perform someone else’s script. Choose for the adult who’ll teach it; the kid adapts to either.
The one addition worth making costs nothing: five minutes of oral fact practice, out loud, at breakfast. Doubles, tens partners, plus-one and plus-two. First grade is where those become familiar, not where they have to become automatic — the formal fluency block, and the small purchase that goes with it, belongs a year later. Twenty minutes of program plus five minutes of talking is the whole of first-grade math.
Handwriting: ten minutes, then leave it alone
Handwriting in first grade is ten minutes: short, daily, done before the hand tires. We used My Printing Book, the grade-one workbook in the Learning Without Tears sequence, which teaches on two lines rather than the usual three and takes capitals before lowercase on the theory that capitals are all made of straight lines and simple curves. One page a day, and it’s over before anyone is upset.
The rest of the job is real reasons to write: the grocery list, a birthday card to a grandparent, the label on a Lego creation. Reversed letters and a fist-like grip are both ordinary at six and usually resolve on their own with practice; if either is still entrenched a year or two on, mention it at a well-child visit rather than drilling harder at the table.
Read-alouds carry the rest of the year
This is the part of a first-grade “curriculum” that does the most work and appears on no invoice. A six-year-old can understand books three or four years beyond what they can decode, which means the read-aloud — not the reader — is where vocabulary, sentence structure, history, geography and most of the science actually enter the house.
We keep a library basket rotating on a topic every few weeks: volcanoes, the ocean floor, the moon landing, castles. Picture books count, and at this age they carry more content per minute than a chapter book does. Non-fiction picture books are the whole of our first-grade science and history, and they’re free.
The one book I’d actually buy for this subject is a book list rather than a program. The Read-Aloud Family is organised by age and is honest about the fact that the ritual matters more than the titles; a library’s children’s librarian will do the same job for nothing, which is what I did for years from the other side of the desk.
The subjects everyone asks about
Catalogs sell twelve subjects for first grade. Here is the honest position on the eight we didn’t buy, or bought cheaply.
Spelling. Not yet. First-grade spelling is phonics — teaching the two separately at six means teaching the same patterns twice under different names. A spelling sequence of its own is the standard second-grade addition, and the reasoning, plus what we chose when we got there, is in second grade homeschool curriculum.
Grammar. Optional, and oral if you do it at all. First Language Lessons Level 1 is the common first-grade choice: short scripted lessons, entirely spoken, with poetry memorised and pictures narrated rather than worksheets filled. It runs about ten minutes and the book is reusable across children. Skipping grammar entirely in first grade costs nothing academically — the families who do it do it for the memory work and the narration, which are the genuinely valuable parts.
Science. No curriculum required, and a boxed first-grade science program is the purchase I’d most reliably talk a new homeschooler out of. Give a six-year-old a magnifier, a few beakers and a reason to look closely — a kit like the Primary Science Lab Activity Set covers the equipment side once and permanently. For structure, Mystery Science and Generation Genius both run short video lessons with household-materials experiments at this level. One session a week is plenty.
History and geography. Read-alouds, picture-book biographies, and a map on the wall that gets pointed at whenever a place is mentioned. A story-based history spine is a real and worthwhile purchase, but it belongs to third grade in our house, not first.
Art. Materials, not curriculum. Decent paper, real paint, and time. If you want a method, Drawing With Children teaches observational drawing from basic shapes and is written for an adult who can’t draw either — which was the situation here.
Music. Listening, mostly. Something playing at lunch, named out loud. Formal lessons are a family decision and a budget decision, not a first-grade requirement.
Movement. Outside, daily, and it is not a subject you buy.
A foreign language. Genuinely optional at six. If you want one, songs and picture books in the target language do more at this age than any curriculum, and the cost is a library request.
Worldview note, since first grade is where catalogs start sorting families: secular options (workbook-based programs, Blossom & Root-style literature approaches) and faith-based options (Abeka, The Good and the Beautiful, and the A Beka phonics I myself grew up on in the ’90s) both cover this ground competently. This site describes both factually and endorses neither worldview — pick the shelf that matches your home, and the phonics works the same.
The stack, subject by subject, and what each part costs
| Subject | Our pick | Daily time | What it costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phonics/reading | Phonics spine + Explode the Code 1 | 20–25 min | One consumable workbook per child per year; the spine is reusable |
| Math | Math Mammoth 1-A and 1-B worktexts | 20 min | Two consumable worktexts a year, or a printable licence |
| Math facts | Oral practice at breakfast | 5 min | Free |
| Manipulatives | Counting cubes | As needed | One-off; survives every sibling |
| Handwriting | My Printing Book | 10 min | One consumable workbook a year |
| Read-alouds | Library basket + a book list | 20–30 min | A library card |
| Spelling | Deferred to second grade | — | Nothing this year |
| Grammar | First Language Lessons 1, oral, optional | 10 min | One book, reusable across children |
| Science | Equipment kit, library books, free video lessons | Weekly | One-off kit; the rest free |
| History/geography | Read-alouds and a wall map | Rides along | Free |
| Art | Real materials, plus a method book if you want one | Weekly | Consumable supplies; one reusable book |
| Music and outdoor time | Listening, and going outside | Daily | Free |
I’m not going to quote prices, because publishers reprice and a number typed in August is wrong by spring — check each publisher’s own site, since every one of them posts current pricing and free samples. The shape of the cost is the useful part, and it’s this: the only unavoidable annual, per-child spending in first grade is consumables — the phonics workbook, the math worktexts, the handwriting book. Three thin books. Everything else on that table is either a one-off that outlives the child who used it first, or free.
Which makes the two classic first-grade overspends easy to name. The first is buying a boxed program for the subjects that are free anyway — science and history at six are a library basket, and paying for them buys you a schedule rather than content. The second is buying manipulative sets by the shelf: one set of cubes, some coins, and a ruler will carry you to fourth grade. Non-consumables also turn up secondhand constantly, because the barely-touched boxes from other families’ August panics have to go somewhere.
The one-afternoon assembly
Our full first-grade stack: phonics spine + Explode the Code, a math worktext + cubes, a handwriting book, ten oral minutes of grammar we could have skipped, a read-aloud basket, a library day. Total daily formal time: about an hour, split into short blocks with the reading first, while the child is fresh.
Choosing it took one afternoon of comparing published samples — every publisher above posts them free — and that’s the method I’d defend: shortlist three per subject, read samples with your actual kid in mind, decide, stop. The same afternoon-sized discipline inoculates you against the mid-August catalog panic that fills used-curriculum sales with barely-touched boxes. And it’s worth knowing in advance that first grade is the cheapest and simplest year of elementary homeschooling you’ll get. Nothing in the stack above is hard. The year that adds real subjects, real sequences and real decisions is the next one.
FAQ: first grade homeschool curriculum
What subjects does a first grader need in homeschool?
Reading/phonics, math, and handwriting as daily formal work; science, social studies, and art through read-alouds and life. Verify your own state’s current subject requirements — most are satisfied by exactly this core plus a good library habit.
How long should first grade homeschool take per day?
Commonly around one to two hours of formal work, in short blocks. Ours runs about an hour. If it’s stretching past two, something in the stack — usually the schedule, not the child — needs trimming.
Do you need an all-in-one boxed curriculum for first grade?
No — subject-by-subject picks are cheaper and easier to fit to a specific kid. But an all-in-one is a legitimate convenience choice if decision fatigue is the bigger threat to your school year. Buy the problem you actually have.
Do first graders need spelling and grammar programs?
Usually neither. First-grade spelling is phonics under another name, and grammar before fluent reading is teaching swimming on dry land. If you want grammar, keep it oral and ten minutes; a separate spelling sequence is the normal second-grade addition.
How much does first grade homeschool curriculum cost?
Prices change too often to quote, but the shape doesn’t: three consumable workbooks a year per child (phonics, math, handwriting), one-off manipulatives that last for years, and a library card covering science, history and read-alouds. It’s the least expensive year of elementary homeschooling.
What’s the most important first grade subject to get right?
Reading. A finished phonics job makes every later subject cheaper to teach, because the kid who decodes fluently can be handed a book. If the budget or the energy only stretches to one strong program, make it the reading one.
