YEAR ONE-GRADE ONE
The Earth-Studies Units-This is the central pillar of our homeschool, everything else is based around this program. It is a chronological history studies curriculum incorporating science education. The great thing about the program is that it's free, using resources from all over the internet. A second great thing about the ESU is that it utilizes a multi-sensory method to teach children, and it is easily adaptable to various learning ages. Check it out here.
Handwriting-We do copywork using a primer composition journal and Aesop's Fables; with journal writing on Thursdays (essentially a creative writing/drawing period).
Reading-We do LOTS of reading: story time (mom reads classic literature from our reading list); oral reading (Winter reads assigned early chapter book); independent reading (Winter reads book of choice); and bedtime stories (parent reads book(s) of child's choice), too.
Language Arts Skills-aka: English, Grammar, Spelling & Vocabulary-At the start of year one we utilized Grade 1 SPECTRUM-Little Critter Workbooks for Phonics and Reading Comprehension. As the year progressed and Winter's reading abilities were exposed we left the Phonics behind, finished the reading comprehension book, and moved into a BRIGHTER CHILD Grade 2 workbook for English skills.
Mathematics-basically I played this one by ear--mainly focusing on the topics typically covered in the first grade: addition and subtraction introduction, memorization of addition facts, telling-time, skip-counting, money, greater-than/less-than, and place value. We used various multi-sensory approaches to input the lessons, including: games, hands-on lessons, whole-body techniques, oral-repetition, and worksheets.
Social Skills-perhaps many homeschool families do not do this, but Winter struggles with social situations as a result of his "autistic disorders", so we actively teach various coping methods and social strategies through various methods. Such as social stories, social comic-strips, play-acting, and the use of the control-scale, which rates his control level on a scale of 1-5, 5 being loss-of-control. This is not to be confused with "social studies".
Life-Skills-Like many little boys, Winter struggles with fine motor coordination. His handwriting has improved greatly over the last year, yet he still cannot button his own pants, shirts, or even put his own socks on. Also, as a stalwart under-achiever he's not one to take the initiative, so I consider life-skills part of our curriculum, as it is the goal for all children that they be able to function on their own once they've left home. This part of our curriculum involves practice dressing ones' self, proper bathing techniques, personal hygiene like brushing your teeth, chores, and cooking.
Art-Since Winter struggles so with his hands, you can imagine he's not a keen artist. It's a battle to get him to draw a picture, let alone practice crafts. However as an artist myself it's important to me that he have some understanding of the basic principles of art, and it's power for self-expression. For Year One I was satisfied just to get him to practice self-expression, and he seems to prefer sculpture, using FIMO. With Year Two impending, I'm thinking I'd like to get into more detail and instruction with Winter. Something along the lines of art appreciation and some of the introductory principles of art (ie-drawing and mixing colors, etc.).
Music Appreciation-Music has not been a major priority for our homeschool, as much as I long to see my children playing violins and cellos. Winter has an "auditory sensitivity" that inhibits such auditory activities, so I focused our Year One music lessons on simply getting him to listen to music. We used his favorite medium to make it palatable to him--the computer! We utilized YouTube to watch various music pieces, such as Peter and the Wolf, and Disney's Fantasia. He particularly enjoyed Peter and the Wolf.
Computer-Time Friday-This began as an incentive to get Winter to do five days of school-work a week. If he cooperated Monday through Thursday and did his school-work, on Friday we would do his lessons on the computer. We used educational games to practice math-facts and language arts concepts. He practiced typing with an open-source software program that came with our Ubuntu installation. Both teacher and pupil particularly loved using the interactive science programs at shepphardsoftware.com to practice concepts like the food chain, habitats, and animal classification. And, as I mentioned above, we used YouTube to incorporate music appreciation. Also, Winter especially enjoys watching TinTin episodes at YouTube:)