A Taste of Homeschooling

Z's 1st Grade "Fun" Book List

The reason these are called "fun" books is because they are below Z's reading level.  He's currently on a 4th grade reading level, so his "fun" books are 1st-3rd grade reading level.  Z reads in the evening for 15 minutes right now but it will be going up to 30 minutes in 2 weeks.  Here's a list of the books he's read.  I will be adding to this as we go.

1. Little Bear
2. Little Bear's Visit
3. The Berenstain Bears' Big Machines
4. Paddington's Day Off
5. Paddington Cleans Up
6. Nate the Great and the Sticky Case
7. Nate the Great and the Lost List
8. Nate the Great Goes Undercover
9. Nate the Great and the Snowy Trail
10. Owl at Home
11. Mouse Soup
12. Uncle Elephant
13. Frog and Toad
14. Frog and Toad Are Friends
15. Frog and Toad Together
16. Frog and Toad All Year
17. Days with Frog and Toad
18. Nate the Great
19. Nate the Great and the Phony Clue
20. Nate the Great and Missing Key
21. Nate the Great and the Fishy Prize
22. Nate the Great and the Stolen Base
23. Nate the Great and the Pillowcase
24. Nate the Great and the Tardy Tortoise
25. Nate the Great Stalks Stupidweed
26. Nate the Great and the Musical Note
27. Nate the Great Goes Down in the Dumps
28. Nate the Great and the Mushy Valentine
29. Nate the Great and the Crunchy Christmas
30. Nate the Great Saves the King of Sweden
31. Nate the Great and the Case of the Fleeing Fang
32. Nate the Great and the Monster Mess
33. Nate the Great San Francisco Detective
34. Nate the Great and the Big Sniff
35. Nate the Great and the Owl Express
36. Nate the Great Talks Turkey
37. Nate the Great and the Hungry Book Club

Z's 1st Grade Assigned Reading List

This list consists of Z's independent assigned reading time during school-time.  These are 4th grade reading level books so they take him longer than his evening fun books.  Currently he's reading 15 minutes and we will increase that to 30 minutes in 2 weeks when we finish the phonics program.

1. The Golden Children's Bible - this is more of devotional time, not a book to check off the list and never read again
2. Christian Liberty's Nature Reader Book 1
3. Pompeii... Buried Alive - Kunhardt
4. King Midas and The Golden Touch - Craft
5. The Trojan Horse - Little
6. The Five Chinese Brothers - Bishop
7. Aesop's Fables

1st Grade Plants

We are finishing up 1st grade science with our plant study.  I'm using the DK Smithsonian Trees, Leaves, Flowers & Seeds: A Visual Encyclopedia of the Plant Kingdom as our spine.  We're reading through every page but I'm skipping over some of the middle-school level verbiage.  The pictures are absolutely amazing!  Everyone should own this book, whether or not you use it to teach plants, it's a great reference book and just enjoyable to look at.

I'm also using the books we own since the libraries here are still closed.  I'm so glad that I purchased so much from Scholastic's book club over the years and then some from used bookstores or garage sales.  We utilize the Magic School Bus DVD set we own and watched the 2 Botany-related episodes: Gets Planted and Goes to Seed.  We also did a worksheet from Considering God's Creation by Eagle's Wings.

I also plan on adding in a farm study, since it seemed like a great place to use these books we own:

We plan on using these kits below and a flower press kit we already own: