Australian Homeschool Curriculum

Year One - Grade One

Ages 6-7

This is a suggested outline of how to organise your curriculum for Year One. Curriculum choice varies depending on the individual child and specific family's homeschooling needs. So feel free to change it as it suits you.

This guideline has been written with consideration of the Australian National Curriculum (ANC) and the methods of Charlotte Mason.

In Year One child only needs about one and a half to two hours formal sit down work 3-4 days per week.

The rest of the time should be spent on the activities of daily living, establishing good habits and learning through play and lots of conversation.

If you are new to homeschooling find out how to homeschool and spend these early years equipping yourself with the tools needed to teach.

See our how to homeschool booklists for more ideas.

Year One Scope & Sequence

• Bible: Basic Christian theology and Bible stories.
• English: Work on reading skills. Use Living books for literature. Begin copywork and narration.
• Math: Follow chosen math curriculum.
• Science and Nature Study: Living things & change of things; Light  & Sound; Habitats; Sorting/classification.
• History: Present and past family life in Australia
• Geography: ANC Big idea Not everywhere is the same

Homeschooling Downunder Year One Resources

Parent's Homeschooling Resource

These three little books are highly recommended.

The Three R's - Ruth Beechick

If you've  just started homeschooling, you need this set of three excellent books. Using  natural, effective methods, Beechick shows educators how to cut through all the fluff in curricula and draw out what really works. A motivated parent could use these booklets to make their own entirely adequate curriculum up to Grade Four. Don't try and homeschool without these. Review by Mary Collis

Curriculum Suggestions By Subjects

Bible

These books can be read as a daily devotion time with your children. They need not be at lesson time. You may find that they are best read at breakfast or bedtime.These books were also used in Foundation Year.

Scripture reading and Bible Stories from child appropriate Bible.

Leading Little Ones to God: A Child's Book of Bible Teachings by Marion Schoolland
I have read this resource to my children three times over. It breaks down the fundamentals of the Christian faith in to simple terms for children. It may seem a little old fashioned on first glance but the content is excellent. I highly recommend it.

English

Reading and Phonics Resources

Continue reading instruction and readers. For a list of readers see Teaching Reading Booklist.

Penmanship and Copywork

Penmanship:

Using the principles set out in Teaching Handwriting the CM Way start using our copywork ebooks.

• Beatrix Potter Classic Copywork
• Mother Goose Classic Copywork

Both Beatrix Potter and Mother Goose should be familiar to your child if covered in their read alouds.

Choose the font that you want. Australia uses an italics font but if you prefer ball and stick you can purchase your copywork books in that also.

If you haven’t already used Blinky Bill Alphabet ebook you can download that for free here.

Read Alouds

This is a delightful time to enjoy books while snuggled up on the couch with your young children. There are so many books to choose from. Learn the difference between a good and a bad book. Cultivate an appetite for quality living books.

Our read aloud suggestions correspond to some of our copywork resources. Begin the practice of narration to check your children's comprehension.

• Mother Goose Poetry and Nursery Rhymes. Lovely nursery rhymes to share with your children. Goes well with the Mother Goose Copywork
• Stories by  Beatrix Potter Introduce your children to Miss Moppet, Jeremy Fisher and Jemimah Puddleduck. Use this with Beatrix Potter Copywork

For this year you can also our world travel picture book list for read alouds. This interrelates with the history and geography component of the course.

OtherAustralian read alouds for this period include:

Dot and The Kangaroo by Ethel Pedley

The Spindles Series by Barry Chant (Stories with spiritual themes)

Math

"Mathematics depend upon the teacher rather than upon the textbook and few subjects are worse taught; chiefly because teachers have seldom time to give the inspiring ideas ... which should quicken imagination." Charlotte Mason

Get off to a good start with math by reading Ruth Beechick's The Three R's. She will give you ideas and tools on how to make maths an enjoyable topic for your children.

I don't want to sway you in a math program as I have jumped around a lot and that has had advantages and disadvantages. We currently use Saxon Math but that is not available until the higher grades. I can however recommend some popular programs amoungst homeschoolers.

• Math U See
• Singapore Math
• Rod and Staff Math (Book 1 only for Kinder grade 1)
• Targeting Math (Australian)
• Math Online - Read my review and find out about the homeschool discount

Nature Study and Science

Nature study and nature journaling develops skills of observation, record keeping and documentation. The ANC requirements for Year One includes: living things & change of things; light  & sound; habitats; sorting/classification. All of these can be taught using nature study and The Wonderland of Nature. If you have difficulty getting out and about just go to your backyard or look around your neighbourhood.

The Wonderland of Nature and Journal Chapters can be found on the lifecycles of insects, light and sound, different habitats. For classification the difference between moths and butterflies is a good chapter. This book can be read out of order if desired.

• Practice weekly nature walks with your kids.

If you have difficulty getting out and about just go to your backyard or look around your neighbourhood.

History and Geography

You will need a world map and an Australian map for this subject.

According to the Australian National Curriculum a child needs to understand the concept of past and present and understanding that not all people are the same.

These stories depict four different scenarios of people living in Australia. The message that we want to focus on is that people came to Australia from different places.

1. When I Was Little, Like You by Mary Malbunka. Discuss the book and point out the family history of this girl.
2. Isabella's Bed by Alison Lester locate South America where Isabella came from.
3. The Little Refugeeby Ahn and Suzi Do Trace Ahn's journey from Vietnam to Malaysia to Australia
4. The Road to Goonong by David Cox. Find Goonong.  Talk about how this families life changed because of the drought.

World Geography

Continuing with the theme that people come from different places and that they have similarities and differences you can use picture books from around the world to familiarize your child with the geography of the world. This also compliments the Australian history objective to understand families and their stories.

For each story I suggest that you find the country read about on a map and if you desire place a marker to show where you have read about a story from this place.

• World Picture Booklist

Buy yourself a good world map and use this list of picture books to take yourself around the world with literature. Make up your own unit study of these countries as you go.