First Grade is finished

Well, almost, anyway. There are two more weeks left to co-op lessons. D. insists that we have to "learn" through the summer too (which we will, our days just will be even less structured). We learned a lot this year, I especially learned a lot about my own capabilities and I certainly have better idea of what I can and can't do, how to organize and mostly what NOT to do. I can tell that this year was much more challenging and that I was definitely too naive thinking that I got it all together jsut because Kindy was so smooth and easy for us. Now, about curriculum. Our co-op lends us books for the year, but this year I noticed that I rely on my own resources mostly. What we used:  

Writing: 

Coursive Writing worksheets generator for handwriting 

We played games

First Word Bank by Ruth Thomson, as well as Thesaurus helped us a lot.

You Can Write Awesome Stories really breaks down writing process for kids and gives exercises to practice each element.

Math

We used
Primary Mathematics 1b Textbook (Singapore Math)

Grade 2 Word Problems by Kumon are great but really repetitive, so I had to pick interesting bits from the book.

Reading
Our home library as well as public library is an endless source of great books.

Science
I mostly followed whatever they were doing in co-op and supplemented with various books from the library. I got  Activity Book Teacher's Guide (Scott Foresman Science, First Grade) from the co-op, but we hardly touched it.

History
Again mostly my own resources, such as a number of websites and books, Core Knowledge Series were of some help, but I didn't rely on them too much.

Art

The Usborne book of art ideas and variety of art albums are our sources this year. Geography National Geographic Atlas Of The World and Not for Parents Travel Book helped us with our culture/geography studies. So here we are, having had a nice year, ready for summer.

Summer check-in

Quick check-in, our summer is splendid so far. Lots of time outside, playing with friends, local library has some great programs this summer, so yeah, not much time for me left to blog.
As I've written before, I'm trying to maintain some kind of structure in our studies. I must confess it doesn't work quite as well as I hoped. For instance our "Native Americans" study had to be postponed because D. showed very little interest and just wanted to "rest" all the time. So rest it is. After a school year (even relaxed and easy one that we had) it is well deserved. There are only certain rules that I have in place: read whenever it is possible (don't have to ask twice- mama's boy will read anything he can get his hands on).
Our activities for rainy days  and quiet time are the following:
D. got interested in mazes again( he loves Maze Craze Series by Don Oliver) , as well as hidden pictures (this book is our favorite at the moment). He loves cross word puzzles  and word searches.This website allows you to make your own puzzles, it's just great.
He is really into board games lately: Our absolute favorite is : Enchanted Forest by Ravensburger. Mystery Garden is popular too. Rivers, Roads and Rails requires more patience, but total fun for the whole family.

So far, so good. I got my books for the first grade, gonna start planning soon. :)

Happy summer to friends and visitors!