Homeschooling Twinadoes Language Arts is a secular, academically rigorous curriculum with integrated play, movement, and creativity. For a full description of the teaching philosophy behind this curriculum, please see Curriculum Overview.

The following will give you more information about First Grade specifically and the pilot program beginning in the fall of 2026.

What Your Child Will Learn

Homeschooling Twinadoes Language Arts honors and leads with your child’s thoughts and ideas, while providing explicit instruction in

• reading comprehension strategies,
• grammar,
• writing,
• vocabulary,
• visual analysis, and
• literature studies.

View the full Scope and Sequence to see the skills covered in each of these aspects of language arts.

Book List

My goal when making the book list for this curriculum was to choose truly deep literature with beautiful illustrations created by diverse authors and illustrators. Each day, lessons are centered around the book for the week. View the full Book List for a complete list of texts.

What Your Child Needs to Know to Start

This first grade curriculum does not presume your child has had any formal instruction in language arts before. If you have spent a lot of time reading together and talking about what you read, your child will be well prepared.

If your child has been learning to read, it may make some activities easier, but it is not required. All lessons and activities can be completed with you as the parent reading and scribing for your child.

Format and Scheduling

• The Instructor’s Manual includes all lessons for the week, with guidance for teaching important concepts.
• The Student Notebook is a place for your child to collect and develop their thoughts about the readings, as well as complete fun activity pages practicing important concepts.
• The Activities & Games Book includes all the printables needed for hands-on activities, including printable board and card games.

This first grade curriculum includes 32 weeks of lessons with 4 lessons per week. Each day’s lesson is designed to be completed in around 30 minutes, though the time you take on some activities will fluctuate depending on your child’s interest. Lesson 4 is generally designed to be a lighter day, so if there are any earlier lessons you haven’t been able to complete, you can carry these over to your fourth day of studies.

Sample

View the Instructor Manual and Student Notebook pages for Week 1 to get a feel for what lessons are like and whether they are the right fit for your family.

Fall 2026-Spring 2027 Pilot Program

What You Need

Books

Your main expense to complete this program will be obtaining the books for the lessons. You are welcome to use your library as much as possible for this but should be mindful that you need to complete the lessons in order so you may want to check books out ahead of time to ensure you have them when you need them.

I do highly recommend having physical copies of the books available whenever possible to use in your lessons. Your child will be interacting with the written text and illustrations, and many activities will be difficult or even impossible to do without a physical copy (for example, opening the book to examine the front and back cover together).

If you cannot obtain a physical copy for any of the books, I recommend an e-book copy, rather than using a read aloud, so that you can control how quickly you proceed through the text and linger on relevant pages as much as needed.

Printing

Almost everything else you need will be included in the PDFs I send over the course of the year. You will want a way to print the Student Notebook and Activities & Games Book. These are only in black and white; color printing is not necessary. There are some games that include cards and are best printed on cardstock. You may also want manila folders to glue your board game boards to.

Additional Materials

You’ll frequently use sticky notes as a way to annotate the books without writing in them, so you’ll want a good supply of those.

Some activities use additional materials. I’ve tried to give multiple options for these so that you can use what you already have and not go out to buy new things specific to these activities. You can always complete the lessons without these additional materials, though they will not be as fun.

For activities that suggest you Make It Big! you will want a way to write on the wall. You could do these with a whiteboard/chalkboard, a giant notepad, a big roll of paper, or by taping multiple small pieces of paper together.

Pilot Program Process

At the start of the pilot program, I will send 4 weeks of lessons to all participants.

Every 4 weeks (or once you’ve finished the lessons), you’ll provide feedback using a short form before I send you the next 4 weeks of lessons. Please know that if you work ahead in the lessons, you may have a short wait while I am finalizing the next 4 weeks to send to you.

In addition to the feedback form, you’ll have access to a private online group where you can interact with other families in the program and ask me questions. I will check in regularly to provide further support. I’ll also be gathering information from this group in order to improve the lessons for future families.

What It Costs

The cost of this pilot program is pay what you want. I hope that you’ll pay what you feel the value of the program is (considering this is the pilot stage and the curriculum is unpolished), and if that’s not in your budget, please feel free to pay what you can afford.

I hope that by providing the pilot in this manner, I can reach more families who need this kind of program. Any funds you choose to provide will support me in revising the first grade program and beginning development of the second grade level. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to me above and beyond any funds you choose to give.

Interest Form

If you are interested in participating in the pilot program, please fill out the form here.

Thank you for your interest, and I will be in contact soon!