Great ideas for curricula

One of the things I've been most nervous about so far in my homeschool planning has been what I would even teach to a first grader? I don't remember first grade very well, let alone what I actually was taught. I found a couple of books on the subject of "what does your child learn in grade ". I also found a couple of nice websites with this same information! (maybe not as detailed):

What you can expect in 1st Grade

Grade by Grade Learning (from PBS)

My husband also suggested I look into what kids are learning at the top private schools in the country. So I found the top 20 prep schools, and looked at a few of the top 10. I found some really cool ideas there for K-2nd grades.

• In Kindergarden, these students are studying how the basic needs of food and clothing are met around the world and start learning about communities at different scales.
  
• The kids are always writing journals and are encouraged to write in all different genre.
• In mathematics the students learn how to express their problem-solving strategies both verbally and through writing to help them understand their own thinking and problem-solving process.

There are too many cool points to list here, but overall it seems that the students in these private schools are expected to write about all aspects of their education, and they engage in more complicated projects than I would have expected for younger children (which I think is great!). They are expected to utilize the scientific method extensively. Another thing to note, across the board these schools seem to heavily integrate all subjects. Social studies, language arts, science, math, and art will all stem from one major overall focus for the school year. So they aren't segregating the subjects and saying, "now we will study math." I definitely don't remember my personal public school experience being that integrative, and I think it is an important way to view the world and encourage children to learn.