I can hardly believe this year of preschool has come and gone, but I’m finalizing our homeschool kindergarten curriculum choices and making plans nonetheless.
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Our two years of preschool have to end at some point, right? Even when I’m feeling nostalgic and unhurried to move her along to kindergarten, I can assure you that my daughter is sitting on go. She’s been ready to get started with kindergarten, or so she tells me.
Here’s what she’s got in store for her kindergarten year:
Homeschool Kindergarten
Curriculum Choices
I’m not sure I can accurately convey how excited I am to be using Five in a Row Volume I for the foundation of Prissy’s kindergarten year. In fact, I’m having a tough time not jumping in and starting it right away. The premise of FIAR is to use daily readings from quality literature choices as the basis for unit study-structured learning.
Here are a few of the literature choices from Volume I:
- Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
- The Story About Ping
- Papa Piccolo
- A Pair of Red Clogs
- Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
Through these timeless books and many others, we’ll explore social studies, language arts, science, math, and art in a way that makes learning fun and natural. It’s important to me that my kids still have time to be kids; FIAR encourages that through the books themselves, the discussions, and hands-on aspects in each unit.
I’m also grateful that FIAR‘s literature-based approach won’t consume my days. I’ll be able to work with Prissy, but also be available for my sixth grader as needed and still be finished with our school day by lunch time on most days.
Kindergarten Math
Our Five in a Row lesson plans include gentle math elements, but we’ll also add a full math curriculum to the mix. We’ll use the kindergarten level of CTC Math to help us go beyond number recognition to addition and subtraction basics, patterns, and other primary math concepts.
Kindergarten Language Arts
We started having fun with Preschool Learning Letter by Letter last summer and we’ve been using it on and off all year. It’s primarily a preschool curriculum, but many of the included elements can easily carry over to kindergarten.
We’ll use the remaining pages and activities for handwriting practice, letter recognition, and logical application. We’ll also tackle the lapbook portion of the curriculum, which has been completely untouched thus far. This year is the year to rectify that and make the most of this fantastic resource!
Our reading efforts for kindergarten will also be a continuation of our preschool time. The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading will be my primary reading resource and I’ll work in my other favorite pre-reading resources as needed.
This is where the kindergarten curriculum plans stop. The rest of her year will be spent learning through play and observation. She’ll also join in with big brother when appropriate and learn alongside him.
Are you homeschooling kindergarten this year? I’d love to hear what you’ve got planned in the comments below.
Got pointers for homeschooling kindergarten? I welcome your words of wisdom in the comments too. I’ll take all the suggestions I can get!
Can you tell me what is in the picture of your daughter working on math on a tablet? What is this program, CTC math? Is CTC math the full math curriculum you used?
Thanks!
Hi Adrianna,
CTC Math is the full curriculum we used up until we finished the Kindergarten level. We had a great experience with it and will likely use it again for first grade math. I reviewed it here if you’d like to learn more about it.
I’m currently working through Life of Fred Apples with her, but that’s only because she finished CTC Kindergarten earlier than I expected. She started it in the Spring of this year and finished it a couple of weeks ago. However, she’s still a four year-old and I don’t want to push her into first grade work too early. ;)
Five in a Row is so dear to my heart! You’ve made some wonderful choices. Hopping over from the “Back-to-School” Blog Hop.
Happy Homeschooling!
I’m so excited for you! I hope you enjoy FIAR. I’ll be continuing to use it with my girls too. It’s such a wonderful way for them to learn and make great memories.
I’m totally filing all of your FIAR units away for future use, Monica. Your stuff is great! :)
I have one starting kindergarten, too, AND we are also using FIAR. I’m actually using it for three of my kids. I used it years ago when we first started homeschooling, but I had borrowed it and had to return it. A few months ago, I was really missing it, so I bought it and we dove in right away. So far, we’ve one A Story About Ping, Lentil, and Madeline. Since I have six different kids doing two separate unit studies, we only do FIAR every other day, taking two weeks to complete a book. The non-FIAR days, my soon-to-be kindergartner does math through Christian Liberty Press, along with their phonics book. She also really enjoys Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, so we usually alternate that with the phonics book. Her “school day ” usually takes only about an hour. The rest of the day is for her to explore as she chooses!
That sounds a lot like our school day. There’s no need for her to spend more than an hour on school. For her age anything more is just busywork!
Sounds like you’ve got a good system in place. That makes sense to alternate FIAR and I like that it doesn’t rush you through a unit.