Despite starting kindergarten with my daughter this coming weekend, I haven’t chosen a main kindergarten curriculum yet. Do I feel like I should be panicking? Nope. I really love some advice that Sarah Miller of Homeschooling 4 Him and Reading Better Together often shares: start slow and try starting with one subject for the first week and gradually adding in other subjects. As we’re moving up into kindergarten and transitioning into more formalized learning, I think this advice is perfect for us even as year-round homeschoolers.

Language Arts

One big focus this year will be handwriting and learning to read. My daughter knows her letters and their sounds, but she tends to draw them how she wants to, not in the typical/acceptable way she should. She’s been practicing, but I found a Canva template with large letters with the dots, numbers, and arrows to indicate the correct way to write each letter. I printed this template and added it to her new kindergarten binder in sheet protectors.

We are continuing to work our way through Reading Better Together. It’s a challenge, but every small success adds up. This program includes many side-by-side books. I think it would be worthwhile to put these books into her binder to pull out and practice each day. As she progresses and the lessons get harder, reading the books from earlier lessons with more ease will allow her to see and feel her progress.

We’ll continue the 1000 Book Project (check out Miss Michelle’s Book Nook next month to learn more about this!), regular visits to the library, and finish the last couple of units from Rabbit Trails through Literature: Preschool. We previously started Easy Peasy Kinder-Writing, and I’m currently planning to continue to use the worksheets I printed and possibly skip around through the lessons.

History

We plan to continue through Bede’s History of ME. We’ve done almost half of the lessons and it’s been fun to explore the histories of our family, some holidays, toys, and more. Once we finish that book, we’ll move forward into Bede’s History of US. I really like how the series is built on learning about history by creating timelines. The initial pages were over-simplified in a way that easily explained the concept of history to young children.

Since we have upcoming vacations planned, we can also explore the history of the places we will be visiting, including Pearl Harbor (!!!!) and several other areas. I don’t think I necessarily need to create unit studies, but I can share the history and maybe find some books on the subject, and then we’ll learn more when we visit.

Math

I don’t think we need a specific curriculum for math this year, but I have a lot of ideas in mind. Before we started homeschooling, my husband and I purchased Brainquest books for each grade and the summers in between grades. We also have a collection of Highlights books that include math.

Although I have those and other math resources, I think a lot of it will be less organized. My daughter loves to randomly ask math problems throughout the day, so I know that she’s interested in learning. I printed a Canva template of math flashcards that we can use to replicate what she does. I can also write down math problems to teach her to add. She has a small abacus to help her find the answer, and I also filled gloves with rice so she can use those to help with adding and subtracting.

Aside from all of that, if we choose a main curriculum that includes math, we can use that also or instead of the other choices. No matter what, I want to give her ample opportunities to learn and be challenged because it seems like that’s what she wants and needs to keep her attention.

A Main Kindergarten Curriculum

As I mentioned earlier, I haven’t chosen a main curriculum for kindergarten yet. There are tons of curriculums available so I’ve been exploring our options. My basic criteria:

• the curriculum is basically open and go without a ton of prep
• the curriculum doesn’t have a supply list a mile long with super specific items for each day. I don’t mind getting supplies, and I expect to need some, but my hope is that the list a within reason and includes things that can be used over and over again instead of wasting extra
• I don’t want to have to spend a long time reading a teacher’s manual to figure out how to teach the lessons
• the lessons aren’t too long for a 5 year old’s attention span
• includes a flexible lesson plan that we can fit around our daily and weekly activities instead of feeling like we’re tied to a desk

Although it sounds pretty specific, I don’t think anything here should be a stretch for a kindergarten curriculum. When I remember my time in kindergarten (too many years ago to count), I remember it being fun, a lot of playing, a lot of arts and crafts, and not a ton of work. These days, full-day kindergarten is common (my nephew starts soon!), but I attended a school with AM and PM classes so the days were short.

We love books and reading in our home, so my ideal curriculum would likely include storybooks, but they’d be common enough that we can request them from the library, and few enough that we wouldn’t feel overwhelmed. I’ve seen curriculums that include 20-50+ books and they expect you to purchase all. I repeat, we love books and reading in our home, but that’s not really feasible for us. Aside from not having the space to house that many books… for each grade level… the cost of buying so many books that may only be read once is just impractical.

We also need to take into account whether we want a secular curriculum or one that’s religious-based. And due to the varied tents of Christian faith, my preference would be a Catholic curriculum if we go that route. All Christians have certain commonalities of beliefs, but Catholics believe in transubstantiation where the bread and wine at the Mass become the body and blood of Christ. There are other differences as well—even the number of books in the Bible is different for Catholics. Due to these differences, if we want a religion-based curriculum, it’s easier to use a Catholic curriculum instead of trying to adapt a general Christian one.

Additional Activities

In addition to everything else on this list, we may also use daily bins for fun activities (workbooks, building blocks, dot markers, painting, etc). We will definitely continue to do experiments, use science kits, and test out our microscope. We have diamond art, along with other crafts. And our local library is going to have weekly homeschool meet-ups starting in September! I don’t think she’ll join a sports program again like she did at the beginning of the summer, but trips to the local park, zoos, and other places to walk, play, and see animals and nature will definitely be planned.

And I know it sounds like a lot, but, as I referenced in the math section, my daughter thrives on challenges and prefers variety to keep her attention. She also loves to learn, so I want to give her ample opportunities to expand her interests. And it really might be a lot, or it might be too little. I’m not married to any of these choices and am willing to add things, subtract things, or change things up to help her learn and grow.

I look forward to sharing reviews and updates on how the year is going in the coming months – make sure you subscribe to the newsletter to ensure you don’t miss a thing. Thanks for joining us In Our Homeschool.