Homeschool Kindergarten Curriculum Picks

Part of homeschooling is planning ahead and looking towards what your goals are. This is future Ticia 2020 adding in this introduction, and it’s amazing how many of the plans I was talking about in theoretical became facts. So, if you’re wondering what homeschool preschool and kindergarten curriculum or goals look like, this is your chance to see it.

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Original Kindergarten curriculum choices

Hi, Future Ticia 2023 here, I’m doing an audit of old posts and realized while this is about our kindergarten goals, it really is about our kindergarten curriculum choices, so I thought it would be helpful to include the official list of curriculum I thought I would use in kindergarten:

• My Father’s World Kindergarten– I quickly figured out the reading curriculum was not going to work for my kids, so I briefly used…
• Sing, Spell, Read, and Write– While they started off doing well with this curriculum, it quickly became clear it was not working as the lessons progressed to way to long for their abilities. Why is there a 50-page story for a child in their first few months of reading?
• Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons– a friend of mine swore by this, and we quickly figured out what worked for her did not work for me
• Math U See Kindergarten– if your kids are solidly counting you can probably just skip to Alpha, which is what I did with The Artist when she hit kindergarten
• Many many books from the library, check out some of the book lists

Reading Kindergarten Goals

I’ve finally broken down and printed off Progressive Phonics.  My kids seem to be enjoying it, and we’re working our way through it.  So far they’ve done 3 pages in the first week.  The problems I’m working through with it are:
1.  How do you store it?  For the first book I printed it off, folded the pages in half, and hole-punched it.  This seems to be mostly working, but isn’t quite perfect.
2.  They’re getting silly occasionally, and know they are.  This is a constant struggle in schooling.
3.  Often they don’t try to read it, but just guess the word they think should be there.  On the first page Princess got stuck on the work brother.  “I see my little cat,” is what it says, but she says it along with me “I see my little BROTHER!”  and it is yelled that enthusiastically.  So, I’m struggling with them on that one.

Future Ticia 2020: We struggled with finding a program that worked for us, and tried several different programs before landing on All About Reading (when it came out) and used it until they were reading chapter books.

Kindergarten Math

I came to the conclusion the kids needed more in this area.  I’ve also come to the conclusion they know more than they’re letting on.  I went ahead and ordered the Math-U-See curriculum and the different manipulatives that go with it.  Even if I don’t stick with Math-U-See the manipulatives are close enough to Base 10 blocks I can use them with something else.

I’m going to keep doing the calendar time we’ve been doing, they could still use more practice with this, and I like them seeing the progression of the days of the week.  I’m also thinking I’m going to add in a daily time problem, and a daily coin problem, counting pennies, and eventually nickels.  We’ll see.

Future Ticia 2020: We used Math U See all the way through their elementary curriculum and then switched to Teaching Textbooks. Now, we’re using a combination of Teaching Textbooks and Life of Fred Math.

Science Goals

This area I think is going really well.  Since I started making myself sit down and do something at least once a week that is science-related so I could have a post every Sunday for my Science Sunday.  They’re not always earth-shatteringly amazing, but it’s something every week.  I still think there’s room for growth, but it’s coming along.

For next year I’m thinking about going with Apologia science, but for now I’m going to finish out My Father’s World and work science into the themes we’re doing.  I’ve figured out that MFW doesn’t quite work for me because I don’t want to buy a comprehensive curriculum that I then buy another curriculum to go with it for science and math and so forth…..

Future Ticia 2020: We did use Apologia all through elementary, with a short break in middle school because I was burned out, and then switched back to Apologia because it’s got the best high school science.

Social Studies

Another area I’m going to start working more on.  This spring we’re going to start working on Geography and learning the 50 states.  I participated in a postcard exchange over at Children Grow, Children Learn, Children Explore and got lots of great cards, and mine should be arriving any day to everyone who I owed a card too. If anyone hasn’t participated yet and still wants a card from Texas let me know, and I’ll happily trade cards with you.

Next year I’m thinking about getting Tapestry of Grace, Mystery of History, or Konos.  They all go with teaching history in 4 year cycles.  I’m leaning most towards Tapestry of Grace or Mystery of History (the latter because I have a friend here who is using it).

Future Ticia 2020: I used Mystery of History for elementary and part of middle school, for high school I’m writing my own history lessons, which may definitively prove I’m insane.

Fine Arts, the area I struggle with

This includes a little bit of everything.  I’m working to play music more often, and since my husband gave me a player that my iPhone can hook up to that is much easier to do.

I also want to start introducing real art to them, you know classic artists, and start showing them more of that.  I haven’t quite decided how I’m going to do that.  At some point, I want to take them to the Austin Museum of Art, but I think that’s something I need another adult to go with me.  I could maybe do it on my own, but………

Future Ticia 2020: This is an area I struggled with for a while because I never found a curriculum or plan I could consistently use. However, we did lots of art projects over the years, especially when they were young. The best plan I had was various artist studies.

Final thoughts on our Homeschool Kindergarten Curriculum

So, that’s my goals for the rest of the school year and a little about what I’m thinking for next year.

Oh, and here’s my children’s medical procedure tally so far, just because it amuses me:

Superman: sonogram of his head at 6 months to see if it’s too big, several sonograms of the stomach for various reasons eventually ending in, hernia surgery, CT scan for when he fell at Christmas on the ice

Batman: sonogram for tummy ache that had us scared out of our wits, end result: he has gas.  I got to sit there for 2 hours after they gave him medicine that helped him pass gas.  It was not pleasant.  Glue from his fall in Galveston

Princess: X-ray for her legs, apparently one is growing slightly faster than the other.  In 2 weeks I’ll be adding surgery to correct her toes that are growing crooked.

Future Ticia 2020 says that the list is significantly longer now. That’s what happens when you have three active kids, and most of the injuries seem to be head wounds from falling while playing.

More early learning fun

• Where is the baby plant in the peanut?
• All About Us booklist
• How do trees grow?
• Nest Book list
• Wheat Doll: Westward Expansion book and project for kindergarten