Kindergarten

Five-year-olds had a big first, last week. They started school.

Parents were excited and weepy. Kids were excited and scared. Teachers were excited and reassuring. All the hubbub was sweet and exciting even from a distance, and a part of me wished I were part of it.

But only a part. This year King Sturdy begins kindergarten homeschool, which is exciting in its own way.

We've been homeschooling since he was two, because that's when he started showing an interest in it. We knew we'd be keeping it up at least until he was six, because his birthday falls just after the school year begins, and as a result he wasn't allowed to begin last year even though he was just days from turning five. I was grateful for the timing, actually; it allowed me another year to experiment with homeschooling, no pressure, no fork in the road. He's kindergarten age but he can't even go to school yet. No reason not to homeschool.

This year, now that he's five-going-on-six, this is the first moment of real choice. I don't have any plans past this year. We're taking it step by step. But for this year at least, we're staying home.

And now I'm going to tell you all about my kindergarten curriculum.

In the next couple posts, I'm going to share which homeschooling approaches I draw from, the subjects we're focusing on, how I've organized our study, the routine we follow and the specific activities we do. I want to put this information out there for anyone who finds themselves in a similar place, gathering ideas on how to organize their own course of study for kindergarten homeschool.

In my next post, I'll start with influences: the big-picture approaches to homeschooling and education that have helped shape the curriculum I've created for this year.