My Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum: What We Study
In my last post, I shared the styles of homeschooling that have influenced the kindergarten curriculum I've created this year for King Sturdy.
In this post, I'm going to tell you which subjects we're focusing on and how we organize our learning process.
Subjects
Our plan includes six subjects. Of course, the three Rs (reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic):
Reading |
Writing |
Math |
Next, a jewel from common core:
Language gamesAs it turns out, spoken language exercises are important in common core, something that wouldn't have occurred to me. |
Finally, two others that are personally important to me:
World studiesWhen I was a kid, I struggled to develop any awareness of the larger world because I'd never been provided a coherent context to hang it on. I couldn't retain a shred of what I learned in social studies or history, because I couldn't connect it to anything familiar. Cultivating King Sturdy's familiarity with various parts of the world—the stories, sounds, flora, fauna and so on of different regions—has been a priority for me since he was a toddler. |
Nature studiesIn our family, we value being able to make sense of the real world, too, not just the one that we humans have constructed for ourselves. For example, when an animal has crossed your path, do you notice the signs of its passing? When you look at the clouds, can you recognize not just what they are, but what they're planning to do next? |
Organization
To help my not-yet-literate kindergartener track with these subjects, I've created a picture chart where each subject is defined by a different color.
For each subject, I created eight different activities. To keep these straight, I made a deck of cards, with each suit representing a different subject. The reading activities are the purple cards; the blue suit is for writing; the green cards are for math.
Where did I find the activities? I made them up, drawing from the influences I mentioned earlier. Some are straight out of common core for kindergarten, some reflect the classical process, and some are my own invention. For your reference, here they are.