Kindergarten in our Home: Fall 2015

So Miss Elizabeth has finally officially joined our ranks as a kindergartener.  I don't think kindergarten is technically necessary....but when you are the youngest and are desperately wanting to be included in what is going on, and you have begged all spring to learn how to read and Mama has taken so long to get around to beginning reading lessons that you start asking your brother, and you cry on your fifth birthday when Mama says you can't start Year One until you turn six...you get the idea.

As with all of the curriculum posts I will be posting, please take them as DESCRIPTIVE of what is currently happening in my home with my particular students.  These lessons have been planned with their needs and abilities and our overall goals in mind.  I share to give you a peek inside of our home, just as I like to get a peek inside the homes of others from time to time. :)

Our kindergarten time takes 30-45 minutes each day.  You can see where it fits into our daily routine here.

Phonics (10 minutes)
We follow the basic method outlined here and here.   Elizabeth is in the word-building phase at the moment.  We occasionally mix it up by reading a bit from Run, Bug, Run.  (I don't endorse the program associated with these readers by the way.  I have just appreciated the readers for a couple of mine who have stayed in the word-building phase for quite awhile.  They are sort of similar to the Bob books, but with nicer illustrations.)  I've been trying to take photos when we are doing reading lessons and someday hope to do a series on what reading lessons have looked like in our home.

Read-Alouds (10-15 minutes)
We read each day from:
The Real Mother Goose and The Children's Bible in 365 Stories and then one of the following that Elizabeth has chosen from her kindergarten shelf:

•  a Childhood of Famous Americans biography (currently Clara Barton)
•  Dooryard Stories (Pierson)
•  Faerie Gold (Hunsicker and Lindskoog)
• Chimney Corner Stories (Hutchinson)

I also still read to her from our selection of picture books or a chapter book of her choice after lunch while the big kids do lunch clean up.

Math (10 minutes)
We are using Singapore's Essential Math for Kindergarten.  I've not used this before (actually I've used something different for kindergarten with all of my kids!), but chose this for her since I am using Singapore with the older two and it seemed the simplest thing to do. :)  Each page has a simple hands-on suggestion at the bottom with an accompanying very simple workbook exercise (so far it's just been concepts like same, different, matching sets, etc).  This is her favorite 'school' thing to do with mom by far.  (She says it's because she likes coloring the pages when we're done.)

Handwriting (less than 5 minutes)
I have a little workbook for this, which I thought she would be ready for.  But in reality she is finding it frustrating.  She knows how to form a lot of her letters (she has been writing her name and trying to write other words for some time now).   So I think we will set it aside for now and work more on getting the strokes in the right order, etc, in a more free-form way - using a salt tray or whiteboard for now, and come back to the lined pages in the workbook later.

James' Year 0.5 (Kindergarten) Plans

James is 5 and a half years old.  Technically, he could have started Kindergarten this past fall, but for a variety of reasons we decided to wait on officially enrolling him with our co-op/umbrella school as a Kindergartener until this coming fall, when he will be 6.  I hadn't really planned on doing any formal kindergarten work with him until then.  We've done a bit of work informally on and off over the past couple of years, but it hasn't ever been consistent aside from him joining us for Tea Time.

 

 

But then, he taught himself how to write all his letters (using a dry-erase tracing book).  He took the little bit of phonics and word-building work I had done with him and ran with it, and the next thing I knew he was reading Dr Seuss, and then just about anything he could get his hands on.  And  then he started inserting his own comments and opinions on the school books I was reading with Michelle. 

 

It was time to kick it up a notch.

 

Ambleside Online doesn't offer an official kindergarten year, and Year 1 isn't meant to be started with a child younger than 6 years old.  Those who need or want something for a kindergarten child usually end up cobbling together what is sometimes referred to as 'Year 0.5' – a transition between the informal preschool (Year 0) years and officially beginning Year 1.  Here are the resources that we are using for our Year 0.5:

 

Reading: He reads aloud to me daily  from the Treadwell Reading Literature readers or other appropriate-level books, such as the Little Bear series.   As needed, we do a bit of word-building or word-visualization using letter tiles at the white-board.

Handwriting: He copies 1 short sentence from his reader, directly underneath a model.

Math: We are using MEP Year 1 very, very slowly, spending 2-3 days on each lesson, with heavy emphasis on the hands-on activities in the lesson plans.

 

Read-Aloud List:

Poetry (Daily): Mother Goose rhymes, Lavendar's Blue, Eric Carle's Animals, Animals

AND one of the following:

Literature: The Wonder Clock (Pyle)

History: Fifty Famous People (Baldwin)

Natural History: Among the Farmyard People (Pierson)

Geography: Highroads to Geography (Anonymous)

 

I am not yet asking for narrations from these readings, although sometimes we will talk about what he liked or didn't like about a story.  Sometimes he offers a narration on his own.  But we will wait until after his 6^th birthday in June to really begin narration in earnest.

 

Notes: Total Time for all of this is 30-40 minutes per day, aiming for 4x per week.  He also joins us for Tea Time which is another 30 minutes or so, and often for Drawing and Nature Journaling on the days we do those.   Also, keep in mind that this is my plan for James, meeting him where he was at.  Most students don't start kindergarten already having taught themselves how to read and write. J   Typically, kindergarten students will just be beginning reading and handwriting instruction.  See this very helpful blog series for hints on how to approach these subjects Charlotte Mason style.

Our Schedule, Part Three (What I Do with My Toddler)

Awhile back I did a two part series about how I handle scheduling in our homeschool. Here is part one and part two. I thought I would come back and add a part three to tell you about how I handle our toddler during school time. For awhile, we tried to do school during nap time, but then I realized that I need that downtime in the afternoon every bit as much as the kids do. And unlike my son, this toddler is not content to play fairly quietly by herself nearby. She is busy. Curious. Impulsive. Likes to jump, climb, run, and scream. Needs to be redirected towards constructive activities. Often. Very classic last-born, extroverted, 2-year-old.

She's cute though, isn't she? =) We think so too.

After a bit of brainstorming and tweaking, this is what I came up with. We've been using this system for about a couple months now, and while we certainly have 'off' days, overall it's working quite well for us. You will remember from my previous post about our daily schedule that I organize our day into blocks. (I've switched around our blocks a bit since my previous post, but the idea remains the same.) Basically, I have chosen an activity for Elizabeth to correspond with each block. This gives enough variety that usually she can "last" through the whole block without too much difficulty. I've also tried to strike a balance towards things that include her with us (because she so desperately wants to be involved in what we are doing) and things that will hopefully train her towards occupying herself independently. Right now, our schedule looks like this:

First Block - Elizabeth With Me: Before I start anyone's actual school work, I spend about 10-15 minutes JUST WITH ELIZABETH. We read a story together, just she and I, and then do some kind of simple activity. Often these days it's cut and paste (she's REALLY in to cut and paste right now). Sometimes puzzles. Sometimes playing with the alphabet letters. You get the idea. Basically just something simple that helps her feel a little more like she is involved and that we want her to be there. During this time Michelle (age 7) works on her independent work checklist and James (4) plays quietly by himself.

Second Block - Elizabeth With Michelle: I work with James for 20 minutes or so on word building and counting games. While I"m doing this, Michelle is responsible to do something with her little sister. Sometimes they read, sometimes they play or do puzzles, this morning they played playdough.

Third Block - Elizabeth With Me: This is our time where we do various things all together as a group - read poems, Aesop, sing French songs, etc. These are also the parts of our school morning that are the easiest to include the younger kids in. So, she is either on my lap during this time, or at the table doing something like scribble with dry erase markers or building with Math U See blocks. (I've also found that giving her time when it is OK to touch these things on the school table has helped her to keep her fingers out of them at other times, as a side benefit.) We do our French action songs at the end of this block which is a wiggle-reliever for all three kids.

Fourth Block - Snack Time: All three kids have a snack while I read aloud from a history or nature book (which Michelle narrates).

Fifth Block - Craft Time: I keep a special box of crafty things - paper scraps to cut up, coloring pages, dot markers, stickers, playdough, Kumon workbooks (for folding, cutting, mazes, etc) - that I don't get out at other times of day. Elizabeth and James get an activity out of this box while Michelle and I work together to finish her school work (going over her independent work, spelling, math, sometimes another read-aloud to narrate). There are heaps of ideas for busy bags for little ones out there on the internet, but frankly I don't have time to organize that kind of thing and I find that the simplest things are what keep my particular kids engaged the longest anyhow.

So that's what we do to keep our 2 year old happy and gainfully occupied for 2 hours while we try to do our schoolwork. Doesn't always work...but usually, it does. =)

How We Do....Preschool, Part 2

Did you read my first preschool post yet?   If you didn't, then go take a look at that first.  It explains my overall preschool philosophy and the first and most important things that I think preschoolers should be doing.  More important than what I will share in this post, actually.

Read it?  Good.  So let's move on...

The cheesy "I'm so excited" smile...

Disclaimer!
...but one more little disclaimer before we do. =)  Please know that this post is merely descriptive of what we are doing, not something that is meant to be prescriptive for all households.   Every child is going to be ready for doing number and letter activities at different ages...some will be younger and some will be older.  And that's totally normal and fine.  Please follow your child's lead with early learning activities.  If they are frustrated or uninterested in what you are presenting to them, then back off for awhile and try again later.  The preschool and early elementary years are primarily for developing a love of learning, so don't kill it by pushing your child too much or too soon. 

Also,  I have picked and chosen the activities to fit our needs among many of the free, printable preschool curriculum sets out there. I don't use any of the programs mentioned below in their entirety, nor do I recommend doing so. But I still mention them here as I find them good sources to pick and choose from when looking for actvities for preschoolers. Go ahead and browse these sites and see what you can find to meet the goals you have for your child!

Working with Sandpaper Letters and Vowel/Consonant Cards

Coming Up with a Plan
Before James and I started 'school', I thought through what skills he already had.  He knew all of the capital letters by sight, and about half of the lower case.   He had a fairly good sense of print awareness from all of the reading we had done together (here is an interesting article on how to help your child develop print awareness).  He knew basic shapes and colors, and could count up to at least 10 by rote.   He had better fine motor skills that you might expect from a not-quite-4-year-old boy. 
Based on that, I decided to focus our 'school time' on these areas:

•  Letter recognition, especially associating upper case and lower case letters with each other.
•  Phonemic Awareness - letter sounds/phongrams and activities to introduce the idea of blending sounds together
•  Tracing
•  Associating numbers with actual amounts

The Early Years Chart at SCM might give you some ideas of where to begin with your child if you're not sure where to start.   I also really like Ruth Beechick's book The Three R's (especially the Reading section) for ideas of how to begin teaching basic skills to young children.

Going on a Letter Hunt...

Letter Recognition
For correlating upper and lower case letters, we are using the Bottle Cap Letter Match cards from the Confessions of a Homeschooler Letter of the Week curriculum set.  I print the card with lower case (or upper case) letters, and give him the opposite type of letters to match up.   Each 'letter' set has a different card, the link here goes to the letter D.  You can find all of the Letter of the Week posts here with each individual activity available as a free download, or you purchase the complete set in a single download here.
We also use the Letter Hunt stories from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

We also have some things like a Lauri Foam puzzle set and a set of Montessori sandpaper letters that we play around with.

Letter Cut and Paste

Phonemic Awareness
As advised in Denise Eide's book The Logic of English, I am presenting James with all of the sounds that each letter can make right from the get go, rather than just the primary sounds.  So, rather than just telling him that 'a' just says 'a' like in apple, we talk about how it also says "ay" and "ah".   (You can listen to Denise Eide's talks on the Logic of English here (scroll down until you see Denise Eide) for free, or purchase her book Uncovering the Logic of English on Amazon, which explains all of the sounds, phonograms, and spelling rules in the English language. Fascinating stuff, at least if you are a nerd like me!)  We also play games to help James develop phonemic awareness - an auditory awareness of sounds and how they are put together.  There is a great list of ideas on the Logic of English website to give you an idea of what I mean.  We use a basic, Montessori-style 3 part lesson when introducing new letters and sounds.

We have also played around with some activities for matching initial sounds with the correct letter:
Vowel and Consonant Cards from Homeschool Creations
Alphabet Cut and Paste Sheets from Homeschool Creations
Phonics Worksheets, part of the Raising Rock Stars Kindergarten Curriculum from 1+1+1=1  (each letter set includes one of these worksheets)

Tracing

Tracing
For tracing, we use the Montessori sandpaper letters, as I already mentioned.  We are also using the "Getting Ready" worksheets which you can find as part of the Raising Rock Stars Preschool Curriculum sets on 1+1+1=1 (scroll down to download the set for each letter of the alphabet).  James also likes tracing the letters at the beginning of each row on the Phonics Worksheets linked above.

Numbers
For numbers practice, we use a set of homemade sandpaper numbers and the unit blocks from Michelle's Math U See curriculum (but any kind of counters will do).   I have also printed off a few of the counting games that are included in the Confessions of a Homeschooler Letter of the Week Curriculum linked above, just to mix things up and keep them fresh since we typically spend a week or two on the same set of numbers.  James knew most of his numbers by sight before we started, so we have primarily worked on matching quantities with the corresponding numeral, counting out various quanities, and one-to-one correspondence.  We started with just 0-3, and have gradually worked our way up adding a new number or two at a time, again following the basic Montessori 3 part lesson format.   I have debated starting him on Math U See's Primer level, but the verdict is still out on that one.   Mostly because I hate to BUY something when there is so much free stuff out there...

Every once and awhile we will use the Color and Shape/Following Directions sheets that are part of the Raising Rock Stars Kindergarten sets as well.

Matching numbers and amounts

Practical Considerations
I like to print off  about 5 'letters' worth of activities at a time so I am not having to constantly return to the printer.  I slip all of the printable sheets we use into page protectors and we use dry erase markers to complete them.  That way we can re-do them as many times as we want.  I keep all of his old sheets in a binder that he can choose to revisit if he is looking for something to do while I am working with Michelle. (All of my kids also seem to think it is way, way cool to use dry-erase markers on stuff!)

On a typical day, we 'work' for 15-20 minutes.  I choose 1 or 2 of the letter/alphabet activities and a math activity for us to do together.  We don't necessarily do work everyday, especially if he is engrossed in something else at the time.  And we always try to quit while we're ahead!  Certainly we stop if he is getting frustrated, but even better yet is to try to read his thoughts a little and quit for the day before he reaches that frustration point.

Anyhow, I hope this has been helpful!  Please feel free to ask if you have any other questions!

How we do...Preschool, Part 1

Lately I've gotten some questions about what sort of activities I do for 'preschool' with James, who just turned 4.  But, before I tell you what James and I are actually doing for 'preschool', I want to preface this with a bit of my philosophy about preschool.  Why?  Because, despite the fact that James and I are doing a bit of 'real' school work together, I don't really think that it is necessary to do a ton of directed work with preschoolers.  This goes against a lot of what you might see out there both in the conventional schooling world as well as in some parts of the homeschooling community.   I don't want to send you off over the internet to look at some of the materials that we are using and start to feel horribly guilty because your 3 year old can't read yet, or you don't print 20 printable activities for them to do everyday or do tons of messy art projects, or have a new theme of the week every week complete with a bulletin board and shelf of themed toys, or have a house filled from floor to ceiling with every new "educational" toy available.   Because, really, not doing these things isn't going to harm your child at all.  And as a matter of fact, keeping things simple in the early years may help them out in the long run by promoting their natural curiosity and not dampening their love for learning by giving them too much too soon.

Why do I give this disclaimer?  Because when I started out, I really didn't know any better myself.  I had never really considered homeschooling until my oldest was 3 and I realized that conventional preschool wasn't going to be a good fit for her personality and stage of development.  I ventured out onto the internet and found tons of "fun" activities to do with her at home, spent far too much money on a workbook-based preschool curriculum that was going to teach her kindergarten skills when she was still 4, and voila within a year both Michelle and I were already on the verge of burnout.  I don't want that to happen to you.

Here's one from the archives - Michelle at age 3-1/2 or so.

Thankfully, this was about the same time I stumbled on to the Charlotte Mason philosophy, which was the breath of fresh air I needed.   Finally, I was given permission to relax and take more of a 'slow but steady' approach to our schooling.   Want to have a look at the series of articles that was the turning point for me?  Right here on the SCM Blog.   SCM also publishes a fantastic Early Years Book which I can highly recommend as follow up if you like what you read on the Blog Series.  (Nope, not a paid advertister, but I really love just about everything that SCM has produced.)

Anyhow, the bottom line?  What it all boils down to?   These are the things that I would consider essential for your children's 'preschool' education:

•  Establish good home routines and good habits with your kids - obedience, attention, orderliness, etc. You will be grateful to have already begun establishing these kinds of habits in your home before you are ready to start formal schooling at age 5 or 6.
• Let your child help you with household tasks and begin passing on a few independant chores to them as they show they are able.
• Read aloud daily from a wide variety of high quality children's literature on a wide variety of topics - Bible stories, nature, stories from other cultures and countries (geography), beautiful picture books... Don't be afraid to start into some chapter books as well.  Avoid "twaddle". See my Favorite Read-Alouds tab at the top of the sidebar to see some of our favorites for the 6-and-under crowd.
• Spend time outdoors as much as the weather and your living situation allows.  Allow them to run and yell and generally 'be kids'.  Gently direct them to observe God's creation in nature.
• Keep your home stocked with a small collection of classic, open-ended toys and give your kids time and freedom to play.  Enjoy watching what their imaginations come up with!   Trust me when I say that less is more in the toy department.  We have moved internationally twice in the last 2 years, and getting ready to do so again next year, so we've only been able to keep a pretty small portion of our kids' toys.  They are none the worse for this.  Specific items we have dragged around the world with us: Duplos, a few puzzles, play silks, cars and a 'road' playmat, play dishes and felt food, art supplies (markers, crayons, tape, paper, etc), and one doll or stuffed animal per child.  Other items we have enjoyed but were too heavy to move overseas as airline baggage include wooden blocks, train sets, and dress-up clothes/props.
• If you have older, school-age children, include your little ones as tag-alongs as much as they are interested.
• Limit the amount of television and computer time you let your young children have.

Another shot of Michelle around age 3, since I'm on an archive kick...

And honestly, that's it.  Charlotte Mason talks about giving our young children a "quiet, growing time."  Train them in good habits, feed their minds with ideas that will pique their curiosity and feed their desire to learn more, and the time, space, and materials to explore the world around them.

That all said...some kids are ready sooner-rather-than-later to do a bit more.  Maybe they have taught themselves the alphabet and are begging you to do more with them.  Maybe they watch their older siblings getting to do school with mom and want to have their own 'school' to do as well.   Maybe they are just in need of a little more focused one-on-one time with Mama (as was the case with James!)   Next time, I'll share some of the resources and ideas we are using for alphabet, pre-reading, and numbers with James.