Our Curriculum Picks for Kindergarten

I can’t believe my little guy is in Kindergarten already – cue tears! This will be round two for me, and I’ve collected a few more resources over the years that I’m excited to use with him. 

We don’t do a lot of actual sit-down time for Kindergarten, as I believe play and time outdoors is a priority in the little years. 

**Because we do quite a bit of family-style schooling, you’ll find that some of this same content is also in my Third Grade Curriculum post**

Language Arts

My son is just getting his feet wet with reading, so we chose a very gentle phonics and reading curriculum – Dash Into Reading – and, just over the last few weeks, I’ve really seen things start clicking for him. It’s so exciting to see him reading! What I love about this program is that there are no lessons, persay ~ you teach reading THROUGH reading books, which works really well for him.

We are also using Handwriting Without Tears to practice writing ~ and we love their fun roll-a-dough kit. Here are a few other resources we’re using for letter practice:

Montessori Letters

Sand Tray

Chalkboards

We’ve also been loving Grammarland as a read-aloud ~ it teaches grammar through a story (Judge Grammar puts the parts of speech on trial ~ I mean…. adorable) and although it might be a little complex for my Kinder, he’s been loving the story and still learning a lot.

Math

We will be once again using Right Start Math. It’s hands on and manipulatives-heavy, so it’s not for everyone. But I love it because it teaches number sense in a gentle, easy and fun way, provides lots of time for mastery, and is very in-depth, covering literally EVERYTHING you could think of.

Morning Time ~ Courage

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know Morning Time is my favorite! When the boys were little, we kept it really short and sweet. Last year we used A Gentle Feast Morning Time, which I still adore.

This year, however, we tried out Morning Virtues Courage and we’re loving it. It includes composer study (Beethoven), artist study (Renoir), scripture, poetry, read-alouds and more – all centered around the virtue of Courage.

There is a book list included in this Morning Time curriculum – my son has already read more than half of the novels and has loved them. Here are additional books centered around courage that we added in:

Geography

Classical Conversations goes pretty deep into geography, but we’re using this fun sticker book to add a bit to his knowledge of continents, oceans, etc.

Science

For many years, we’ve used The Good and the Beautiful science units – and we’ve got Botany and Geology on the docket for this year (my son chose the subjects he was interested in). My kids really enjoy hands-on science activities and experiments, and this curriculum offers those. However, following my personal convictions about the company in recent weeks, we will be looking at other science curriculums moving forward.

We will also be reading through The Storybook of Science, and checking out picture books from the library as my son is interested in the subjects we cover.

Nature Study

We enjoy learning about nature topics as we experience the seasons unfold around us –  so we will continue using The Seasons nature journals, with the activities and books that go along with them. Learn more about The Seasons here.

We have also used Exploring Nature With Children for many years, although we’re taking a break this year.

Last year we started a new tradition ~ Nature Tea Times, on Thursday afternoons. We get out some tea and honey, a sweet treat and I read through one of the delightful Burgess books while kids paint or color the animal we are reading about. Can’t say enough good things about these books!

Spanish

This will be our first year using an actual Spanish curriculum, along with Duolingo (an awesome Spanish app). We have already started with The Cultured Kid. You can learn more about their free 7-day trial here. (affiliate link)

History + Social Studies

As I mentioned earlier, we use Classical Conversations which covers a good bit of history – with this year’s cycle covering ancient history. You can read about some of the books we will be using in this post.

And of course – the most important part of Kindergarten (in my opinion), is PLAY! We make sure he has lots of time to go outside, move his body and have unstructured free play. 

 

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