BigMan, my 5 year old, is starting Kindergarten this year. I know, let’s all take a moment to absorb that. Wipe our tears and celebrate. Okay.
So, being the big kid that he is now, he also gets his own school schedule. We are to lesson 23 already in Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. You can read how I adapt this reading program to fit our different kids here. He is still handling the rigorous pace at this point so we are going forward with it. When he comes to a place of frustration in this book we’ll move into Hooked on Phonics. We have both and like both of them. I have a couple of different little Rhymes and Songs books that I want to sing with him and the 2 year old together each day. I have an extra activity book (just a generic one from Wal-Mart) it will review his letters and numbers and shapes and mainly help build his fine motor skills by keeping him coloring and writing some. I like to buy these little scissor skills books either the cheap ones like this or our favorites are these more expensive ones by Kumon. And I just picked up this math workbook yesterday at Sam’s (for half the price it’s listed for on this site, by the way). I hope it will fit the bill for him. I won’t start him in our beloved Math-U-See until he has his numbers down really well. Usually I’m ready to start them in Primer in MUS around the end of Kindergarten or the beginning of 1st grade. This seems like a lot for a Kindergartner but really with the singing and coloring and short lessons it’s not. And notice I don’t start any formal science or history at this point. I do want him to do some lapbooks and/or unit studies to review what we’re learning during the week, to make a story book come more to life for him, and to introduce him to the ideas of science, history, and social studies. We’ll do those on Friday just like the older kids.
In addition to all of that he has a corner that is all his own in the dining/school room. It has the sounds and letters that we are working on each day or week. It also has a small chalkboard (we all know my love for chalkboards!) where I will write his verse for the week that starts with each letter of the alphabet. And I’ll alternate that with his name on the board so that he can practice recognizing and writing his name.
The Kindergartner’s schedule and books are the most likely to change through the school year. We’ll go through several smaller workbooks like the ones listed above, we’ll monitor and adjust constantly, and we’ll move at his pace. As always if you have questions please feel free to ask. Not that I have all the answers just maybe a couple.
He also has chores, but I neglected to get a picture of his chore chart. Next time.
