A first look at Kindergarten

This is my second time teaching Kindergarten, and I'm a bit sad that I can't do it the same way for LB that I did for CC. I think, that given the limits of our time and schedule, I have still made a terrific Kindergarten plan for her.

My main focus for her is going to be reading. She has a problem with visual processing that she is supposed to outgrow sometime before she is 7 so I'm very nervously doing watchful waiting. In the meantime, we are doing Phonics Pathways. Right now we just do it a couple of times a week, but for K, we'll do it daily. She was very ready to learn to read at 4, but because of her vision, she started guessing words,struggling to keep her place in the line, and feeling that she wasn't a good reader. Being the youngest and knowing that the other two read at four, I think it is pretty tough. I've tried to relax about the reading to make sure that I'm not adding more stress to the process.

Besides reading, LB needs to write which will help the reading. I am going to use a mix of Intentional Writing (my own thing) and copy work. Once reading is easier and less of a struggle, we'll move into Writing With Ease 1. A big part of learning to write here is retelling stories, otherwise know as narration. We'll use Wisdom Tales for this.

For math, I have a variety of hands-on math things including Miquon and Right Start A which I'll add in as I can, but we'll mainly work through the rest of BJU K math then move into BJU 1 math.

For Literature, we are going to focus on Aesop at the beginning of the year. I have two or three Aesop books plus Aesop Literature Pockets. After that, we'll do Anderson Fairy Tales.

Geography is going to be covered by Around the World in 80 Tales plus a little geography workbook I found that we'll start using later in the year.

We'll continue to work through Little Labs from Thames & Kosmos for science in addition to our Nature Study.

For fine arts, we'll do O'Keeffe, Monet, and Cassatt for artist and picture study, Stevenson for our poet, recorder for music, and watercolor for our art medium. She also takes art classes at an art school

That leaves history. My favorite book for history for this age is Baldwin's 50 Famous Stories. I'm adding a book on wonders of the ancient world to that.

She will also start a once a week enrichment ps which will include French, hands-on science, art, music, p.e., lunch and recess.

Once I get the rest of the books in, I'll make weekly lesson plans so that between hubby, my mom, and me we will be able to get a little bit of school work done and read all of those terrific stories that I want her to hear.