Hunter's Kindergarten Curriculum

"The kindergarten children are confident in spirit, infinite in resources, and eager to learn. Everything is still possible."

Robert Fulghum

It is kind of difficult for me to write this post.

Not because I don't want to (I've actually been wanting to for a long time) but because when I think of the word "curriculum", I think of anything and everything that goes into and contributes to ones learning experiences and education.

Which I of course could never just compile into one nice, easy post.

So even though this is definitely not a complete list of every little thing that we will be learning or doing this year, I thought I'd write a general outline of our most basic plans, just for your information and enjoyment, about our fourth year of homeschooling.

(And no, we don't do all this stuff every day)

Language Arts

• Reading  Basically, read lots of books. We get tons of new 1st - 3rd grade readers from thrift shops every month to add to our growing library of things for him to read. He has kind of started his first chapter books so hopefully, by the end of the year, he will have moved to that stage completely.

• Handwriting  He is currently doing both regular manuscript and now he wants to do cursive. I think we will use copywork (copying, in his best handwriting, great pieces of literature) and story-writing instead of just alphabet writing.

• Grammar, Phonics, Spelling  We are just winging it here. We have games to learn some more phonics / spelling rules. And I will be using my old high school writer's resource reference book as a basis to teach him different grammar things, such as all the technical words for those rules all kids figure out on their own when learning how to talk (such as passed tense, suffixes, etc.) and also punctuation and other fun things that come up. He will also be doing a lot of writing on the computer [because he loves to] and make use of the lovely spell check and grammar check.

• Literature  We read together a lot. And we like to read good, quality books (as well as some silly ones, too). For this we will be getting picture books from the library for the younger kids' portion of the classic children's literature list, The Book of Virtues for lots of poetry, folk tales, fables, even history, and a lot of different longer, more advanced novels [unabridged] that I read aloud to him during the daycare baby's nap time (a lot of them from above children's literature list).

• Vocabulary We will keep doing Dictionary.com's Word of the Day feature to learn interesting new words and learn about root words and word origins in a fun, informal way.

Math

• General  Jones Geniuses Accelerated Math. Right now he is working on the dot matrix in their Early Learning curriculum but he is going to be past that very quickly and moving onto Math Three (Facts Master), and maybe (although I really have no clue yet) Math Four (Grand Facts Master) or beyond.

• Games and Explorations  Lots of play and math explorations. Patterns, games, measurement, fractions, shapes and geometry, more time and money concepts, graphs, experiments, whatever comes up.

Science

• Biology  This year we are moving on from a main focus in astronomy / earth sciences to turn our sights towards biology. We are using Mom's adaptation of Exploring Creation with Biology, which is technically a high school text but I am taking the concepts and simplifying them to a way he can understand. We will do lots of hands-on activities and crafts.

• Other  Since this boy loves science we will probably be doing lots of other science topics throughout the year in our free time, including continuing on with his astronomy love and rock-collecting kick (even though that's not technically our "main" focus anymore), reading lots of science books just for fun, our walk through the science encyclopedias, and whatever other interesting things that come up and we want to learn about.

History and Geography

• Ancient History  We are continuing with our study of ancient history and hope to get much more in depth this year. For the most part we are using the Bible as our core, with James Ussher's Annals of the World, and Streams of Civilization, and lots of books / supplements from the library and web. Our main focus will be from about 4,000 to 500 B.C., maybe going further. We do a lot of crafts and fill in our Book of the Centuries timeline.

• American and Other History  This is not our focus this year but we do like to read through the stories of In God We Trust: Stories of Faith in American History for leisure and other history story books as well, especially around holidays such as Thanksgiving, Cinco de Mayo, etc.

• Geography  Besides learning about the countries in our history studies, our bedtime ritual of finding countries, states, bodies of water, capitals, flags, etc. on bedside world map / flag display. Also reading and praying through the children's book You Can Change the World volume 1 of Operation World, and learning about the countries we're praying for.

Art and Music

• Art  Drawing with Children for realistic drawing, artist study with library books and homemade bits, and occasional different activities and projects from the web (such as Teach Kids Art and Harmony Art Mom) just for fun. Also lots of science and history crafts, and free access to lots of materials to make art whenever he wants.

• Music  Once I get my keyboard shipped out here we will starting keyboard lessons again (hopefully soon, we miss it). For now we are doing Doman-style music appreciation by listening to pieces of classical music throughout the day and naming its composer, name, and key it was written in. Hopefully starting music theory and perfect pitch again with web resources. Also composer study with our fandex bit cards.

• Hymns  We like hymns. And they are good quality music, too. We will be learning the full lyrics to a hymn or two every two weeks. Using an old hymn book and Youtube.

Foreign Languages

• Spanish  We will be doing a lot more with Spanish this year, mostly vocabulary words and sentences, with games from How to Help Your Child with a Foreign Language. I am hoping that with us living in this highly-hispanic area that I can find some Spanish play dates so maybe he will learn to actually speak it. Here's hoping.

• Other Languages  We'll probably do a lot more words from different languages like we have in the past, just for fun. We've learned different alphabets such as the Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Japanese, etc. and are teaching sign language to the daycare babies. Sometimes we learn words from the country we're studying or history topic such as Egyptian hieroglyphs. 

Bible

• Mealtime Reading  I haven't mentioned the our Bible / scripture studies before now because it's really not a separate subject, but incorporated into everything we do. At each meal however, we (ideally) would read the Proverb chapter of the day plus three other chapters at each meal (which takes 20-30 minutes). If we did this at one meal a day, that would get us through the whole Bible once a year. Doing it at every meal gets us through the Bible three times a year. Reading a Proverb a day gets us through the book of Proverbs once a month, with three readings a day, three times a month. He also falls asleep to the reading of the New Testament on his MP3 player. We're striving for more consistency with this this year.

• Memorization  Ideally the whole mealtime reading enables him to memorize a lot of the Bible, especially Proverbs. The goal is to memorize the whole book of Proverbs (eventually, no time limit here) and be very familiar with the rest of the Bible by going through it so often. He will occasionally memorize character-related verses and I want to start using Bible passages for his copywork. 

Life Skills

• General  We learn about all kinds of safety, health, and social topics on an ongoing basis through conversation and real life experiences.

• Character and Responsibility  He helps out a lot around the house and has always enjoyed this, especially if it's something we do together. This year I want to help him get more organized with his chores and also to do them without being told (I can dream, right?).

• Time Management and Goal Setting  I will be focusing a lot on teaching him time management, goal setting, and organization this year now that he writes and reads well. Earlier this year I bought him his own calendar and alarm clock and I am planning to buy him his own day planner now too, and start helping him set his own goals in both little and big areas. He loves talking about "when I'm a dad" so helping him plan for the future is right up his lane. We are using our own version of workboxes now too, to help him organize the things he can do "on his own" for school and do them without being told or reminded (ideally, right?).

• Money  We've started to pay Hunter a small sum each week for his contributions to the family business (childcare and odd jobs). I don't really believe in an "allowance" nor paying him to help around the house, but this is his way to be "employed" while learning about money and how to manage it. Right now he is getting paid $5 per week and the goal is to learn about saving, spending, giving, and investing more this year.

• Speaking and Communication  We are trying to work more on effective communication and assertiveness. Having him practice narration and describing things, reading aloud with inflection, and other "public speaking" techniques to help get him be more "comfortable out of his comfort zone", so to speak. Possibly using From Playpen to Podium.

• Boy Scouts  He is possibly going to be starting boy scouts this year. Either way we will be doing our own program at home, using the Contenders for the Faith program, specifically Little Contenders. It is basically a Christian version of boy scouts. This is just for fun and we are not using the whole program, but just for ideas for interesting activities to pursue in his free time.

• Computer Science  I let him play on the computer a few times a week. We do not have any "educational games" but he instead plays with programs such as Microsoft Word and Paint that are fun but teach him real skills. We are also using an old Usborne Computer Dictionary and bit cards to learn about how a computer works and eventually I'll start teaching him proper typing.

Physical Excellence

• Family Runs  (3-5 times a week). We currently, as a family, run together when we can, usually 2-3 miles (with a walk / run / walk / run pattern). We hope to increase the mileage and straight-running time steadily throughout the year.

• Swimming  Swimming at the year-round lap pool on the Navy base's gym, once the community pool closes.

• Vestibular and Other  Various Doman-style vestibular [balance], strength, and flexibility activities. This stuff is as simple as sending him outside to play with a jump rope or doing somersaults in the house, and we have a lot of fun with it.

• Martial Arts  I hope to start incorporating more martial arts this year. He is learning basic Taekwondo and learning to use the nun chucks (I am teaching him both). Let's hope I can remember how.

Field Trips and Outside Activities

• Field Trips  I don't have all of our field trips planned, and a lot of them our spontaneous, but we will be doing a lot of on-base field trips this year such as the commissary, the jet hangars, security, fire station, vet, hospital, etc. (with the daycare kids) and lots of local and regional museums and national parks, such as the Sequoias, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and trips to major CA cities.

• Outside Activities  I mentioned Hunter might be doing boy scouts this year, and he might do a few seasonal sports such as soccer and little league throughout the year. I don't have him do a lot of classes and outside activities because I feel it takes away from more important things - like family time and free time to use his imagination - when used in excess at least.

Using Doman in the older years

Even though it's not specifically stated, just know that it is definitely implied that we will be doing homemade Doman bit cards for pretty much every subject and they will continue to be incorporated into our day. We use bit cards for geography, historic people, reading words, science terms, grammar concepts, foreign languages, math, art masterpieces, and a whole plethora of other encyclopedic knowledge.

And, obviously, still applying Doman's beliefs of short but frequent lessons, joyful teaching, learning as a privilege, etc. This way lessons are quick, fun, and to the point, and often take only a few minutes or even seconds each, enabling us to accomplish at lot on any given day. We also make learning part of everyday routines (such as playing with the world map before bedtime) enabling us to accomplish a lot with little effort.

In our house, learning is the greatest game we play. We do not sit down and do worksheets and flash cards all day. We do so much learning because we both genuinely enjoy it and would rather learn that do anything else. Most of our day is spend in play, fun learning games, and working and talking together.

If you would like to learn more, please subscribe and come back for the following week's blog hops: Our School Room and A Day in the Life. Thanks for reading!

Go to Heart of the Matter's blog hop to see what other family's are doing this year

"And he hath filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship" 

Exodus 35:31

Hunter is 5 years, 4 months old