Homeschooling Kindergarten on a Dime

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Like many American parents, I find myself unexpectedly homeschooling. My oldest children will be distance learning with their school (that's a whole separate post) and I will be homeschooling my kindergartener. 

In my state, I need to provide rigorous, thorough instruction in 8 subject areas:
  1. English
  2. mathematics
  3. science
  4. social studies
  5. art
  6. music
  7. health
  8. physical education

My highest priorities for kindergarten are math and English/Language Arts (ELA). I want my daughter to have a strong foundation before moving into 1st grade. I also did not want a fully online course, as she seems to prefer working on paper. 

Reading : I taught my daughter to read using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

The Good and the Beautiful: I chose this curriculum for Math and ELA. Right now, the first four weeks are free via PDF from The Good and Beautiful website so you can try it out or get started right away. We tried both courses, scrolling through the PDF on the computer and loved them. The math course uses a box of manipulatives for hands-on learning. I've ordered Level K for language arts and for math. Not surprisingly, many of their courses are out of stock at the moment, but they expect they'll be available in a couple of weeks for shipping.

Discovery K12: The basic courses are free, all 180 days. This program covers Reading/Literature, Language Arts, Spelling, Math, History/Social Studies, Science and Visual/Performing Arts. I will be using their History/Social Studies and Science program.

Easy Peasy: A full, free curiculum, but for kindergarten, it's more limited in that it doesn't have instruction in all 8 areas at her level. My daughter found the Science and History programs too difficult, but my older students tried EP and loved it. We will be using EP for PE and health.

Music:
We pick a few songs from the Waldorf School of Songs and follow along with the notes.

The BCPL gives patrons access to Lynda.com , which has instruction on singing and many other skills. Find it under Books and More --> Research Databases.

I'm not sure if my 5-year-old is ready to learn piano yet, but my older children are learning to play piano with Hoffman Academy (free 30 day trial).

Art:



That's our plan to start the year! I'm sure it will change as it already changed several times over the summer, but that's the beauty of homeschooling - the flexibility to meet your child where they are!


 

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