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International Children’s Digital Library

http://www.childrenslibrary.org/

A Library for the World's Children

The ICDL is a rich resource which can be used in a wonderfully wide range of situations by children, parents, teachers, librarians and others from all walks of life.  Children can expand upon the stories to create games; parents can extract themes to help explain important lessons; teachers can utilize the multicultural nature of the collection to teach languages; librarians can enrich community outreach programs with tales from around the world and; of course, anyone can just open a book to read for pleasure.

FREE E-book

http://2020ok.com/books/

2020ok Directory of FREE Online Books and FREE eBooks

Free Stuff For Homeschoolers

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/FreeStuffForHomeschoolers/134345/

Loads of Kindergarten links for FREE worksheets, etc

Internet Resources for Kindergarten
http://www.internet4classrooms.com/kindergarten_links.htm

Homeschooling Adventures on the Web! All your homeschooling needs in one spot. FREE worksheets, lesson plans, activities, laws. Tons of links to everything educational.
www.homeschoolingadventures.com 

Homeschool Links- Lots of links to sites to help find information on schooling your children at home. Legal information, articles, events, testing services, tips on getting ...
www.homeschoolingadventures.com/hslinx.html   

SchoolExpress.com - free lesson plans, free worksheets, free ...We have lots of FREE items and an online store. Teachers, homeschooling families, parents, children, and grandparents use our site. ...
www.schoolexpress.com/ 

Free Printable Kindergarten Math Worksheets. Free printable activity pages for children to learn math and numbers.
www.kidzone.ws/math/kindergarten.htm 

The Preschoolers Today Preparing For Kindergarten Worksheets. Preparing for Kindergarten Worksheets. To help prepare your child for kindergarten, print out the following worksheets. Repeat them as often as necessary ...
www.preschoolerstoday.com/resources/prepsheets.htm 

Kindergarten Worksheets, Math Worksheets, Reading Worksheets ...Free kindergarten worksheets, math worksheets, reading worksheets. Print kindergarten worksheets, free kindergarten worksheets, kindergarten math worksheets ...
www.earlychildhoodlinks.com/teachers/worksheetselementary.htm 

Kindergarten Math WorksheetsWorksheets » Kindergarten and Grade 1. Kindergarten Math Worksheets. Also see our Time Worksheets. There are thousands of variations of each worksheet, ...
www.mathsisfun.com/worksheets/kindergarten.php 

Kindergarten lesson plans, preschool lesson plans, kindergarten ...kindergarten lesson plan, preschool lesson plan, kindergarten worksheets. kindergarten lesson plans, preschool lesson plans, kindergarten worksheets, ...
www.kindergarten.com/ 

BEST PRESCHOOL RESOURCE SITE

http://www.first-school.ws/themes.html

First-School features free fun preschool lesson plans, educational early childhood activities, printable crafts,  worksheets, calendar of events and other resources for children of preschool age.  The preschool crafts, lesson plans and activities are appropriate and adaptable for toddlers, preschoolers and kindergarten level (ages 2 to 6).  

First-School's content is ideal for home schooling, preschool and kindergarten teachers, daycare, child care providers, after-school and babysitters. 

Homeschooling for Kindergarten

Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum, Teaching Kindergarten At Home

© Lisa Russell

Kindergarten is a perfect time to try homeschooling. You can find kindergarten lesson plans, homeschool curriculum, homeschool supplies, goals and activities online.

After four or five years of parenting, many mothers and fathers are reluctant to turn in their teaching caps. Committing to becoming homeschoolers, though can be a frightening proposition. The education of a child is an enormously important issue and sometimes, parents can be intimidated by the prospect of being completely responsible for the outcome. The simple solution; try it for one year.

Test-driving a year in the homeschool driver’s seat might seem like a flippant approach to becoming a homeschooling parent. Parents trying to decide whether homeschooling is a good idea for their family might want to consider using the kindergarten year as an “audition.”

What Should Parents Know About Teaching Kindergarten?

The skills learned in kindergarten are the prerequisites for first grade and are often a natural succession of the skills children pick up in play and conversation during the pre-school years. The skills and ideas taught in kindergarten are generally not extremely difficult for a parent of average intelligence to impart to their own children. Focusing on the goals of a kindergarten education will help parents to know whether or not they are on track.

Each state publishes a set of guidelines that dictate what children should be taught in each grade and in each subject. In California, it’s called “Content Standards.” In Washington, it’s called “Essential Academic Learning Requirements.” A quick visit to your state’s Department of Education website will give you easy access to your state’s requirements.

According to the Quality Counts 2007: From Cradle to Career report published by Education Week, kids in the state of Virginia have a higher chance for success than anywhere else in the country.

The Three R’s

At home, there are many ways to teach these skills without a textbook, but there are also several homeschool curriculum publishers and educational activity books and kindergarten programs designed to help parents impart these skills.

It’s important to decide what your educational philosophy is before you spend a fortune on homeschool kindergarten curriculum. Some parents believe it is best to keep education fun, so as not to crush the child’s spirit. Others believe it is best to put a firm amount of pressure on a child in order to help them reach their highest goals. Taking the time to evaluate your position will save you the disappointment of choosing a program of study that you or your child are uncomfortable with.

Homeschool Math

An examination of Virginia’s “Standards of Learning” reveals that during the kindergarten year, children should:

• Learn to identify written numbers and count random items up to ten.
• Recognize patterns of colors and shapes.
• Recognize coins and count their values up to ten cents.
• Tell time to the hour, recognize, name and draw basic shapes, recognize and describe items by their relationship (taller, smaller, shorter, bigger, above, below, between…)
• Identify items like rulers, scales, clocks and calendars.

There are several resources for teaching math at home. HomeSchoolMath.net has links to online resources, plus their own downloadable ebooks, printable worksheets, teaching tips and a newsletter. Grace Coates and Jean Kerr Stenmark have written a guide called Family Math for Young Children [Lawrence Hall of Science, 1997]. It takes a fun and games approach to teaching math that will surely capture the attention of even the rowdiest homeschooled kindergartener.

Homeschool Reading

Virginia’s Standards of Learning suggest that children be immersed in written and verbal language. In layman’s term that means ready access to books, magazines, stories, poems, songs and conversation. By the end of Kindergarten, Virginia’s kindergarteners are expected to participate in oral language (talk and listen), recognize rhymes, and use words to describe their environment. They are also supposed to ask questions, take turns in conversation, stay on topic, pretend and follow directions. Additionally, they should also be able to divide words into syllables, hold books right-side up, understand and explain that books contain letters & words and that they have meaning. Finally, they should be able to retell a story and discuss the characters, setting and plot.

For a family that is accustomed to reading and discussing books and stories, these requirements might seem overly simplistic. A kindergarten child who is already proficient in these skills and is ready to move on might enjoy Starfall.com, an online phonics program that helps children learn to read through interactive games and activities.

Homeschool Writing

In Virginia, kindergarteners are expected to learn to write their first and last names and upper & lower case letters. They’re also supposed to be learning to write for communication, using pictures and phonetic spelling.

For homeschoolers, the kindergarten writing skills can be practiced systematically, by making rows of letters and numbers or naturally, by making grocery lists, writing thank-you cards, love notes or letters to Santa.

Character Education

Many extra-curricular programs begin at the kindergarten age. For girls, there are Daisy Girl Scouts, boys have Cub Scouts and 4H is a co-de program. Your church or community might have other offerings, too.

Lesson Plans, or Learning Journals?

Writing a lesson plan for such simple skills might seem a bit excessive, but many parents thrive on following a written plan. Having an official lesson plan makes it easier to chart your child’s progress and evaluate which techniques and activities work best for your child.

An alternative to lesson plans for homeschoolers is a learning journal. Written at the end of the day (or week) a learning journal is a reflection of what has gone on, taking time to examine what impacted the child and which skills were acquired. Annual or quarterly reviews of learning journals are an excellent way to chart the student’s academic development.

Keep Investigating the Possibilities

For more information and resources for homeschooling kindergarteners, you'll want to bookmark the Suite 101 Homeschooling Links page, a comprehensive collection of online resources for children's activities and parent's resources.

Also, Ann Zeise has operated an enormous directory of Homeschooling resources for nearly ten years. Her website has been of immeasurable value to homeschoolers, with such a wide variety of resources on everything from socialization, homeschool humor, state-by-state directories of support groups and curriculum suppliers, product reviews and everything else you can imagine.

The copyright of the article Homeschooling for Kindergarten in Homeschooling is owned by Lisa Russell. Permission to republish Homeschooling for Kindergarten in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

http://homeschooling.suite101.com/article.cfm/kindergarten_lesson_plans

A Homeschool Curriculum for Preschool and Kindergarten

A Homeschool Curriculum for Preschool and Kindergarten
Lillian Jones

Can anyone recommend a curriculum for pre-K and kindergarten? This is a frequent question homeschooling bulletin boards and email lists. It's a perfectly reasonable question, but some of the responses can be confusing to new homeschoolers.

We all come into homeschooling with some common preconceptions of what the program should be - but many who have been at it for a while or raised homeschool grads are likely to strongly suggest not setting up a structured study program for young children. This is where some misunderstanding can come into play.

Saying that a structured study program for a young child is inappropriate is not at all the same as saying that learning is unimportant during the early years. It's simply that many experienced homeschoolers and other educators feel there are certain kinds of activities that are much more important and appropriate in early childhood than studying the 3 R's - and that to establish a structure that emphasizes the 3 R's at that age can actually be detrimental. If a child is asking to learn to read, of course, that's a whole different matter - but it's simply a question of helping that child learn to read, which is very different thing from setting up a curriculum.

An enlightening article to read on this subject is Much Too Early, by David Elkind, Professor in Child Development at Tufts University, and author of Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk and many other books. Dr. Elkind is a consultant to schools, mental health associations, and private foundations. This article explains in some depth why he feels that certain common educational practices for pre-schoolers and kindergartners are not only inappropriate but harmful; and he describes the kinds of educational activities that areappropriate for that age group.

Dr. Elkind's views are shared by a number of professional educators and researchers. You can find some interesting - and perhaps surprising - reading in the articles collected on this page: Preschool and Kindergarten Learning Activities.

If you've been raising a child up to the age of "pre-school" or "kindergarten," you've already begun homeschooling. In those early years, the most appropriate homeschooling activities are things that gently introduce a child into the wonders of his immediate world and the imagination. As Einstein said,Imagination is more important than knowledge - and those early years are the perfect time to provide an atmosphere where the child can freely dream and play and explore and grow in both body and imagination.

These are lots of things a parent can do to help a child develop a love of learning and searching - things that will carry through as a foundation for a life of joyful and successful learning. Most of these are things a parent does at one time or other anyway. A bonus is that your child will be getting a good foundation for later studies, even picking up some elements of reading, writing, and math!

• Tell stories or read a lot of wonderful books to the child with no expectations beyond immediate enjoyment of the imagination.
• Provide beautiful picture books that can inspire and give children things to think about and daydream about.
• Go to children's book readings at the library.
• Keep children's reference books and nice software on hand - like encyclopedias - so that you can look up simple answers to their questions.
• Take leisurely walks, observing every wonderful little bit of nature out there - birds, bugs, plants, sounds, colors, and changes. Take along a good magnifying glass and peer into the amazing beauty to be found in the throat of a wildflower.
• This is a beautiful old inspirational poem about the rewards of joyful and relaxed time with little ones - great to print out and keep in a spot where it can serve as a frequent reminder during busy times: I Took His Hand and Followed.
• Look for faces and animals in the clouds; and in the early evening or on a moonlit night, find faces and animals in the silhouettes of trees against the sky.
• Listen for the farthest away sound you can hear - and the loudest, as well as the quietest.
• Listen to children's audio tapes together. Make your own together as well - and record yourself reading favorite little books to your child so that they can be listened to when you're not right there, or are busy driving or otherwise occupied (these can be a treasured keepsake in later years). These tapes can also come in handy later when a child is learning to read - they can follow along on the written page while they listen.
• Watch sunsets together. Where is the sun going - or is it just that the earth is turning away from it? One children's book that can add to observations:The Planets in Our Solar System.
• Daydream together about where the birds are going when you see them fly off into the sunset.
• Put up a bird feeder outside a window where you can see all the different kinds of birds coming and going. Watching birds keeps us in touch with the world around us.
• You can make a simple bird feeder. These free bird feeder craft patterns and projects use many creative techniques and supplies to make a variety of bird feeders: Bird Feeder Projects.



• Get up before sunrise sometime and listen to the birds as dawn breaks, or if possible, sleep outside to watch the morning rise. It's a special experience to see how a day quietly begins in the bird world.
• Observe the phases of the moon - find an explanation made simple for children. One children's book that can help add to observations: The Moon Seems to Change.
• Discuss the season and the changes in the sky and weather - now and then make observations about the sun being in the southern sky in winter and the northern sky in summer and how that changes the light and shadows.
• Go out and observe the night sky together - ponder together the mysteries of what's out there, and share a little of what you know about the stars. One book that might help add to observations: The Sky Is Full of Stars.
• Sprout and root bulbs or seeds indoors.
• Put a folded wet paper towel flat around the inside of a clear glass jar. Let your child insert a few beans between the paper and glass. Keep them wet and watch together as the miracle of life is demonstrated in the sprouting bean.
• Grow a sweet potato vine or avocado seed in water, grow a miniature garden - there are lots of fun things you can do with plants: Fun Plant Projects for Kids
• Plant a little garden or grow some plants in pots. Make a scarecrow. Make a string bean teepee. Grow Morning Glories and enjoy their amazing beauty in the mornings.
• Introduce your child to music, songs, dancing, and maybe even marching to music.
• Learn and say rhymes together - check out some children's books of nursery rhymes and other fun rhymes. This is an inspiring and informative article by Dr. Mary Brown on the value of rhythms for children: Mother Goose and other Nursery Rhymes
• Tell or read fairy tales - the old stories that have been handed down generation to generation but have been sadly lost amidst the activity in our faster paced modern world. There are also some good audio tapes of fairy tales.
• Encourage them to have fun learning about their bodies and what they can do! Hop, skip, run, climb, slide, swing - play fun, active games.
• Find local homeschool support groups for playtimes and little field trips with other homeschooling families.
• Find interesting things to see and do in your community or on short trips - including parks, museums, and many other wonderful resources. Check on the Internet and with travel books - also with your chamber of commerce - for local ideas. You'll probably be amazed to find what's right near you. Take a look in A to Z Home's Cool's Field Trips page for ideas; and if you happen to live in California, be sure to check BestHomeschooling.org's Guide to California Field Trips.
• Provide a sandbox or sand table and sand toys, including figures of people and animals.
• Make and play with bubbles - find fun bubble recipes and ideas in this site: Bubble-town.



• Make playdough and other fun art materials - see recipe links below.
• Do finger-painting, and paint simple pictures with watercolors.
• Provide a simple easel and poster paints to always be available.
• Set up a little play store area with play food, empty milk, egg and other cartons - as well as a little toy cash register and play money.
• Provide large and easy to handle blocks made out of small boxes and shoe boxes.
• Help your child make simple playhouses and castles - see links below.
• Set up some shelves, boxes, or hangers where there are costume elements that your child can easily access for pretend play - hats, capes, masks that don't restrict vision, and whatever other fanciful items you think of.
• If your child wants to learn a little bit of writing - or drawing - provide them with some of the beautiful, waxy colored pencils by Lyra. They can now be found on a number of web sites - try Waldorf Supplies or Toymobile.
• Establish family traditions and celebrations - and create memories. There are some suggestions in this article by Meg Cox about ordinary rituals: Teaching Practical Skills - and a lot more in her wonderful book, The Heart of a Family : Searching America for New Traditions That Fulfill Us.
• Allow for plenty of relaxed play and independent activities.

Many more ideas: Lots of delightful web pages provide terrific learning activity ideas suitable for young children - many of the best are listed in this set of descriptive links:
Preschool and Kindergarten Learning Activities!

From personal experience, and that of many friends who have traveled this path, I feel I can say that the sooner a parent lets go of the idea of being a teacher, and embraces the idea of being more of a tour guide or docent, the sooner it will all fit smoothly together and allow the magic to proceed. Lead them through the world and tell them a little about what you know - while also letting them lead you while they explore in their own way.

You can just go about living your lives, exploring, observing, and posing questions for yourselves. That is an appropriate pre-school/kindergarten curriculum for a homeschooler. Your child will ask plenty of questions - you won't need to worry about what to teach. Promise! They want to learn andwill learn about their world, because it's a built in human drive - we need only to give them some freedom, provide rich opportunities, and model the joy to be found in learning.

Childhood is short and fleeting - and important - don't let them miss the opportunity to fully experience it and be a child during those very important golden years.

Copyright 2005 Lillian Jones

http://www.besthomeschooling.org/articles/lillian_jones_ps_kdgtn.html