Homeschooling for Kindergarten
Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum, Teaching Kindergarten At Home
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.
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