This year is Cody’s first official year of legally required schooling, and we will be doing homeschool Kindergarten. Last year we did Kindergarten as well, but it was more of his “T-K” or Transitional Kindergarten year. And because I got pregnant (and therefore sick) in January, we didn’t get very far and weren’t able to be consistent. So this year is the real Kindergarten year for Cody. ?

For our curriculum, I have continued to adjust and hone based on our experiences last year. I have kept in mind the fact that we will be juggling a newborn baby along with homeschooling this year, so I need to keep it as streamlined and hands-off as possible. Of course, Kindergarten is a pretty hands-on grade to teach! But with so much technology available now, I’m optimistic that Cody will be able to learn a lot of what he needs to without me directly teaching him.

It’s also good to know that while a minimum of several hours of instruction time per day is mandated for Kindergarten students in public schools (including virtual/online schools), that doesn’t apply to independent homeschools. Because one-on-one homeschooling is much more efficient, only about an hour and a half of school time is recommended per day for Kindergarten homeschoolers. That’s much more manageable goal for my family.

Our daily subjects this year are Language Arts/Reading/Vocabulary, Handwriting/Spelling, Read-Aloud, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Then we have weekly subjects of Art, Science Lab (experiments), Foreign Languages (ASL & Spanish), and Motor Skills/Logic/Critical Thinking. That may seem like a lot, but I’ve organized our schedule to be simple and easy.

Our materials for all of these subjects include several apps that Cody can use on his tablet, plus a few books and lesson kits. We also have an extensive home library of kids’ educational books and workbooks at our disposal.

Our base curriculum is through a program called Acellus. This is an affordable subscription-based service that includes Language Arts/Reading, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Each day, students are given assignments in each area, which spreads out the year’s curriculum evenly for the school year.

We also have several learning games on the computer/tablet from Endless Learning, including Endless Reader, Endless Alphabet, Endless Wordplay, Endless Numbers, and Endless Spanish. These are very well-made and fun-to-use apps that Cody enjoys, and he can play with them independently.

The last app we have for homeschooling is Khan Academy Kids, which is a wonderful program. It has fun songs, games and activities that teach logic and critical thinking, as well as a large read-aloud library. It is very well-made and fun for the kids, both Cody and Abigail.

We are using three lesson kits that I bought but never used for Cody’s schooling last year. These include All About Reading (Level 1), Spelling You See (Level A), and Math-U-See (Primer). These kits include instruction guides, workbooks, and other materials to teach these subjects.

Then we have a few books we are using for specific subjects, including The Reading Lesson, Teach Me Handwriting, The Art Book for Children, What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know, The Everything Kids’ Science Experiments Book, and We Can Sign. Lastly, we have flash cards for teaching ASL (American Sign Language) and Spanish. For science experiments and art projects, we are utilizing the many ideas available for free on the internet.

Here is what our detailed weekly schedule looks like:

Each day includes hands-on instruction in only one or two subjects, which are bolded.

Monday

• Acellus – supervised independent work for 30 minutes
• Reading & Vocabulary – lesson from The Reading Lesson for 10 minutes
• Handwriting & Spelling – Endless Wordplay for 10 minutes
• Read-Aloud – Khan Academy Kids library for 10 minutes
• Math – Endless Numbers for 10 minutes
• Art – one lesson from The Art Book for Children; supervised art project (approx. 20 mins)

• Total hands-on time: about 30 minutes
• Total school time: about 1 hour 30 minutes

Tuesday

• Acellus – supervised independent work for 30 minutes
• Reading & Vocabulary – Endless Reader for 10 minutes
• Handwriting & Spelling – lesson from Teach Me Handwriting for 10 minutes
• Read-Aloud – Khan Academy Kids library for 10 minutes
• Math – Endless Numbers for 10 minutes
• Social Studies – one lesson from What Your Kindergartener Needs to Know for 10 minutes

• Total hands-on time: about 20 minutes
• Total school time: about 1 hour 20 minutes

Wednesday

• Acellus – supervised independent work for 30 minutes
• Reading & Vocabulary – Endless Alphabet for 10 minutes
• Handwriting & Spelling – Endless Wordplay for 10 minutes
• Read-Aloud – books from our homeschool library for 10 minutes
• Math – Endless Numbers for 10 minutes
• Science Experiments – The Everything Kids’ Science Experiments Book or use an idea from the internet (approx. 10 minutes)

• Total hands-on time: about 20 minutes
• Total school time: about 1 hour 20 minutes

Thursday

• Acellus – supervised independent work for 30 minutes
• Reading & Vocabulary – Endless Reader for 10 minutes
• Handwriting & Spelling – Endless Wordplay for 10 minutes
• Read-Aloud – Khan Academy Kids library for 10 minutes
• Math – lesson from Math-U-See for 10 minutes
• Foreign Languages – lesson from We Can Sign, and/or ASL or Spanish flash cards for 10 minutes; Endless Spanish for 10 minutes

• Total hands-on time: about 20 minutes
• Total school time: about 1 hour 30 minutes

Friday

• Acellus – supervised independent work for 30 minutes
• Reading & Vocabulary – Endless Alphabet for 10 minutes
• Handwriting & Spelling – Endless Wordplay for 10 minutes
• Read-Aloud – Khan Academy Kids library for 10 minutes
• Math – Endless Numbers for 10 minutes
• Motor Skills, Logic, & Critical Thinking – Khan Academy Kids for 10 minutes, supervised work on free choice of workbook for 10 minutes

• Total hands-on time: about 10 minutes
• Total school time: about 1 hour 30 minutes

The best thing about our schedule is that I only have to spend 10-30 minutes doing hands-on instruction each day. The rest of the school time is Cody doing independent activities with my guidance and assistance as needed. It should be manageable even while juggling other childcare duties. At the same time, it’s a full curriculum and I don’t feel like it’s lacking in any areas at all.

It’s also flexible! If Cody is particularly interested in a specific subject or activity, we can always spend more time on it. But for the most part, his attention span is still pretty limited so it’s nice to have a reasonable goal of only about 10 minutes per subject per day.

Overall, I believe it is important for kids to spend a lot of time playing and independently exploring their world rather than doing formal schoolwork. I want Cody to enjoy learning, and learn not just through memorization or repetition, but through experience. I think that our curriculum is going to encourage that, without neglecting the subjects that he does truly need to learn in a more formal way.

I’m excited to get started this year, and see how we do with our new curriculum! We will be doing year-round school, which means we have more frequent vacation periods spread out throughout the year rather than one long break during the summer. It also means we’ll be finishing our school year in August, followed by a short break before beginning again with the next school year. I’m eager to see how this works for us as well. I’m hoping it will discourage burnout and give us more flexibility as a family.

Kindergarten, here we come!

Semi-interesting notes:

It’s common, at least in California, to do Preschool for kids between 2-3, Pre-K for 3’s, T-K for 4’s, and then finally Kindergarten for 5’s, which is exactly what we have done so far. Those grades are based on the child’s age at the start of the school year in September, so since Cody’s birthday is in October, he’s on the older side for his grade level—he starts the grade at the “normal” age, but has his birthday a month later. We actually prefer for him to be slightly older than his peers rather than younger, so it works for us. Abigail will be even more so, since her birthday is in early September, right at the beginning of our school year.

For Abi, we’re not doing any formal homeschool Preschool, for a few reasons. One is that she already absorbs a lot from watching and listening in on Cody’s schooling, and another is that it doesn’t seem manageable with Amelia arriving in October. So we won’t be starting her homeschooling until Pre-K, just after she turns 4 in in September 2021—followed by T-K when she turns 5, and Kindergarten when she turns 6.

This choice means that both Cody and Abigail will be 18 years old during their senior year of high school, rather than turning 18 several months after graduating. We plan on doing the same thing for Amelia’s schooling, since she is expected to have an October birthday.