who else is starting Kindy in the fall (offically) -- where are you now and what are your plans

[Momma Aimee]

DS1 is offically Kindy age in the fall, so we'll offically enroll him.

His skills are scattered and based on some of the "Kindy goals" I have looked at -- he is 1/2 way "there" LOL and others he is not even close.

we have been fairly loose on Preschool most of it being his ST and OT and so on -- rather than mouch "education" here at home.

He goes to the school district preschool for ST and today he was talking about Kindy and how "Brody would be his buddy there too" and that did make me sad, but i have already reached out to Brody's mom for 'out of school' play dates this summer so i am hoping that will smooth over.  we have always been clear that we are a homeschool family -- it is on the boys; IEPs, but I am guess DS1 never paid attention, i can see that. 

I am firming up my curr plans for fall --

where do the rest of you stand?

[Stacey B]

Let's see we just sent in our enrollment packet for Options which is a once a week enrichment program for homeschool students in our area. For the most part we're going to continue with unschooling, though my DH and I will keep track of what happens every day a little more. Ds wants to do something more "school-y" so we're going to choose one thing he wants explore and focus on that for how ever long he's interested. He also wants to learn more Spanish so we're looking to see what options there are for non-reader and learning language at home. More for my own curiosity than anything I'm going to a curriculum/book fair for homeschooling families in a few weeks just to check it out.

[Daffodil]

My DS would start kindergarten this fall if he were in school, and we'll be sending in the official homeschooling paperwork for him for the first time.  We won't be doing anything too different than what we're already doing - just keeping track of it more for the end-of-year portfolio.  I'll be reading aloud a lot, we'll spend a lot of time observing nature, and I'll try to encourage him to keep moving forward with reading, writing, and math.  But I think he already has all the kindergarten-level knowledge down, so I don't feel much pressure to teach specific skills.

[LuxPerpetua]

We're doing a non-academic kindy, so we're using LIttle Acorn Learning along with logic puzzles, living books, and kitchen science experiments.  I have everything purchased but haven't even begun to look at it yet.  I really need to do that.  We don't report until age 8, so no paperwork to go through here, thankfully!

[etsdtm99]

my DD is kindy age .. based on the lists i've looked at she is 'ready' and in most areas she is a bit ahead - we will mainly be focusing on finding a way to help letter sounds/reading/phonics 'click' for her because so far its mostly blank stares or pretending she gets it but she keeps asking me to teach her to read..  she is ahead in 'math' and we'll try to do a lot of other fun stuff (cooking, crafts, history, geography, science - all of which she is really interested in right now)..  we don't keep records until 7 so i might start practicing but its not required..  i am not buying any curriculum because i feel ilke it would tie us down at this point.. she is just so interested in so many things and there are so many free resources out there..  i need to come up with a rough schedule because DS (3) will be in preschool 2 days a week so we will (hopefully) have time to do some more big-girl stuff then.. and on the other days i want to plan activities that he can be involved in if he is interested.. (plus, i will also have a 1 yr old)

right NOW i just finished (today) rearranging/painting etc. our playroom into a play-school room .. there are more books now, no TV, and 'stations' .. next step (after having a garage sale) is to convert a bedroom into another school area becaus ei have a feeling DD will need to get away from the distractions in the playroom for certain activities .. (full size dining table and more bookshelf storage) we have the space so i want to get it all organized and actually USE it.. 

[MyLittleWonders]

Ds#3 will officially start K in July (we go year round). We don't report until 6 years old, so I guess it's only official for us and not the state. We are already working through Singapore Math's Essential Math book A, so he'll go on to book B and then Miquon Orange. We also just started the All About Reading level Pre-1. Ds knows most all his letters and sounds (though not 100%) thanks to Leap Frog  so we are going through it a bit more quickly than if not, but I am really liking the rhyming and other phonemic awareness type games in it. He has one more book in the Explode the Code preschool level books.  We'll also start HWT's Kindergarten book at some point in time, though right now he's still working through the PreK book.

Everything else is just fun stuff - he tends to sit in with us while we do Latin and memory work. Sometimes he does some science with us if it looks like fun to him. I do think I'm going to do a bit more with him next year. The older two will be doing biology, and so when we do anatomy, for instance, I was going to read the appropriate section from a "My First Book" type of book on the human body. 

[inkslinger]

dd2 will start kinder in the fall through our homeschool charter school. We were going to wait until the next year when we were still planning on public school because she will be a young K starter (she won't be 5 until the end of October) but since we chose to homeschool our older dd  I figured I might as well start dd2 next year. She is on track for where I would like her to be to formally start K, knows letters, numbers, colors, shapes, etc. She wouldn't be ready for traditional K, maturity-wise. Right now we are just doing fun learning-type things. Lots of reading, crafting, workbooks (both of my girls love workbooks).

[SundayCrepes]

Our son turns 6 in December (over winter break) so we'll file our intent to homeschool in January. We have no other requirements besides that.

We're unschooly plus I believe in delayed academics. If he's interested in academics we'll support that, but there's no push at this young an age. I think play is just so important while they're little. So, I'll just keep arranging lots of playdates and field trips.

He does like to do starfall and knows all his letter sounds. My husband plays lots of rhyming games with him. We both read tons to him. I do random science experiments with him when he asks (we have several books by this author http://www.amazon.com/Great-Science-Experiments-Neil-Ardley/dp/0756619181/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1303104469&sr=1-5 The photos are wonderful and my son can get a sense for which experiments he's interested in from the photos.)

I did buy most of the secular K sonlight books. I am holding off on starting them until fall. Every time I've tried to read chapter books to him, he's resisted. Hopefully by then he'll be ready for chapter books. I didn't get the instructor's guides, we'll just read the books.

[Tjej]

We're starting K this fall and I'm still in the "figure it out" phase.  I have too many ideas of stuff to try, and yet I also feel like K is not a time for all sorts of cirriculum...

Tjej

[mum2row]

We are going to start in June, as we want to school year round. We are starting with FIAR, math mammoth, and maybe some critical thinking company mindbenders (I am waiting for the books). My DD has been asking to learn to read so we will work on that and do the math as she wants. The focus this summer will be on outside stuff, nature study like a Charlotte Mason approach and then in the fall we will do more reading.

[Momma Aimee]

thanks for the thoughts everyone, i learn so much from other moms

[Sharlla]

he's reading 5 letter words and does simple addition and subtraction.  we dont technically have to start until hes 7 so we are pretty casual with it.  i have frontline phonics that i got when ds1 was 4 so we just do a book a night and kind of play with food for the math mostly an unschooling feel  

[sissah]

We don't report until 6, but we're starting the Moving Beyond the Page K curriculum, just to get a feel of their curriculum to see if it's something we feel will fit with our family when we start 1st officially next year. We mostly play & read to him, but I'm still really just trying to figure out what kind of homeschoolers we'll be.

[Momma Aimee]

thanks for all the pimput

I have our kindy choices picked out -- no daily or weekly plan yet though

http://scribinglife.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/our-chosenkindergarten-curriculum-final/

[Stacey B]

I just got to sit down with two Mama's who are just finishing homeschooling kindergarten and it was the most reassuring talk. I'm pretty much planning on unschooling, except that we are going to add some more rhythm to our day. I'm thinking that we have a few calm hours in the morning to explore what interests ds three mornings a week. It might be true learning stuff or a project or cooking. The point isn't to have academics but to have the time that we focus only on each other. They said that in the end after all their planning that is what they ended up doing, I was ahead of the game. So my main goal for the next year has more to do with my anecdotal note keeping so I can have a record of the changes and learning going on. How are other people planning on keeping their records if they aren't using a curriculum?

[tankgirl73]

Wow, I hadn't consciously realized it yet, but yeah... DD will be "officially" kindergarten age in the fall... for whatever that's worth.

Actually, I'm not 100% sure what the cutoff date is here, DD's birthday is Dec 14th, so she only turns 5 very late in the year.  Possibly if we were doing school, we'd have the option of 'stalling' her for another year.  I don't know...

But there it is, she turns 5 during the next school year, so that's kindy.  I'd been thinking that if we started kindy this year, she'd be "early" but maybe it's not AS early as I'd been thinking lol... Although she's already doing quite a few things that technically would be considered kindergarten curriculum.

What we've been doing so far is a blend of unschooly Waldorfy Montessori-y (heh)... Most days we start with a Waldorf-inspired circle time with candle lighting, poems, songs, etc... even if we don't do anything school-like that day, she LOVES her circle time.  She spends at least 95% of her day in free range, creative play as well.  But when she's in the mood (which she often is after her circle time), we'll "do school" for an hour or so.

School consists of a choice of math (we're about 1/4 way through RightStart A) or music practice or reading practice or handwriting (using A Beka 4 Cursive) or sometimes something else.  I've got a bunch of K-2 Teachers Book Bag pdf's, a bunch of Intellego K-2 units, I've got one of the "Before 5 in a Row" books, we've got "Meet the Masters" art curriculum (which she LOVES)... Basically we're not going to do anything in particular in terms of CHANGE when we "start kindy"... I don't think of it that way... we're just going to keep doing what we're doing, gradually adding in more and more stuff as she's interested and ready for it. 

She seems to be gifted and enjoys a certain amount of bookwork, so although I believe in delayed academics I don't believe in *artificially* delayed academics, if you see the difference.  So I'm not 'pure' Waldorf in that sense.  But my readings on Waldorf help keep me grounded, ensuring that we don't overdo the academics and that there's a good emphasis on story, song, creative play, painting, crafting, knitting... and the Montessori influence keeps me mindful of her practical skills, in that her helping in the kitchen is JUST as important to her education as any 'bookwork'.  If not MORE important, really.

[raelize]

dd1 turned 5 in december 2010, but here that means she starts kindy in sept 2011.  so, she is pretty well where she should be, but now we have to report.

there are 8 sections we need to follow for the state of MD:

language arts: we are going to use the writing program from the WTM people.  BOB books for phonics. also, she is just starting reading to herself so we will keep a list of those books and for all books that i read to her she will need to draw a picture and write a sentence describing something out of the book (we're calling it a reading journal, we usually read a book every week or two)

math: starting singapore early bird

science: using Nebel's building foundations

social studies: i am a geographer and geologist, so i am nuts about spatial relationships.  we are doing 3 things for this section: using Open the Door let's Explore more we will make maps of different buildings and local areas to understand how things are set up in our community and to build spatial skills.  we are also going to get a big map of MD.  using the website Markeroni we are going to research different historical markers and take trips to go find them.  then we are going to write in our journal what it was, why its important. later we will mark it on our map at home, list it on a timeline, and research it at the library. the third piece is going to be letterboxing.  that is also to build spatial relationships and understand proper map and compass use.  i imagine we will be doing 2 activities (markeroni, letterboxing, mapmaking) once a week.

PE: we are going to start rock climbing at a local climbing gym. also continue swimming, possibly a dance class, also just running around and yoga at home

health: this has me stuck. i don't know really what to do.  i am thinking i will make a little journal and everyday she writes an entry about a health related thing we did (discuss eating a rainbow, brush teeth, lapbooks about your body?)

music: found a solfa teacher locally.  and we are learning to play the ukulele together

art: i have some great art books by mary kohl, as well as some kids sewing books

i haven't chosen these topics, the state requires them and reviews w/parents once a year, 2x in the first year of hsing. if it were up to me i would skip the health and not really think about the PE, just have her in classes and teams, swimming and climbing. written out it seems like a lot, but we are already doing the language arts stuff, it doesnt take long at all, and most of the reading is our relaxing time anyway.  also, the Social studies stuff will take us out of the house, and it will only be 2x a week. 

[tankgirl73]

raelize, for 'health', would they be doing it every day in school?  I think it's more the sort of thing where you'll actually be *practicing* it every day, but maybe only journal about it once a week?  I can see that getting tedious having to journal about brushing your teeth every day.  :)  Otherwise, lapbooks about the body sound like a great idea.  :)

[Daffodil]

Originally Posted by Stacey B 

How are other people planning on keeping their records if they aren't using a curriculum?

I'll have a file folder where I can save writing samples, math work, drawings, etc.  I'll have files on my computer where I can keep lists of books read, a physical activity log (PE is one of the required subjects for my state), and notes on other activities we do, like science experiments or museum trips.  I've already been doing this for 3 years with my older kid, and that has worked out fine.  At the end of the year, I put together a portfolio the form of a website, with a page for each subject area.  I include scanned copies of worksheets, artwork, etc., photos, book lists, and descriptions of activities.

[MomtoDandJ]

Thanks for starting this thread!  It's so fun to see what others are doing and the links are great! :)