KDG HS...make your own or buy curric.? Reccomendations?

[Sandra Dee]

Okay, so Kindergarten doesn't seem like the most difficult of curriculum. Should I wing it with stuff I have, or buy a manufactured curriculum? I'd like something with a Christian theme, if I do buy. Any recommendations? Experiences?

[rsps]

I'm planning to keep it pretty casual.

Right now we're working on letter recognition, then I thought I'd try "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons."

I'd also like to do a little spanish
and maybe some cooking/sewing/woodworking?

Then continue just following his interests (currently dinos, volcanos, rocks)

[Lucy]

I have a lot of resources, and I will pull from each one. what I plan to use regularly is Five In A Row. We also used this last year, and I love it.

In addition, Singapore Math, and the book Family Math (great games and activities to do with kids , not a curriculum so to speak), also I have Janice Van Cleave's Play and find out abt Math. Thats lots of fun too.

Also Janice Van Cleave's Play and Find out About Science is lots of fun.

Handwriting Without Tears, the Kindergarten workbook, and the wooden letter pieces. Thes are so cool, the child actually constructs the letters with these wood peces. I love any kind of manipulative for this age.

Reading Reflex for learning to read. Mostly playing games.

Oh and most important, lol, the board game curriculum! Just playing lots of Monopoly Jr, Candy Land, Scrabble Junior, cards, Bingo ect!

Sounds like alot, but I do plan on alternating each day with only 15 or 20 min of either reading reflex, or math or handwriting. In addition to my five in a row each day. Max of an hour total. Then we will learn just as much or probably more, lol, by just living life!

This is probably more than you wanted to know! If I had to make a reccomendation, I would say, just buy what looks fun to you, and incorporate it as you want, fitting to your dc. I wouldnt recommend buying a whole prepackaged curicullum bc you never know whats going to fit with you or not, and they are usually a lot of $.

[Patti Ann]

We are also homeschooling kindergarten this fall. DD has already finished Teach YOur Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. This worked well for us. She is reading very well. She reads every day. Right now she is reading one of the American Girls Books that is 80 pages long. We will use Explode the Code for phonics. We also go to the library alot and read, read, read.
For math we are using Singapore math
For science we are using Janice Van Cleave's Play and Find Out About Science.
We also have The Well Trained Mind and will use this for History. Probably not until next year.
I also have a book called Home Learning Year by Year by Rebecca Rupp. It is a book giving ideas on how to create your own curriculum from preschool to grade 12. It has great ideas. My MIL who used to teach K-4 thought it was very good too.
My sister has a copy of What Your Kindergartener Need to Know by E.D. Hirsch that I will take a look at for a few extra history ideas.
We will be very casual this year and do what dd wants to do and when she wants to do it.
We also play games and do lots of craft projects.
Good luck
Sorry I don't have any info on Christian curriculums.
Patti

[Linda in Arizona]

Kids don't need letter recogniztion before 100 EZ lessons. It is included. We tried that book and it was not a good fit for either of my kids, though many othershave had good success with it.

We use Five in a Row, Singapore Math, Explode the Code, Reading Reflex, and Italic Handwriting. We tired different things, but these seem to be the right sources for my kids. We didn't start everything at once. We've just added things when the time seemed right.

Different kids like different things. My kids like me to have a plan; They thrive on routine. Before I starrted Five in A Row, I felt like I was trying to reinvent the wheel every week. They ask to do FIAR on weekends. (FIAR has a Christian suplement, though we don't use it).

My kids really like workbooks. I had heard so many people say that kids this age don't like workbooks that I really shied away from them, but it gradually become obvious that they are my 5 year olds perfered learning style, so I started researching what were the bery best workbooks available. Explode the Code and Singapore math are in a totally different leauge than the workbooks at Walmart, yet htey don't cost much more.

We do FIAR everyday. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we use Italic handwriting (which takes about 5 minutes) Explode the Code (about 10-15 minutes) and Singpaore math (about 15 mintues). On Tuesdays and Thursdays we use Reading Reflex and math manipulatives or games.

If you want a little guidence, but not a full curriculum, get the 3Rs by Ruth Bechnick. It is 3 little books and a poster and cost $10. (The poster is a 1000s chart on 1 side and a phonics chart on the other). It is the best money I've ever spent on homeschooling. She gives tons of ideas for learning the core subject in a relaxed way. Thse could be used as your main resource -- I've used them to help me see the big picure. The writing book includes information on using th Bible for writing pracitce. ( are not Christians so that part isn't relavent to me.)

Some moms who don't use a curriculum end up with more resources than they know what to do with. Piles of stuff and no clear plan about what to do with it. I have a couple of friends in that boat.

[khrisday]

We have also used FIAR, but got bored with that.

We tried 100 Easy Lessons, but my son couldn't sit still to do that, so we have been using Phonics Pathways and that's working for us. (you do need letter/sound recognition for it though) We also really liked Singapore Math and Handwriting Without Tears. One of our favorite parts of "school" is read alouds- right now we are readin The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and we read the My Father's Dragon series, the original Pooh books, The Cricket an Times Square and some Magic Treehouse books.

[Sandra Dee]

Thanks!

My homeschooling store has some great consignment, so I'll have to keep an eye out for FIAR. It seems like most of you have had to just use the old trial and error method to figure out which curriculum is a good fit.

Thanks again! You've been a great help.