I am so excited that we are entering the “planning” phase of our school year! This will be my second time teaching kindergarten and I am PUMPED!
Mostly because my little Sarah is so PUMPED to start kindergarten. This girl is READY and has such an incredible attitude – you can’t help but be excited!
Kindergarten is kind of a big deal at our house. It’s a big jump in expectations, but like I said, Sarah is READY. I can’t wait.
Recap
As I said earlier, this is my second time teaching kindergarten. When I taught Jacob kindergarten it was a steep learning curve for me. We had decided just two weeks before we started that we wanted to homeschool. It was wild – you can read about it here. I made loads of mistakes that year and switched all of our curriculum constantly. But I have learned a lot since then {still have LOADS to learn I am sure} but I feel pretty good with our plan moving forward.
Curriculum
- The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level K
- Independent Reading
- Literature Read Alouds
- The Good and the Beautiful Math K
- The Good and the Beautiful Science
- The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Level K
- The Good and the Beautiful Creative Arts & Crafts
- Exploring Nature with Children
- Squilt Music
- Faber My First Piano
- Come, Follow Me
First of all, can you tell I love everything done by The Good and the Beautiful? Everything they touch is gold.
Also, I know that looks like a lot. But it works for us and it’s not nearly as much as it seems. I will go more into how I plan things out in a later post.
The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level K
This will be our second time going through The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level K. They have reformatted it though recently, and I haven’t used the new format. But I have heard nothing but positive things and so I have no doubt we will love this version as well.
Sarah will go through a course book, reader, mini books, and phonics cards. She was SO EXCITED that she gets to have a “big girl” book {as she put it}.
Independent Reading
Sarah will be learning how to read this year. So independent reading is most likely not going to be happening a lot yet.
HOWEVER, I do believe you help yourself A LOT when you have opportunities. And that is my goal this year for reading – opportunity. We have a LOT of books in our home. And all of our children love to read and/or look at books.
We purchased Sarah four beginner books box sets. These go up in difficulty and I think will be perfect for her throughout the year. They will boost her confidence and…it’s just going to be great.
Literature Read Alouds
This will be my first year doing read alouds with Sarah – which seems weird to say because she has been sitting in on Jacob’s read aloud time all year – but this will be her special time.
I thought about doing one big group read aloud, but I love having that individual time with my kids. This may prove to be too much though so I am trying to keep an open mind, but for now, I am planning on reading aloud separately.
I will do a separate post where I will share what our read aloud books are for this upcoming year.
The Good and the Beautiful Math K
I love how The Good and the Beautiful teaches math. When I mentioned earlier about how I made a lot of mistakes that first year teaching Kindergarten with Jacob – it was mostly because of MATH. Boy, did we struggle to find something that worked. We ended up waiting for this math to come out and it was a lifesaver.
Sarah keeps mentioning her “Bee Math” – she cannot wait!
The Good and the Beautiful Science
This is another subject we just love from The Good and the Beautiful. It is engaging, filled with information, and fun! Science was always my least favorite subject in school and this curriculum has developed a love of science in ME.
We do science family style and this will be Sarah’s first year joining us. We will be covering four different units this year.
Mammals
This will be a new unit for all of us! It looks absolutely beautiful and I can’t wait to dive into it! We are going to learn anatomy, characteristics, and habitats of mammals. It’s going to be AWESOME.
Meteorology
Jacob and I did this unit when he was in kindergarten. I can’t wait to do it again. Sarah is going to love it. We will learn all about weather and atmosphere!
Energy
This was a unit that Jacob and I also did his kindergarten year but it has been totally revamped and has different materials and subject matter added to it and I cannot wait! We will learn all about energy and its power, electricity and magnetism, and heat, light and sound. It’s going to be good!
Water and Our World
Water and Our World is another repeat unit for Jacob and I but we are really excited to do it again with Sarah. We will learn about ALL things water with lots of experiments and activities.
The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Level K
Sarah actually already started this handwriting in her preschool year, but then we stopped and decided to wait for this upcoming year. I think it will be great to really focus on her letter and number formations. Plus – she LOVES the coloring pages!
The Good and the Beautiful Arts & Crafts
We have been using this the last several years with Jacob and now Sarah will begin to participate in the projects! I usually do just one of these projects once a month. My kids love arts and crafts and are always coming up with things on their own so it’s nice to space these projects out a bit!
Exploring Nature with Children
We discovered Exploring Nature with Children this last year and I think we have finally gotten into a groove with it! It is outlined to have a different theme every week but we have found it works a lot better if we pick a theme and cover it for an entire month. I am excited to have Sarah take a more active part in it this year.
Squilt Music
Squilt Music is another program that we just discovered this last year. We have enjoyed it this far and will continue studying it this year. This year we will be covering the Romantic and Modern Eras.
Faber My First Piano
Sarah has been BEGGING to learn piano. So we are going to start this next year! We have been using the Faber Method with Jacob but this will be a first starting from the beginning with Sarah. Can’t wait!
Come, Follow Me
As a family, we will continue studying The Book of Mormon for our scripture study for the remaining 2020 year. Beginning in 2021, we will study the Doctrine and Covenants. We use this curriculum to help us in our study, and the Red Headed Hostess as a supplement.
Wrap Up
I truly am so excited to teach Sarah kindergarten. She is so excited and it spreads! I think her positivity is going to really help out our day. I also think she is just going to take off – and I can NOT wait to watch!
