Kindergarten Plans

Kindergarten:  I can't believe I am typing that word when referring to the schooling that my four-year-old, Sierra, will be doing this year.  One of the big reasons I have decided to homeschool my children is to avoid the current trend of early education which, in my humble opinion, seems to put a lot of pressure on parents and little ones early on, leading to burn out and boredom in the later years.
  I have also preached the idea that although a child may have the ability to do something does not mean that it is actually beneficial.  At the ages of 4 and 5 a child should be learning through play.  But Sierra has, once again, proven me wrong. Or, the thought just occurred to me, perhaps she has proven me right.  The past four and a half years of her life have been spent mainly on play and yet she has somehow managed to learn letter recognition and sounds and has the ability to read simple, short-vowel words and a few sight words.  No stress; no pressure.  No forced seat work or getting through the lesson of the day.  Last school year, she bopped in and out of our lessons, mostly interrupting and causing major frustration for her easily distracted brother.  I finally promised her that when she turned four and a half, I would start "doing school time" with her.  And I have decided that, really, there is no point in not doing a kindergarten program with her.  Should we hit the wall in later years, we will have enough of a head start to back off and relax a bit.

Having said all that, Sierra will be putting together an alphabet notebook from the homeschool share website while working her way through the Alpha Phonics book.  For fine motor skills (not formal handwriting yet) we will be coloring lots of pictures, doing simple mazes and dot-to-dots, and working on her scissor skills with the My First Book of Cutting by Kumon Publishing.   Bob Books will be thrown into the mix too, I'm sure, since she is eager to get started on "real books".

For more guidance, especially in the area of math, we will be using the kindergarten portions of theheadoftheclass.com.  I don't see us using many of the worksheets or online activities that this free site provides, but I did print off the rather in depth scope and sequence they have and will be trying to target the concepts using books (like those suggested on livingmath.net) and lots of games and hands-on activities.

Music, art, history, and nature studies will be done with big brother, Logan.   Other science activities will be done with some fellow homeschoolers in our area and Sierra will be taking a gym class and kindergarten class at a local homeschool co-op.

Sierra is social and enamored with the idea of heading off to school daily with a group of children her age, so we have also signed her up for dance classes, a kindergarten class at a co-op in the area, and a gym class at the co-op.  Throw in a couple of church activities during the week and this Social Sue should be lovin' life this school year.