Saturday, August 11, 2012

Kindergarten Curriculum

  Curriculum Week!

Not Back to School Blog Hop

Language Arts:
Over the summer we used www.starfall.com and Five in a Row. In September we will start Primary Arts of Language: Reading and Writing as well as All About Spelling Level 1.  We also read books from the library, BOB books, and anything that Sebastian wants to read.

Math: 
I am a huge fan of Math-U-See. We had used the Primer book last year and we started Alpha with him this summer.  So far it is very easy for him, so I have the Beta book ready to start when we finish Alpha.  My guess is that Sebastian will finish Alpha by December. He is a math wiz!

Science:
With Science we have been following What Your Kindergarten Needs To Know, but we also have been using  We Dare You!and 730 Easy Science Experiments as Sebastian has shown interest in some science experiments.  Sebastian loves science, so it is very easy for him to lead and me to supplement his natural curiosity.

Art and Music
I have also been using What Your Kindergartener Needs to Know book for ideas for art and music as well.  Once again it is easy to show him one thing which leads him to explore others.  For instance, we were listening to the Carnival of the Animals by Saints-Saens and he loved the aquarium. He then wanted to hear other pieces that portrayed water, so we listened to Le Mer by Debussy, The Moldeau by Smetana, and Aqueous Transmission by Incubus.  We also listen to classical music when we do our art projects, which are usually centered around a book we are reading, history or geography we are studying, or just something that we want to do. Homeschool makes it easy to do what we want!

History, Civics, Social Studies, and Geography:
This year we are doing a USA postcard swap to start off the year. We are pretending to "travel" to the states and filling in a map as we get postcards.  We are also going to be traveling around the world by learning about the culture, making recipes from the area, and tracking our travels on a map. 

Religion:
I named our school Our Lady, Queen of All Saints Academy.  The idea is that each month we would study a different saint.  Along with prayer and saint studying, I want to focus on character building with Sebastian. Unfortunately, it is very easy to forget to do this but it is so important to form them spiritually as well as educationally. I am making an effort to make this more of a priority, especially since I named our school after Our Lady!

At the co-op we belong to, Sebastian will be doing Five in a Row and he always has fun with the kids there. It is a good place for him to hang out with kids his age in a setting I approve. The moms are wonderful and I trust everything that is done at the co-op.  This year I will be teaching an elementary Spanish class, but it will be mostly about the culture and some vocabulary, but I don't expect the kids to be speaking much since we only meet every other week. My other class I will teach is a journalism class. We are going to put a newspaper/newsletter together for each semester. My husband will also be teaching a computer programming class, and he is very excited to do it.

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